GURDJIEFF, G.I. – Life is real only then, when I am - Integral Book

phenomenal stupidity of people who believe and ascribe significance toall their foolish "dreams."When a man really sleeps normally, his attention—by the quality ofwhich the so to say "gradation" of the difference between the wakingstate and sleep is conditioned—also sleeps, that is to say, his attentionis, according to the law-conformable inherencies in him, stored up withcorresponding force for the subsequent necessary intensivemanifestations.But when owing to some disharmony in the general functioning of aman's organism—most often to a non-normal expenditure in his wakingstate of the law-conformably accumulated energy—this part of thegeneral psyche of his waking state is not capable of normallyactualizing itself during sleep, then, from the associations flowing inhim, constated with this attention so to say "a bit here and a bit there,"these famous "dreams" are obtained, that is to say, human foolishness.Secondly, a normal man can intentionally divide his whole attention,of which I have already spoken, into two or even three separate parts,and concentrate each of these on various independent objects inside oroutside himself.It will be very useful, in my opinion, for the productivity of thefurther work in this newly formed group of ours, if now, just beforeexplaining to you the procedure of this second assisting exercise, I tellyou also that, when I had drawn up the detailed plan for my Institutementioned here many times, I was then already convinced of theimpossibility of exactly explaining and fully formulating in words thevarious fine points of the procedures of any intentional ex-periencingsand exercises for the purpose of self-perfection, and, knowing at thesame time of the existence among our remote ancestors of a specialmethod which was then called the "principle of illustrative inculcation"for the purpose of