During deep sleep the soul rests, for the time being, in a state and condition in which it will be after death. Those spirits who at death are promptly freed from the physical body are those who during their lives have had what may be called spiritual sleep, as they, when asleep, mingle in the society of other spirits superior to themselves. The soul then can go about with them, conversing with them and gaining instruction from them; they even work, in the spirit world, at undertakings, which, on dying, they find already completed. So as I have instructed you in the beginning of these writings you see how little death should be dreaded, since, according to the saying of the Wise Men of the East, "You die daily." What has been written above refers of course to those souls who while inhabiting the body have lived in an elevated degree of advancement. The unlearned and common people and those not advanced in Occult and spiritual teachings, after their death, remain for many days in a state of confusion and uncertainty of which you have no idea, for during their sleep they have went into spirit realms of lower rank than the earth, to which they are drawn to by old affections, or by the attractions of pleasures still baser than those to which they are addicted while awake.

During these visits they gather ideas more vile, more ignoble and more devilish than those which they possessed during their working hours. Again, that which engenders sympathy in the earthly life is nothing else than the fact that you feel yourselves on waking affectionately attracted toward those with whom you have passed many hours of happiness or pleasure. On the other hand, the true explanation of the invincible antipathies you sometimes feel for certain persons is also to be found in the intuitive knowledge you have thus acquired of the fact that those persons have a soul unfit to mingle with you and you feel that you know them without having previously seen them with your bodily eyes. It is this same fact, moreover, that explains the indifference of some people for others; for there are many who do not care to make new friends because they know that they have others in spirit life by whom they are loved and cherished. And I give it unto you as a warning that dreams and sleep have more influence in shaping your earth life than you have any idea.

For by the effect of sleep the soul is always in connection with the spirits of the Astral Plane; again through the effects of sleep, incarnated spirits are directly in connection with the spirit world; and it is in consideration of this fact that spirits of a high order consent, without much resistance, to incarnate themselves among you. It has been so willed that during their contact with vice they may go forth and fortify themselves afresh at the source of rectitude in order that they who have come into your world to instruct others may not fall into evil themselves. Reincarnated spirits always sleep the sleep of peace and this sleep is the avenue open for them by the great Creator that they may pass through it to their friends in the spirit world. This is their reward and recreation after labor, while awaiting the great deliverance, the final liberation, that will restore them to their true place in spirit life. Dreams are the remembrance of what your soul has experienced and seen during sleep. Many may remark that they do not always dream. Because they do not always remember what they have seen it is no sign that the soul has not been active during sleep.

Dreams themselves do not always reflect the action of your soul in its full development; for they are often only the reflection of the confusion that accompanies your departure or your return back into the body, mingled with a vague remembrance of what you have done, or what has occupied your thoughts in your waking state. Again, evil spirits, also, make use of dreams to frighten and torment weak and timid souls.