- Some sleepers report awareness with no dreams, images, or sense of body.
- Twelve of 18 participants described a distinct nothingness phase during sleep.
- These states challenge the assumption that consciousness always has content.
Adriana Alcaraz-Sánchez had a problem most sleep researchers would envy. People kept describing experiences that shouldn't exist.
The philosopher and cognitive scientist at the University of Edinburgh was collecting reports of something her participants called "nothingness": episodes during sleep where they felt aware, yet aware of nothing at all. No dreams. No imagery. No sense of body. Just consciousness, stripped bare.
For centuries, contemplative traditions in India had described exactly this state. Western science had mostly ignored it. Alcaraz-Sánchez decided to take it seriously.
Key figure
12 of 18
participants who reported a distinct "nothingness phase" during sleep interviews
What the Ancient Texts Described
In the Vedas, one of Hinduism's oldest texts, there's a term for this state: sushupti. The Advaita Vedanta school considers it a form of consciousness distinct from both waking and dreaming, an awareness without any object to be aware of.
What is sushupti?
A Sanskrit term meaning "witnessing-sleep." In Advaita Vedanta philosophy, it describes a state during deep sleep where one remains conscious but lacks any object of awareness: no dreams, no sense of self, no perceptions. Indo-Tibetan Buddhist traditions describe something similar as "luminosity sleep."
Alcaraz-Sánchez and her colleagues first surveyed 573 people online about unusual sleep experiences. Then they conducted detailed interviews with 18 participants who reported states matching this description, using a technique called the micro-phenomenological interview, a method designed to help people recall subtle aspects of experience in fine detail.
What emerged was striking. Twelve participants described a common pattern: a bodiless sense of self that still felt located "somewhere," pleasant emotions, wide but unfocused attention, and complete absence of visual experience.
Two Routes to Nothingness
The researchers identified two ways people reached this state. Some arrived after a lucid dream dissolved, with the dream scenery fading while awareness remained. Others transitioned directly from wakefulness, noticing their thoughts stopping or their sense of body disappearing.
One surprising finding: meditation practice didn't predict these experiences. Lucid dreaming did. People who could become aware they were dreaming were more likely to report objectless states, though many lucid dreamers never experienced them at all.
To study these rare states more directly, the team developed an induction protocol combining meditation, visualization, and lucid dreaming techniques. In a 2024 case series study, four participants learned to signal awareness during sleep using pre-agreed eye movements. Portable EEG recordings confirmed that some objectless states occurred during non-REM sleep, a phase traditionally thought to lack complex conscious experiences.
Why Consciousness Theorists Care
Most Western theories assume consciousness is always "about" something: a sound, a thought, an image. If people can genuinely be aware of nothing, that assumption needs revision.
The philosopher Thomas Metzinger has called such states candidates for "minimal phenomenal experience," consciousness at its most basic, stripped of all content. Jennifer Windt at Monash University describes them as potential windows into "pure temporality or nowness."
For Alcaraz-Sánchez, the research opens practical questions too. Understanding these minimal states might clarify what happens during deep meditation, sensory deprivation, or even everyday "mind blanking" episodes, those moments when thought seems to stop entirely.
The challenge now is finding more of these rare experiences to study. That may require meeting the ancient traditions halfway, using their techniques while applying modern measurement tools. Sometimes the oldest questions still have something to teach.
Sources
- Primary Research: Alcaraz-Sánchez, A., et al. (2022). Nothingness Is All There Is: An Exploration of Objectless Awareness During Sleep. Frontiers in Psychology.
- Additional Context:
- Exploring "lucid sleep" and altered states of consciousness (Philosophy and the Mind Sciences, 2024)
- Can you be aware of nothing? (The Conversation, 2025)
Fact Check: Claim-by-Claim Verification Verified
All claims verified against the Frontiers in Psychology paper, Philosophy and the Mind Sciences case series, and secondary coverage. Researcher affiliations, study numbers, and theoretical references confirmed.
Commentary
- Article simplifies three routes to objectless states into two, which is a reasonable editorial choice.
- The meditation/lucid dreaming predictor claim is inferred from the sample, not from formal statistical analysis.
- Alcaraz-Sánchez also has affiliation with Pompeu Fabra University.
Sources used for verification
Academic/Peer-reviewed:
- Nothingness Is All There Is - Frontiers in Psychology (2022)
- Lucid sleep case series - Philosophy and the Mind Sciences (2024)
Other reliable sources:
- Can you be aware of nothing? - theconversation.com
Fact-checked by Perplexity Sonar Pro on 2026-03-15
