Ramana Maharshi Recollects About His Peculiar "Deep Sleep" In His Childhood

In the afternoon, Bhagavan saw a relative of his, a young man called Sesha Aiyar, in the hall. He said: “Seeing you reminds me of something that happened in Dindigul when I was a boy.

Your uncle Periappa Seshaiyar was living there then. There was some function in the house and all went to it and then in the night went to the temple. I was left alone in the house. I was sitting reading in the front room, but after a while I locked the front door and fastened the windows and went to sleep. When they returned from the temple no amount of shouting or banging at the door or window could wake me. At last they managed to open the door with a key from the opposite house and then they tried to wake me up by beating me. All the boys beat me to their heart’s content, and your uncle did too, but without effect. I knew nothing about it till they told me next morning.”

Devotee : “How old was Bhagavan then?”

Bhagavan said, “About eleven.” Then he continued: “The same sort of thing happened to me in Madurai too. The boys didn’t dare touch me when I was awake, but if they had any grudge against me they would come when I was asleep and carry me wherever they liked and beat me as much as they liked and then put me back to bed, and I would know nothing about it until they told me in the morning.”

Devotee said, “It would seem that even in those days Bhagavan’s sleep was not ordinary sleep but some state like samadhi.”

Bhagavan: I don’t know what state it was, but that is the fact. Some who have written about my life have called it somnambulism.

Devotee: It was certainly not somnambulism; that is walking in one’s sleep. This was more like samadhi or absorption in the Self.

Sleepwalking, also known as somnambulism, is a sleep disorder. Sleepwalkers arise from the slow wave sleep stage in a state of low consciousness and perform activities that are usually performed during the day. These activities can be as benign as sitting up in bed, walking to the bathroom, and cleaning, or as hazardous as cooking..etc.

Sources:

1) DAY BY DAY WITH BHAGAVAN From the Diary of A. DEVARAJA MUDALIAR
2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleepwalking