I recently got a small health tracker to wear on my wrist. After the first night, it told me how long I had slept, how much time I had spent in deep, REM, and light sleep, and even gave me a sleep score. Science has many explanations for what happens during sleep: memories are consolidated, emotions processed, tissues repaired, and the brain carries out essential maintenance.
Spiritual traditions often add another possibility: that while the body rests, consciousness becomes less restricted by physical life. Dreams may include ordinary emotional processing, but they may also feel like encounters, journeys, continuing relationships, or experiences in realities beyond the waking world. My tracker can measure what my body is doing at night. What it cannot measure is where consciousness may be going.
