Both paths keep returning to the same doorway: the drowsy edge of sleep, where the waking guard loosens and the inner world comes close.
Neville built a practice there. His “state akin to sleep” (SATS) is exactly this hypnagogic edge — not asleep, not fully awake — and he taught that a scene of the wish fulfilled, held gently as you drift down, is impressed most deeply of all. Descending, you plant.
Jung and von Franz keep watch at the same threshold from the far side. Sleep opens the door and the unconscious answers in dreams — “the little hidden door,” von Franz’s teacher called it, into the innermost recesses of the soul. Rising, you gather what was sent.
One gate, two directions. The same soft border you sink through at night to plant a scene is the border you surface across at dawn carrying a dream. Treat both crossings as practice, and sleep becomes part of the work rather than a gap in it.
Bookend tonight’s sleep: as you fall asleep, hold one scene of the wish fulfilled; on waking, before you move, catch whatever dream or mood is still there.
What did you carry down into sleep — and what came back up with you?