456. When good spirits are raised up into a more inward heaven, and then return, it seems just as if the person [they are with] has fallen into a sweet sleep, and sees the more inward regions and their glory, as if in complete wakefulness

That spirits also are transferred into very many states of waking and sleeping, you may see told above [319-21]. It appeared to me as if a particular good spirit had fallen into a sweet sleep - something I have been allowed to experience several times when the state of spirits has been communicated to me. This angel, upon awakening (or so it seemed to me) reported that he had beheld the glory of God the Messiah, which I was allowed to see very dimly in his sleep. Hence I was able to infer that the transfer of spirits into heaven, or of heavenly beings into a more inward heaven, is like a sleep as to their* lower mental powers. And I can testify from experience, that during that sleep, things seem just as plainly alive as when one is wide awake. Therefore, the lower mental power comes to rest, as though it did not exist, when the more inward mind is raised up. For what is lower cannot be transferred into what is higher. 1748, the 8th day of January. * The original has "ejus," "his."