319. THAT THE SOULS OF THE DEAD DO NOT AT ALL KNOW OTHERWISE THAN THAT THEY ARE IN THE LIFE OF THE BODY; BUT THEY UNDERGO VARIOUS CHANGES OF STATE THEREIN I have spoken with many, both those known and those unknown to me, who had passed away or departed from the life of the body, concerning whom I can relate these things - from a sufficiently wide experience, because gathered from many cases - namely, that souls have never supposed at all otherwise than that they were in the life of the body, and that they thought in a like manner, and at first for the most part they thought from the things that most nearly and inwardly affected them, and as it were, induced them to desire and to act. (1) Many of those around me, both today and previously, who now perceive that they are in another life, acknowledge this and they now marvel. But as regards their state: they have their states of which there are very many changes in respect only of the difference between their deepest sleep and their greatest wakefulness. They confess - and I have also learnt this from experience - that they have a state of wakefulness like that which they had in the life of the body, and indeed very much more perfect in this respect, that they can apprehend and perceive the interior things of speech and of ideas. (2) From this highest state of wakefulness they are also brought into a state of sleep, like a man who from wakefulness gradually falls into a state of sleep, indeed into such sleep as that in which he also dreams dreams, and thus he is brought from the one state into the other. A state of sleep like that of wakefulness is also given, and I have been in this also, and thus have learnt about both states through experience. In the latter state they do not seem to themselves to be asleep, but awake, because in this state, and in sleep, they speak with a companion [or] companions in various ways. A man can perceive this by experience when it is given him [to pass] from wakefulness into many states of most gentle sleep, and afterwards of deep sleep, conjoined with various ideas of the imagination. I can assert these things concerning souls with so much certainty, that no doubt can ever be entertained about it.