The condition experienced by the pupils (of occult development) is called “continuity of consciousness”. When an ordinary person is completely withdrawn from the sense-world in sleep, he is unconscious. This is no longer so with a pupil who has reached the stage just mentioned. By day and by night, with no interruption, he lives in a state of fully clear consciousness, even when his physical body is at rest.
Source: Rudolf Steiner – GA 95 – At the Gates of Spiritual Science: Lecture Twelve: Occult Development – Stuttgart, 2nd September 1906
Translated by E. H. Goddard & Charles Davy