I'm reviving the discussion on
turiya. Note Steve's first post. It is the same as what Sri Ramana describes here when talking about the Self:
"The Self always remains whether in sleep, dream or waking state. It is the substratum both of the waking state and the sleep state. The different states of dream, sleep and wakefulnesss are only for the mind. Trance and unconsciousness also are only for the mind; they do not affect the Self." - source: Crumbs from His Tabe, by Ramanananda Swarnagiri, pg. 39
On the question of whether an enlightened person can have dreams Sri Ramana says,
"If the jnani can have a waking state, what is the difficulty about his having a dream state? But of course as his waking state is different from the ordinary man's waking state, so his dream state also will be different from the ordinary man's dream state. Whether in waking or in dream he will not slip from his real state which is sometimes called the fourth or turiya state." - Day by Day with Bhagavan, asramam diary by Devaraja Mudaliar, pg. 4
So Sri Ramana calls this so-called fourth state,
turiya, the real state of the
jnani. If you accept all of this, we can conclude that the state of
turiya is the state of the Self, i.e., liberation.
