Has anyone heard about Pure Consciousness? I had not heard about it till a few days ago. A brief definition of it is: "a silent state of inner wakefulness with no object of thought or perception.". In other words, it is be conscious of nothing or only of one's self.

Here is a testimony from someone who had this experience, taken from one of the links below:

"I was meditating one late afternoon when I began to settle down much more deeply than usual. As I became more and more still, all thoughts and feelings settled and I was left in a deep quietness. All familiar boundaries that defined where I was and what time it was, and even who I was, began to fade from awareness and dissolve altogether. There was nothing else. No trace of thought or memory entered into my awareness; even the sense of my body and its position in space had vanished. It's not that I missed these things. It simply did not enter my awareness to miss them or not to miss them."

This, at least from my understanding, contradicts the experience this person supposedly had. If he was indeed conscious of nothing, then how does he know what was not on his mind? That is, how can he say things like "There was nothing else. No trace of thought or memory entered into my awareness; even the sense of my body and its position in space had vanished."? The fact that he can even describe the state implies that he was conscious of something, I think the whole concept is incoherent.

Here is are a couple of links with more info about it:
http://ccbs.ntu.edu.tw/FULLTEXT/JR-PHIL/ew99036.htm
http://www.spiritwatch.ca/cehsc/ipure.htm

What do you think about Pure Consciousness? Aside from claims from mystical traditions, is there any scientific evidence supporting it?


Thank in advance,
Evo