There are four states of consciousness - waking, sleeping, dreaming and meditative states. During sleep we get good rest but no awareness. We just feel refreshed when we wake up, but we cannot recall anything that happened while we were sleeping. Meditation, however, is resting with awareness.
“Wakefulness and sleep are like sunrise and darkness. Dream is like the twilight in between and meditation is like the flight to the outer space, where there is no sunset, no sunrise, nothing!”
Source: © Facebook