Q: I read here in FAQ that people go to the Mansion Worlds or become sleeping survivors. What is a sleeping survivor? How do I go to the Mansion Worlds?

A: Here is a Urantia Book description of sleeping survivors—those who are awaiting dispensational resurrection:

Sleeping Survivors. All mortals of survival status, in the custody of personal guardians of destiny, pass through the portals of natural death and, on the third period, personalize on the mansion worlds. Those accredited beings who have, for any reason, been unable to attain that level of intelligence mastery and endowment of spirituality which would entitle them to personal guardians, cannot thus immediately and directly go to the mansion worlds. Such surviving souls must rest in unconscious sleep until the judgment day of a new epoch, a new dispensation, the coming of a Son of God to call the rolls of the age and adjudicate the realm, and this is the general practice throughout all Nebadon. It was said of Christ Michael that, when he ascended on high at the conclusion of his work on earth, “He led a great multitude of captives.” And these captives were the sleeping survivors from the days of Adam to the day of the Master’s resurrection on Urantia. (30:4.11)

As you can see, the key here is whether one has been entitled to a personal guardian. From The Urantia Book: “since the bestowal of Michael, they [personal guardians] are assigned in accordance with human intelligence, spirituality, and destiny. “

This attainment of a personal guardian has much to do with the seven cosmic circles of attainment. I suggest you give this a careful read.

Another Urantia Book passage on this subject:

Mortals of the individual orders of ascension. The individual progress of human beings is measured by their successive attainment and traversal (mastery) of the seven cosmic circles. These circles of mortal progression are levels of associated intellectual, social, spiritual, and cosmic-insight values. Starting out in the seventh circle, mortals strive for the first, and all who have attained the third immediately have personal guardians of destiny assigned to them. These mortals may be repersonalized in the morontia life independent of dispensational or other adjudications. (49:6.8)

These circles are a spiritual kind of benchmark by which human progress is measured. There are no precise definitions given—in fact only a few of these circles are described at all, but this following passage does shed some light on the subject, and offers clues as to the kind of behavior and attitude one should cultivate in order to successfully navigate them:

It is to the mind of perfect poise, housed in a body of clean habits, stabilized neural energies, and balanced chemical function—when the physical, mental, and spiritual powers are in triune harmony of development—that a maximum of light and truth can be imparted with a minimum of temporal danger or risk to the real welfare of such a being. By such a balanced growth does man ascend the circles of planetary progression one by one, from the seventh to the first. (110:6.4)

It is not necessarily a bad thing to be a sleeping survivor—it could be that many of us will be in that group—it simply means that the growth needed for attaining that third circles was not attained before death. This could be due to any number of factors—some may be beyond one’s control; nonetheless, all sleeping survivors are still counted among the saved, as they are resurrected in groups at the end of divine dispensations, such as that of Jesus, when he finally departed from Earth. They go on to progress in eternity just as do all others.

Thanks for this interesting question!