Sleep

Now I lay me down to sleep.
I pray the Lord, my soul to keep
and if I die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to take.
- Old Children's Prayer -

"But in that sleep of death, what dreams may come when we have shuffled off this mortal coil must give us pause" - William Shakespeare, Hamlet.

I act so nonchalant
I want
to scream aloud, wait, no;
to go
and take a flying leap
to sleep
right on a garbage heap
This poem is to say
It’s been a long, hard day.
I want to go to sleep
-A Humble Writer-

Sleep.

We all need it (some of us more than others). Many of us are in love with it and are sleep gluttons. Some of us would rather do without it. Some of us need it but cannot get it and so have to suffice with caffeine.

What is sleep?

Well I could give you the medical and biological explanation but I think that you would be bored with it and I have confidence that if you have time to read my humble postings then you have time to use this wonderful internet to look it up yourself.

I will tell you what I think sleep is.

I think sleep is like life. Now many people think that sleep is like death. After all you are lying prone (or in some humorously odd position), not moving (generally) and not conscious. Isn't that a little like death? Well, physically speaking it is. I'll grant you that. However, I believe that sleep is like life, or rather that life is a sort of sleep. Have you ever felt that way? If you are an insomniac, or a vivid dreamer you may have confused 'real' life and dreams before. But have you ever felt that this life was all a dream and there was something more real that you would see when you would wake up? I certainly have.

The author of the chronicles of Narnia, Clive Staples Lewis, called this world the 'shadow lands' saying that there was a country more real and solid on the other side of the gateway of death. I agree with that (though I cannot say I have seen the other side of that gateway)

So that us what I claim. Sleep is not like a little death. Life is like a long night of sleep. Is there a way to wake up from this sleep? I think that there is. But I am not going to talk about it here. I might at some later time. We will see...

Anyways, I think also that sleep is a reminder to us. It reminds us that we are, by nature, weak. Human beings are weak. We have to rest, to lie prone and vulnerable for an extended period of time in order to be able to operate normally. We are not machines that can work all day and night so long as our power supply is fed (though we do need to feed). We have this weakness. It is a reminder that we are not invulnerable.

I will ask you, my dear readers, to ask yourselves: what is sleep to you?