“The dissolution into nothingness is the dissolution into unity, for there is no nothingness”…
“An astronaut went far out into space, and when he returned, everybody asked him, ‘what did you see? did you see God?’, and the astronaut replied, ‘yes, she’s black’“
An age old question: “What is sleep?” Here are my thoughts on the matter.
As someone who both meditates and sleeps, I’m pretty sure these things have very clearly defined benefits, as well as some striking similarities. If a person is lying down and meditating, it can easily appear as if the person is asleep. When I neglect the practice of meditation, I don’t feel nearly as peaceful, and my spiritual life suffers. And if I don’t get a proper amount of sleep, in a similar way, my mood changes for the worse, my personal relationships and mental health suffer. Sleep is, as we all know, not a luxury. It is a necessity for life.
I’ve come to believe that there is something in that void, behind the eyelid, that is the same color as outer space, that we have to touch, or be close to, every so often, in order to stay alive. I consider it a form of “checking in”. In fact people call it, “turning in”. Interesting choice of words. Maybe we “turn in” our progress for the day, and that review process is simply forgotten while we engage in dreamland activities / learning.
I quit caffeine recently, just as an experiment to see how it would affect my mood, and overall quality of sleep. So this has been on my mind. If you have any thoughts or theories on the nature of sleep, not particularly dreaming I might add, but the “nothingness” aspect of falling asleep, and how it relates to meditation and spiritual growth, then let’s talk about it.