What I’d be doing if I wasn’t writing this…
Oct 31, 01:03 AM
“Living is a disease from which sleep gives us relief eight hours a day” – Chamfort
Sleep is an interesting concept. Whether you are religiously affiliated, have a scientific background or think we are all part of some greater spiritual consciousness… sleep is integral part of our everyday lives.
Why is it that we need to sleep? Of course it allows our body to recuperate, re-energise and healing occurs at a greater rate among other things. It’s like restarting a computer; it makes all the small problems go away (though much like computers it doesn’t always work). But why to we NEED to sleep? Why is it that our bodies were created in such a way as to require sleep? Wouldn’t it have been much more efficient and beneficial if we didn’t need sleep? If our bodies could keep running and functioning normally without having to reset?
Take the scientific, evolution view of things. Survival of the fittest. Those with the most desirable attributes succeeded, they could run faster, jump higher, and had bigger muscles (perhaps the theory of evolution was created to deal with scientists insecurities about their bodies). Now sleeping was a dangerous sport in the animal kingdom from which our ancestors came. In sleep you are vulnerable. You aren’t able to protect yourself, you are not totally aware of your surroundings… if something bad was happening, chances are you would wake up too late. So with millions of years of evolution, one would assume that this seemingly archaic requirement would have slowly been phased out. Those who needed the least sleep would be able to spend more time hunting and gathering. They would also have more time to spend inventing nifty things like fire, while their dopey mates were being burnt and suffocated in their sleep after the fire experiments inevitably took a turn for the worse. Of course on the flip side, more hunting and more inventing may have exposed those insomniacs to an extra element of risk. The longer you hunt the more likely you will come across a six foot, rabid, sabre tooth tiger with a taste for human flesh.
The flaw in the evolution side in no way leads to the idea that we were created by some mythical omnipotent being. Quite the contrary. If your persuasion is Christian, protestant, Mormon, or any of the other widely accepted cults then the concept of sleep is even more baffling. Why would an all powerful and knowing being create humans with a default that requires them to shut down for one third of the day? “I’m going to create these beings in my image…they will be smart, attractive, and physically strong but all of these aspects will come with one requirement: They must fall unconscious for 8 hours a day… and one of them will snore” Does that mean that this all powerful being himself required a nap every now and then to keep his mind on the job. I guess a lack of sleep on the creator’s behalf could explain many things like mosquitoes, George Bush and P.M.S. But that there flies in the face of everything the church believes… the creator.. not perfect?? Wha It’s not like cancer or high blood pressure, which the church can blame on sin and the fact that we chose to have choice and we’ve turned our back on the morals of the Lord. Sleep was inbuilt into us from the beginning. We only need it because we need it…. and that means God decided that sleep was necessary.
For those of you who believe more in spirituality and connection with the greater consciousness, sleep fits nicely. The fact that you sleep all day anyway (perhaps related to the consumption of certain organic substances…. and the fact you don’t have a job) may indicate a greater understanding of the concept of sleep. Perhaps sleep is less of a physical requirement, but a spiritual one. The waking world is full of pollution (emotional and physical), radiation, noise and a vast amount of negative stimulants. The sleeping world allows you to escape all of this, allows your subconscious to run free, unrestrained by the physical world. But on an even deeper level than this, perhaps it is during sleep that we reconnect with the greater consciousness, we submit to one of natures must powerful requirements… to sleep.. and in doing so relinquish all control over our lives back to Gia, mother nature, the common consciousness… whatever you want to call it. Perhaps it is through sleep that we connect to the earth, to the universe and everything within it.
I don’t know the answer, and I don’t expect any of you too either. It’s a complex question.
I think I might sleep on it.
Filed under: Ramblings