Sleep Well

How did you sleep? A question asked in our home frequently, especially if guests have stayed over. Was the room warm enough? Was the mattress OK? And so on.

We often fret over others’ comfort while forgetting that we ourselves have our sleep interrupted by many things: worry, pain, sorrow, or as one philosopher put it, “metaphysical terrors.” Perhaps the worst culprit: 
alarm clocks.

“To sleep is to dream.” Sleep is one of the greatest gifts of God, and we know it to be absolutely necessary in a physical sense, for our emotional restoration, brain function, and vital bodily health. But what about the metaphysical reasons for sleep? 

The psychologist Carl Jung said that we live at the boundary of the conscious and the subconscious; our dreams are therefore a key to the whole pattern of our lives. What patterns are there in your dreams? Are you conscious enough of that portion of your life to know?

For God does speak...In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falls. 
(Job 33:14-15) If we cannot remember our dreams, we are not sleeping well. How open am I to allowing God to speak in this way?

Pass your hand over my sleep, O Lord, and give me vision from above. Amen.

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"Sleep, sleep tonight, and may your dreams be realized." In this song (honoring Martin Luther King), U2 draws an analogy between sleep, death and vision. Listen and see if your soul is not put into a peaceful state.

The Red Book is a recently discovered compendium of breathtaking artwork by Carl Jung based on his dreams. Includes a very good introduction to Jung's thought. For its size, quality, and image reproduction, a very good price.










On the metaphysical terrors that keep some of us up at night, see Bryan Magee, Confessions of a Philosopher. 


On the relationship of breathing to good sleep, and the damaging effects of interrupted sleep: