"Sleep is a condition in which I refuse to have anything to do with the outer world and have withdrawn my attention from it. ... Our relationship with the world which we entered so unwillingly seems to be endurable only with intermission ... It looks as if we do not belong wholly to the world, but only two-thirds; one-third of us has never yet been born at all."
This is from early lectures. A date was not given but I suspect it was before his Interpetation of Dreams which seems to reverse the idea that sleep is wholly an unconscious state, as we know it is not. Portions apparently are but other portions are filled with active mental life. Whether Freud's ideas about our dreaming state are relevant or not, certainly that state does have much to do with the world. But, as always with Freud, his ideas are worth thinking about.
It caught my attention very immediately because I've been truly enjoying deep and refreshing sleep lately. It has felt like a renewing intermission many mornings when I woke up. This is exactly the kind of sleep I think most people wish for and get too seldom. i don't always sleep so well, so I feel wonderful when I recognize my well being.
I pick up poetry books at night when I'm all prepared for sleep but not yet quite sleepy. I can read one or several poems or find a citation like the one quoted here, sit staring into space and thinking about it's meaning, or sometimes I'm simply delighted the felicity with which the poet used words to state an idea. And then I'm ready for those hours of unconsciousness.
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