On Sleep
Written By: Jayden Zhang
Frederic Leighton’s painting of Cymon and Iphigenia. Cymon, a noble, was struck by Leighton’s beauty when he saw her asleep by a fountain.
I think I was put on this world to sleep. Every night I lay upon my pillow and dream of worlds far-far-away. There’s something so innately beautiful about sleeping; breaking the shackles of the mortal being, transcending to something greater than yourself. It’s the closest man will get to the stars. The human existence is so weak, so fragile, so short, yet so beautiful. A complex, incomprehensible, beautiful soul trapped within a cage of flesh, controlled by hundreds of nerves and veins. To dream is to be free, to live solely through the mind, rather than the human tissue.
One question I like to sometimes wonder is if sleep is anything like death. Both are scenarios in which one would be absolutely unconscious. A state where you essentially disappear from the world around you. When we sleep, we see it as some sort of “fast-travel”. A teleportation toward tomorrow, to skip a few unnecessary hours. Does that mean death is sort of a skip toward nothing? Quickly jumping past time to reach a morning that will never exist? It’s paradoxical just to think about.
I remember watching a YouTube video that posed an interesting question. If we become unconscious when we sleep, are we still ourselves when we wake up? It’s a question that’s inherently based in philosophy. What if, every night when we sleep, we die, and a copy of us is recreated? A version of us that possesses the exact features and consciousness of us. Now, could we tell that anything changed? Did anything change? We wake up in the same bed, with the same fingerprints, and the same parents, yet everything could still be different somehow. Perhaps it’s not the greatest to dwell on something so theoretical.
Every morning before school, I wake up tired. I like to think that’s because I am a night owl rather than a morning lark, but in reality, I doubt I am either. I’m simply just exhausted, every single waking moment I feel the weight of my body trail upon the ground. Yet still, I drag myself out of the warmth of my mattress. I ask myself, is it duty that pulls me out of sleep? Or is it willpower? Perhaps it’s a combination of both; it doesn’t matter. To wake up is to accept the challenges of the day, to reject comfort, and to face the world in front of you with open arms.
When I die, I hope it will be painless, and I will be in my own bed.
1895 painting Flaming June created by Frederic Leighton
