SLEEP

SLEEP , as a periodic, recurrent state of inactivity and altered consciousness, marks a boundary line in human experience. However sleep is culturally evaluated and understood, it is a state quite different from ordinary, waking life. As such, it has been a universal object of religious interest and imagination. The various traditions, symbolisms and rituals of sleep are closely related to religious understanding of night and the role of dreams, to assessments of death, and to themes associated with its apparent opposites: dawn and awakening.

Mythologies of Sleep

Figures and notions associated with sleep appear in numerous mythologies and folk traditions.

Personifications of sleep

While personified figures of sleep appear in mythology, poetry, and artistic representations, they are rarely themselves the focus of cultic activity. The personifications often reveal the ambiguous assessment of sleep: it is peaceful and restorative, and it is like death. For example, while the early Iranian Vispe Ratavo (7.4) can enjoin the worship of sleep, sleep is more usually understood within that tradition to be a negative force controlled by the demon Bushyasta; in India, the ambivalent deities Rudra (Kaivalya Upaniṣad 6–9) and Śiva (Uṇādi Sūtra 1.153) are identified as lords of sleep.

The most developed personification of sleep occurs within the Greco-Roman tradition with the archaic figure of Hypnos (Lat., Somnus). Schematically, the poet Hesiod (eighth century bce) located Hypnos and his brother, Death (Thanatos), along with the race of Dreams, as the asexually produced children of Night. Sleep is the friend of man; Death, his pitiless adversary (Theogony 211–213, 756–766). In other poetic and artistic materials, the fraternal relations of Sleep and Death are further developed; they are twin brothers (Iliad 14.231). Hypnos or Somnus is personified as a small winged bird, an infant, or a young warrior. In some traditions, Sleep carries a horn or a poppy-stalk from which he drips a liquid that causes slumber. The only recorded instance of a regular cult of sacrifice to Hypnos is at Triozen (Pausanius, 2.31.3); rather it is Hermes, in his role as conductor of dreams, who was the object of nightly libations and petitions for a good sleep.

Sleeping gods

At its most complex level, the notion of sleeping gods is tied to cosmic cyclical patterns of the periodic dissolution and recreation of the world. Thus Viṣṇu falls asleep on the back of the cosmic serpent (Śeṣa or Ananta) at the end of each world-age. In late Puranic texts, Nidrā, the personified goddess of sleep, is depicted as entering Viṣṇu's body. Visnu sleeps until Brahmā commands Nidrā to depart so that Viṣṇu might awake and recreate the cosmos (Mārkaṇḍeya Puraṇā 81.53–70). Viṣṇu also is represented as undergoing an annual period of sleep. During the monsoon months, beginning in June and July, Viṣṇu—and therefore the world—sleeps (Padma Puraṇā 63, 125). In late traditions, Indra is thought to perform Viṣṇu's functions during this period (Harivaṃsá 50.26).

The notion of a deity undergoing periodic durations of sleep is not uncommon and may be expressed in ritual as well as myth. Thus there was an annual Syrian ritual of the "awakening" of Melqart-Herakles (Josephus Flavius, Jewish Antiquities 8.146), while, from earliest times through the Roman period, the daily Egyptian temple service began with a hymn awakening the sun (Pyramid Text 573).

However, gods are most commonly celebrated for being sleepless and hence all-seeing. YHVH (Psalm 121:3–4), the Adityas (Ṛgveda 2.27.9), Mitra (Ṛgveda 3.59.1), Ahura Mazdā (Vidēvdāt 19.20), Sraosha (Yasht 11.10–12), and others are praised for never sleeping. A special motif is that of a god with multiple eyes, some of which are always open, while others are asleep, thereby guaranteeing their omniscience (for example, Argos and El-Kronos in the account of Philo of Byblus). The opposite motif, that of the sleeping and therefore powerless deity, is represented by Elijah's taunts to the priests of Baal (1 Kgs. 18.27–28) and east European Christian dualistic creation myths that have the Devil working while God sleeps during the sabbath that followed creation.

Sleep in heroic tales and folklore

One of the more persistent folkloristic themes is that of a lengthy sleep, a Rip Van Winkle motif in which sleep serves as a sort of suspended animation for a period of years. While occasionally the emphasis is on perpetual sleep, conferred as either a punishment or a boon (both are claimed in different accounts of the Greek hero Endymion), there is, more frequently, a terminus. Best known is the widely distributed eschatological tale of the Sleeping Emperor, asleep within a cave or mountain. Frederick Barbarossa is held to be asleep within the Kyffhäuser, seated at a marble table surrounded by his knights, awaiting his awakening, when he will lead Germany in a glorious battle and usher in a golden age. The same sort of claim is made for Charlemagne asleep in a hill near Paderborn, Wittekind in Westphalia, Siegfried in Geroldseck, Henry I in Goslar, Thomas of Erceldoune in the Eildon Hills, and others. These beliefs may at times fuel apocalyptic movements, as in the case of the flagellants of Thuringia, led by Konrad Schmid in the fourteenth century. The same motif occurs in the hagiography of wise men: Epimenides sleeping fifty-seven years in the Dictaean cave near Knossus, Shimʿon bar Yoḥʾai in Palestine for twelve, Zalmoxis in Thrace for three.

The widespread legend of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus, first recorded in a Western language by Gregory of Tours in the sixth century, has also found its way into the Qurʾān (18.8–25); the legend narrates how the seven Christian anti-idolators slept in a cave for 367 years before being awakened during the reign of Theodosius II. Subsequently, they returned to sleep, not to be awakened again until the general resurrection. Related, but different from this motif of cave hibernation, are the Jewish legends of two figures who sleep during a period of tribulation: Abimelech the Ethiopian, who slept for sixty-six years from the destruction of the Temple by the Babylonians; Ḥoni ha-Meʿaggel ("the circle maker"), who slept for seventy years, in one account from the destruction of the Temple, in another, from the period of the conflict between Aristobulus II and Hyrcanus II.

Equally persistent, although not well organized into a narrative scheme, is the motif of magical sleep most familiar from tales such as that of Sleeping Beauty, wherein a potion, a spell, or an object causes unnatural sleep that either cannot be undone or must be undone by countermagic or by an act of accidental or innocent intervention.

In heroic quest-sagas, the hero is often put to a test, one of which is that sleep is forbidden until the quest is accomplished. The best known instance is a negative example: Gilgamesh's failure to stay awake. In such sagas, the hero frequently confronts a sleepless adversary, such as the dragon in the Argonautica who guards the Golden Fleece until it is overcome by Jason through the intercession of Medea and her magic song invoking "Sleep, highest of gods" (Apollonius Rhodius, 4.146).

Soul loss and transformation

A tradition of exceedingly wide distribution is that the soul becomes separated from the body during sleep and that death will result if the individual is awakened or the body moved before it returns. So ubiquitous is this belief that E. B. Tylor thought it one of the basic human experiences that gave rise to religion and James G. Frazer devoted the third volume of The Golden Bough to its ramifications.

Closely related to the theme of the separable soul is the notion that sleep is a time of shape-changing (often expressed in folklore in accounts of were-animals). These traditions are most fully elaborated in shamanism. The shaman is, among other things, an expert in the retrieval of lost souls by being able to achieve a sleeplike trance and pursuing them. In South America, one of the tests for shamanic abilities is that the candidate frequently experiences lengthy periods of deep sleep. Throughout shamanism, the return of the shaman from an ecstatic journey is most commonly described as an "awakening." During his journey, the shaman will frequently change shape. Snorri Sturlson's description of the shamanic attributes of the Norse god Óðinn (Odin) is representative of this related set of elements: while his body lay "as if sleeping or dead," he assumed the form of a bird, animal, fish, or snake and traveled to far lands "on his own or other men's errands" (Ynglingasaga 7).

Rituals of Sleep

Religious practices related to sleep or the interruption of sleep are characteristic of many traditions.

Social location

Who sleeps with whom is a central question of religious etiquette. This is not only a matter of sanctioned sexuality. Within many societies, a mark of male adulthood is residential segregation in the men's house, a location of secret rituals forbidden to women. Elements of rituals of initiatory separation focus on this shift in social location. In other societies, the blueprint of a domestic house represents a map of such social and sexual relations. For example, in central Thailand, only certain members of the family sleep in the bedroom; other close relations may enter the room but may not sleep there; guests are restricted to an entrance room, separated from the sleeping room by a clearly demarcated threshold.

Incubation

Going to a particular sacred place to sleep in order to gain a religious end is common. Most frequently such incubation is for the purpose of gaining a revelation or a cure. The former is to be related to similar phenomena such as the American Indian dream quest; the latter, to the general ideology of shrines. Perhaps the most extensive record of incubation is that by Aelius Aristides in the second century who has left, in his Sacred Teachings, a report of his experiences in a variety of Asklepian shrines over a twenty-seven year period.

Sleep interruption or deprivation

The regular interruption of sleep is a common practice in religious asceticism, especially in monastic communities. Thus the Christian "canonical hours" in which monks would be aroused at either midnight or 2:00 am for prayer. Similar interruptions figure in other spiritual regimens such as the Daoist practice of the "expulsion of the breath" that must be undertaken at least five times during the period of midnight to noon.

Sleeplessness is an often recurring feature of religious asceticism and vision quests. In the lists of five sins that must be "cut off" by a yogin, sleep appears (Mahābhārata 12.241.3). Like the sleeplessness of the hero, sleep deprivation is the mark of a spiritual athlete. The hagiographies of holy persons frequently celebrate either their ability to sleep far less than ordinary people or to do without sleep entirely. For example, the pre-Christian Syrian Stylites were said to resist sleep for seven days while perched on columns. According to legend, if they fell asleep, a scorpion would sting them awake (Lucian, Syrian Goddess 29). In the traditions of the Christian Desert Fathers, preserved in texts such as Palladius's Lausiac History, monks such as Doretheus, Macarius of Alexandria and Pachomius are praised for never sleeping. All-night vigils, spending days and nights immersed in cold water, and sleeping only in a sitting position were frequent ritual means for achieving sleep deprivation. Sleeplessness is also a feature of initiatory ordeals. In Australia, novices are prevented from sleeping for periods of up to three days. The goal in these varied practices appears to be twofold: to transcend the normal bodily processes and to achieve heightened consciousness.

Metaphors of Sleep in Religious Speech

References to sleep in myth and religious literature reflect its metaphorical significance as the state of death, ignorance, or enlightenment.

Sleep as death

In many languages, sleep is a metaphor for death. While this may serve as a euphemism, the connection, as the Greek myth of Death and Sleep as twin brothers suggests, is deeper. At one level, there is the physical resemblance of a sleeping body to a corpse. This association is heightened by burial ceremonies that treat the grave or receptacle as a bed and place the corpse in a position of repose (either prone or sitting). The parallel is stronger in cultures that hold that the soul escapes from the sleeper's body just as it does from the corpse at death. Finally, there is the view that the land of the dead is a land of sleep. To return from the dead is to be awakened.

Some myths of the origin of death lay emphasis on the sleep motif. For example, the Selkʾnam of Tierra del Fuego tell of the repeated attempts of the ancestors, who were tired of life, to achieve a deep sleep. After many failures, another group of ancestors wrap them in blankets and teach them the way of "transformation sleep." After a few days of such sleep (i. e., death), they will either be reborn on earth or, if they do not wish to return, they will be reborn as another kind of being or take up a celestial existence.

Sleep as ignorance

The understanding of sleep as a cessation of consciousness leads readily to the use of sleep as a metaphor for ignorance. In gnostic traditions within a diversity of religions, sleep, forgetfulness and oblivion have become characteristics of earthly existence. Salvation consists of awakening and recollection. In these traditions, the archaic language of the darkness and sleep of the land of the dead has been transferred to ordinary, mundane existence. The waking world of light and consciousness has been transferred to the "beyond."

Sleep as enlightenment

While enlightenment is most frequently expressed in terms of awakening (as in the root budh, "to wake, be awake," which has given rise to such words as Buddha, bodhisattva, and bodhi, "perfect knowledge," all reflecting the sense "to be awake from the slumber of ignorance and delusion"), it can, at times, be expressed in the language of sleep. This is especially the case in mystical systems where lack of consciousness of the world and contact with the supramundane is emphasized. In her various writings, Teresa of Ávila uses terms such as sleep, falling asleep, being numb, repose, languishing, and stupor to describe ecstasy. This builds on the Augustinian tradition that ecstasy is a state midway between sleep and death, more than sleep, less than death, where the soul is withdrawn from the bodily senses (Augustine, De Genesi ad litteram 12.26.53). In the Indic Upaniṣadic tradition, the language of sleep in relation to enlightenment is further developed. The brief Mandukya Upaniṣad presents the common fourfold schematization: (1) waking consciousness, (2) dream consciousness, that is, ordinary sleep, (3) deep sleep (susupti ), a sleep without consciousness or dreams, and, the goal, (4) pure consciousness. Deep sleep is the realm of the "Knower"; the only danger is to confuse this penultimate stage with the true gnosis of the fourth state.

See Also

Asklepios; Consciousness, States of; Dreams; Shamanism; Shape Shifting.

Bibliography

Material on sleep can be gleaned from monographs on related topics—for example, the classic study of incubation by Ludwig Deubner, De incubatione (Leipzig, 1900)—and from the large body of literature on dreams, of which Ernesto de Martino's Il sogno e le civiltà umane (Bari, 1966) is most useful. Still, there is no reliable cross-cultural overview of sleep. The chapter on the interrelationships of sleep, death, and the erotic titled "On the Wings of the Morning: The Pornography of Death" in Emily Townsend Vermeule's Aspects of Death in Early Greek Art and Poetry (Berkeley, 1979) is an exemplary study that needs to be matched for other cultures.

Jonathan Z. Smith (1987)