good night (a theology of sleep)
Why do we sleep?
Did Adam sleep as we do prior to the fall?
Is sleep necessary as fallen creatures? Why?
Isn't it interesting that we subconsciously trust our lives into Something as we venture into the great abyss?
What happens when we enter the great abyss?
How is it that we are refreshed after a good night's sleep?
What exactly is being refreshed?
Feel free to help me build a theology of sleep.
3 comments:
Good questions! On scientific view, our neuron will supress its own reactivity that lead to sleep. In sleep our hormone is adjusted and secreted, the study activity during the daytime is intensified by neuron growth.
But I guess what you are looking for is the sleep's meaning in God's view. I have some speculation here.
Sleep is an activity in which people rest in consciously perceiving nothing from this world and are nourished by the periodical body system reset God bestowed. In some cases, it is also a space for God's revelation.
Adam slept when God was creating Eve...
Sometimes it is a great abyss, sometimes it is a sweet blank... An adult will be like a baby when he is in need of an instinct behavior. You must have some interesting thought there.
What happens? Your brain electronic wave would be in a cycle of irregular phase and regular phase. The cycle goes on until you get the shore of this abyss.
In sum, sleep is mandatory rest, in which you will be reset for a purpose of the next day. When you enter there, your mind will be disturbed for a while. Being freshed resides on that the sleep is long enough and have good quality.
Joe, you must have much thought on it, why not express it? Good night and tomorrow is another day!
Sleeping is a wonderful "type" of death (anti-type), and waking up is a wonderful "type" of resurrection (anti-type). So God allows us to experience the shadow of the substance every morning by opening our eyes anew and having entered into a rest. But one of these days I will want to get out of bed because Jesus will be my alarm clock and His glory will replace the sun shining through my window.
I was just reading this article about Transcendence and Religion for class and the author talked about sleep in an interesting way... Supposedly, every person knows that there are things that transcend his own experience, that there are limits to our own conscience and existence. We tend to forget about this as we go in our everyday life, though. However, there are situations and events he calls "little transcendencies" that remind us of something above and beyond ourselves, SLEEP and DREAMING being one of them! For him sleep is "a gap in which suspicions of another reality than that of everyday life may arise"... He says there are other reminders, such as meditation, all kinds of ecstasies, visions... But most of these have to be brought about intentionally. Sleep is one of the few that come naturally. Not a theological view, but I thought it was interesting to see sleep as a chance for people to experience the transcendence, the spiritual world, God...?
Tereza :-)
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