Sleeping

A sleeper should feel weightless and simultaneously immovable. There should be no considerations of time or outside life. The sleeper should be suspended and absolutely unaware of uneasiness. If woken by a noise, the sleeper should smile, roll over and fall back to sleep knowing the source of the sound and its inability to harm. Maybe it is a downstairs neighbor dropping a dish while fumbling for a glass of orange juice in the dark.

The dark should feel like a smooth black envelope, muffled and comforting. The sheets and the pillow should be fresh and white and cool; the blankets heavy in weight, but not too warm at first. A fan should be on, or, better yet, the window should be open and the stars should flicker in and out of sight as the curtains are moved by a light breeze. The space around the bed should be free of flotsam and unnecessary decoration. The room itself must not distract from its use.

If possible, the sleeper should sleep next to someone: a brother or sister, a friend or a lover; someone who will not resent the enjoyment of sleep. A small gust of cool air from the window should find its way to the sleeper's lungs as sleep becomes inevitable and the edges of the sleeper's mind become blurry. As the sleeper inhales, his imagination should fall open and accept all of the wild ideas and desires that have hovered below the surface of wakeful, rational thought all day, allowing the sleeper to fully view their interior.

The sleeper should not wake so early as to feel torn and inhuman, or so late as to need to scramble from bed, guilt-ridden. Morning should come through the diffuse light of the curtain, and the sleeper should lay still for a while, peering from under the covers and reflecting on dreams, before swinging their legs over the side of the bed and re-approaching wakefulness.