- There are two gates of Sleep: the one is said
- to be of horn, through it an easy exit
- is given to true Shades; the other is made
- of polished ivory, perfect glittering,
- but through that way the Spirits send false dreams
- into the world above.
It was written that man in his sleep, in his deep sleep, would meet his innermost part and would reside in the Atman.
It takes the average human seven minutes to go to sleep, but according to Hand's Human Physiology, it takes the same average human fifteen to twenty minutes to wake up. It is as if sleep is a pool from which emerging is more difficult than entering. When the sleeper wakes, he or she comes up by degrees, from deep sleep to light sleep to what is sometimes called "waking sleep," a state in which the sleeper can hear sounds and will even respond to questions without being aware of it later ... except perhaps as fragments of dreams.
In sleep the soul left the body and went to the country of dreams, where all was illusion and folly, and sometimes ... truth.
Sleep this night is not a dark haunted domain the mind must consciously set itself to invade, but a cave inside himself, into which he shrinks while the claws of the bear rattle like rain outside.
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