Which translates as "sleep is the image of death." It's a medieval commonplace: God has blessed us with sleep in order to prepare us for the long sleep of death. A daily premonitory death.
I can't buy the theology. However, I believe that there's genuine truth to somnus imago mortis.
I'm a bad sleeper, a tosser and turner. A person who's likely to read fifty pages of a novel or watch a few innings of pre-recorded baseball between 2am and 3am. Even when I sleep I rarely fall into that deep trance-like state that I remember from my childhood. I'm in a dream state or I'm far too aware of my body, my surroundings, my worries.
But a few years ago, when I had the surgery, I was thoroughly anaesthetized into a dead sleep. Nothing happened between the administration of the drug and the moment I awakened: no dreams, no thoughts, no awareness. Nothing. I went away and I came back, but from nowhere.
Let me tell you what happened when I returned to consciousness. I thought "wow, if that is what death is going to be like, then it's not so bad. It's nothing to worry about, nothing at all to fear."
And I've held on to that insight. Perhaps ordinary somnus isn't the image of death, but drugged sleep is unquestionably a state of being that gives real rational secular practical meaning to ancient wisdom.
Leave a Reply