Are you afraid of going to sleep? Have you ever been afraid of going to sleep?

For most people the answer is an unequivocal no! Most of us love to sleep. The problem is getting enough of it it, not avoiding it.

For some people though there is a fear of sleep, and that fear is usually closely related to a fear of death and the worry that they will die while they are sleeping.

The association of sleep and death is as old as history. In Greek mythology sleep and death were quite literally brothers, Hypnos and Thanatos. They were the offspring of Nyx and Erebus, night and darkness.

The association of sleep, and death continues through popular culture.

So are they the same or similar? Deep sleep is a loss of conscious awareness. You are still alive but no longer self aware. If you believe that the “I” is self aware consciousness then they are very similar.

The science of consciousness is a growing field of study and sleep study plays a large part of that. What is known is that there is significant brain activity during deep sleep. What is also known is that decisions are made at an unconscious level before you think you’ve decided. This can be studied and demonstrated with the monitoring of brain activity. The self aware “I” doesn’t make decisions, it rationalizes and verbalized them.

So there is a deeper “I” beneath self aware consciousness. In that sense sleep and death are very different, but if the fear of death is a fear of losing the conscious self, they are related, mythology is right to name them as brothers or cousins.

For some this will make sleep troublesome, but for others it is a path to losing their fear of death. Why be afraid of a big sleep.

Near death experience of The Big Sleep – The Independent