Summary

Diski begins this essay by questioning why anyone would willingly put themselves into the state of unconsciousness that sleep is. On top of the dangers of this unconsciousness, she adds the unpleasant nature of waking up to her reasons as to why it is not natural that people would want to sleep if they had the option not to. After this, however, she says that she would see sleep as a negative if it had not always been her activity of choice. It is not the actual act of sleeping that she enjoys as she claims she is not present for that and can only know it in anticipation or in retrospect. Rather it is the moment in between waking and sleeping that she seeks, the condition of hypnagogia. She explains how, as a child, she would purposefully try...