Page:The reflections of Lichtenberg.djvu/99

 a dream about some third person, and then, when one awakes, of finding that that supposed third party is the very man with whom one had been conversing. Is it perhaps merely the form awaking gives; or what is the reason? As in dreams we so often take objections of our own for those of another (as for instance in a dispute with someone), it surprises me that the same does not often occur when we are awake. The state of being awake, then, would seem to consist principally in this, that we then draw a sharp and proper distinction between what attaches to ourselves and what to others. How is it that we cannot accustom ourselves to go without sleep? Seeing that the most important functions of life go on uninterruptedly, and that the organs whereby they are executed never rest or sleep, as in the case of the heart, the entrails, and the lymphatic vessels ; considering this, I say, one would think there were no necessity for our sleeping at all. Those organs, then, of which the soul as such stands most in need in its functions, are interrupted in their activity. I should much like to know whether sleep has ever been considered in this light. Why do we sleep? Sleep seems to me to be more a resting of the organs of thought than anything else. If a person were physically not to exhaust himself in the least, but to do his business only in consulting his utmost comfort, he would ultimately grow sleepy all the same. This at least is a manifest indication that