What is the connection between sleeping and dying?
This subject is a little iffy, if you know what I mean. Some come to think of death as a deep sleep awaiting the after life. Now I wonder how did this idea come about? Was it the disney story of 'Sleeping Beauty' or was it a way for the loved ones to let go? In 'Sleeping Beauty' her deep sleep is a current state of "death" if you may until she awaits her prince to share true love's first kiss. If you think about it this way it can be said as if Sleeping Beauty was awaiting her new life, previous to the one she was in, escaping her old reality. With a religous stand point the family is easier to cope with the lose of a loved one when they know of a later life and their loved one's body is in a 'deep sleep' til the end of days to later reunite and live for the eternities. One of the innocent connections is when describing a tradgic loss to a little child the adult says, "Mommy is sleeping". This helps the innocent child but what happens when they realize their definition of sleeping doesn't match the description of what mommy is really doing, "when is mommy going to wake up"? Sleeping is another way of telling that someone has died in a nice way that may be a lessor blow to the heart than hearing the word Death!
I like what you wrote. This question really makes me uncomfortable, you were able to put a lot more thought into then I was.
ReplyDeleteI think your comments were very well written. I especially like you comment on how we try to find ways to make something complicated easier and less painful. Although with you last example of sleeping mummy and death, we sometimes make it more complicated. Thanks for the interesting perspective.
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