You turn the switch off and darkness takes over. All that there was outside disappears. All that is left is you, like a prisoner behind the eyes. Eyes deprived of light. Sensors deprived of signal. Darkness. It’s time to sleep.
Yet, there is something. Noises in the night. They won’t let you sleep… but, wait. They are not from the outside. They are here. Here, in your head. Frantic thoughts are racing in your head. You change position in the weak attempt to push out those unwanted guests.
Just close your eyes. Just let go. Just sleep. Just go.
Where? Where is that you go when consciousness leaves you? It is as if you ceased to exist for a while. You come back, in flashes, in dreams, between one sleep stage and the other. And then? You wake up in the morning and go back to your routine as if nothing happened. As if you didn’t disappear. As if you didn’t vanish into nothingness every night. Who says you are coming back at all? Not that you would realize it, if you didn’t make it back. It is while you are here that you can make a difference. It is while you are here that you can do what matters to you. When you are there, you cannot feel. You cannot see. Not even darkness. It’s ineffable. That nothingness. That void. It isn’t dark. It’s just… No anything. No you.
Who? Who are you anyway? No, not your name, not your job or social status. Who, then? The one hiding behind those eyes, inspecting the night? The same one who was hiding there during your childhood and who could now be a perfect stranger? Or the same one who was hiding there a couple of years back, before even experiencing all that would have come next? Would you identify yourself with any of those personas? You might as well speak of “them” in the third person.
So, what? A side effect of increasing complexity, an unexpected product of evolution, the result of the modification and creation of unique pathways between neurons as your brain and body experience life? Is there really a unitary unchanging self, residing somewhere inside your skull? Or is it a mere illusion born out of hundreds of thousands of years of evolution?
An illusion that ceases to be each night. An illusion that is fading away right now… As you fall asleep. Darkness’s gone. And so is your sense of self. Sleep, child. Sleep.
A blurred orange light knocks at your eyelids, as the senses invade your mind again. You open your eyes and the colours rush in. You made it back once again. You check the time. Seven minutes before the alarm.
What was all that blabbing last night? The birds sing hymns to the new day. The sky gradually turns all shades of blue. And all of a sudden, you cannot help but feel almost overly filled with amazement. As if, from behind those eyes, now bombarded with colours, the universe was experiencing its own magnificence.
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