Philosophers have largely ignored sleep, treating it as a useless negativity, me
re repose for the body or at best a source for the production of unconscious sig
ns out of the night of the soul.In an extraordinary theoretical investigation wr
itten with lyric intensity, The Fall of Sleep puts an end to this neglect by pro
viding a deft yet rigorous philosophy of sleep. What does it mean to fallasleep?
Might there exist something like a reasonof sleep, a reason at work in its own
form or modality, a modality of being in oneself, of return to oneself, without
the waking selfthat distinguishes Ifrom youand from the world? What reason might
exist in that absence of ego, appearance, and intention, in an abandon thanks t
o which one is emptied out into a non-place shared by everyone?Sleep attests to
something like an equality of all that exists in the rhythm of the world.
