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Sleep between science and language
Hossam Badrawi and his fairy girlfriend
This is a dialogue with my friend, an angel from heaven who was made by my imagination in the form of a fairy, about sleep. And I imagined this friendly genie, intelligent, shrewd, light-hearted, knowledgeable about things and language, knowing what souls hide, possessing insinuations and insinuations, and explaining language with stories and anecdotes.
I said to her: I will talk to you about knowledge and you will talk to me about sleep and what is around it. You are my visitor in it sometimes and in my wake. She said: Come let us dive into the conditions of sleep, surround it and its conditions, and I am at your command in explaining and its types.
I said: Sleep is a natural state of relaxation for living beings, during which voluntary movements and feelings of what is happening around them decrease.
Sleep is a change in the state of consciousness, not a loss of it, as in the case of anesthesia or coma. It is a natural phenomenon to reorganize brain activity and other vital activities in living organisms, and humans cannot live without sleep. We spend about a third of our lives asleep, and during sleep many complex activities occur at the level of the brain and the body in general. Some vital functions are more active during sleep, and in the language of the mobile phone invented by man, as if it is a stage that the human body needs to charge its batteries and energies, during which some functions are downloaded and digital programs are renewed in the brain, liver, tissues, cells, and so on.
My friend said: In the Arabic language and without the details of science, the stages of sleep that we know are recumbent, lying down, drowsy, lethargic, groaning, narcolepsy, falling asleep, groaning, crying, and hibernation.
I smiled and said to her: So the scientific division of sleep is easier than language!!!.
She said: Increase my knowledge of science, and I will guide you to the meanings of language in sleep.
I said: Sleep is regulated in specific areas of the brain and under the influence of hormones such as melatonin, which originate in the pituitary gland [hypothalamus], which is the area that regulates sleep time. Based on studies conducted on brain waves during sleep, sleep has been divided into three stages, and its appearance to the learner is rapid and non-rapid eye movement during sleep, with a study of brain electricity.
She said: What does that mean?
I said: The first stage of sleep is during which the eye movement is not rapid, and after that the stage of rapid movement, and the cycles follow during sleep. Each stage takes 5 to 15 minutes before entering the third stage sleep, which lasts about 10 minutes and sometimes extends to an hour. In the first stage, the first yawning and sleeping stage, the eyes are closed, but it is easy to wake up from them. In the second stage, which is the stage of light sleep, in which the level of awareness of external events decreases, the number of heartbeats decreases, and the body prepares for deep sleep, and in the third stage, the sleep is deep and difficult to wake up from. At this stage, the body repairs itself, new cells, tissues and muscles grow, and the body’s immune resources improve. Children spend 50% of their sleep at this stage. This cycle, which lasts about 90 minutes, is repeated throughout the sleep period that the body needs to reprogram itself, grow, and repair any damage that occurred in it. The depth of sleep is affected by the degree of lighting and noise. For it to be healthy for the brain, it must take place in the darkness of the night, not in the light of day, and in silence that does not awaken the brain and senses.
She said: And when do dreams happen?
I said: Dreams only take several minutes out of every 90 minutes, after which a new cycle of stages begins. Dreams are a clear application of Einstein’s theory of relativity of time. The time of dreams has nothing to do with the time of the awakened, so what we believe to be hours may be seconds, and the mind is capable of transcending time, linking the past with the present, retrieving and deducing events with those whom God has passed away, and moving to any place in the universe..during sleep everything is possible..
She said: How many hours do we need for healthy sleep?
I said: The period that an individual needs to sleep varies from one person to another, and it may be a period of 8 hours as an average for the necessary sleep period per day. Research says that lack of sleep may lead to an increase in the incidence of some diseases such as high blood pressure, heart attack and cancer. There is a high probability that immunity will decrease in general when people do not sleep. The need for children to sleep longer hours has a scientific logic for their need for growth, and the need for older people to sleep fewer hours also becomes logical.
Some people, especially after physical and mental exhaustion, go through a night or two with a long sleep that extends for longer hours. This is not a disease, but rather a recovery of lost energy and sometimes an escape from facing life situations in health, until the mind reaches a greater understanding of them. Sleep here is part of the mind’s strategy to reactivate, and in computer parlance, “rebooting”.
She said: You have increased my knowledge and knowledge of the language of scholars. Of course, the scholars of the Arabic language did not have the scientific means that make them look at sleep in your view, but they named the stages of sleep as they observed and described it. Since I speak of language, my speech with you will be full of poetic allusions and allusions, and rhyming balances, so bear with me as you listen to me.
I said: Bring what you have, O writer, poet, or fairy
She said: I remind you of the description of sleep and its types, not its stages and causes: falling asleep, lying down, drowsiness, somnolence, groaning, narcolepsy, falling asleep, fantasizing, crying, and hibernation.
Dormancy in the language is to resort to the dormitory, that is, the bedroom to sleep. And its best time is the beginning of the night. And the mention of remission came in the Holy Qur’an, “They used to sleep a little during the night.” Adh-Dhariyat (17). As for lying down, it means lying down on one side with support on the palm, elbow, forearm, or the whole arm. In short, it is said in the Egyptian colloquial language that the person lying down is “kneeling.”
As for sleepiness, its origin is sleepiness, that is, his senses became dulled, and he was close to sleep. Among them is sleepy luck, any less. Among them, the market fell asleep, that is, it stagnated and its goods were sold out. Drowsiness is characterized by calmness, apathy, heaviness in the eyelids, and lack of focus on what is heard, said, or happening. Drowsiness is mentioned twice in the Holy Qur’an: And to bind your hearts and make your feet firm with it” (Al-Anfal). And in Surah Al-Imran, he says, “Then, after grief, He sent down upon you security and drowsiness that covered a party of you.”
As for Al-Wasn, it is the same drowsiness, but it is a simple nap and attention. They are repeated in a succession of delicious laziness. And it is said: “and the person’s age,” that is, he took a short nap. And in the Holy Qur’an in the description of God Almighty: “Neither sleep nor sleep overtake him” (Al-Baqara)
The meaning is clear. It is said: The eyes that have poplars at their tip, and the eyelids that have a tooth at their tip.
I said: Say it too..
She said: By God, I would not say any of this except as a means of communicating with you, my human friend. She added: Al-Tarneeq is to extend the gaze far in Sirhan and then return to full awakening in short and fast sequences, while the person is neither asleep nor awake. There are many examples of it in the language, including the bird’s chirping: that is, it stood still in the sky, spreading and spreading its wings, neither going flying nor falling downward. Narcolepsy is a linguistically carved word from the words “snooze” and “awakening”. It is the stage in which a person closes his eyes and looks like he is sleeping, but in reality he remains aware of the senses of hearing and touch. Narcolepsy may follow sleep, or full wakefulness may follow
And the fairy continued, saying: As for lulling, it is the onset of sleep prior to crying, as a result of the monotony of rocking or rocking, as happens during travel in a train or car, or lulling a child to sleep.
Then comes recumbency and its linguistic root from the verb raqad with various meanings, the most common of which is that a person lies down and stretches on the bed in preparation for sleep or rest, and the repose was mentioned in Surat Ahl al-Kahf: “And you think that they are awake while they are asleep.” Sometimes the slumber of a people is the result of the ruling system, when the minds are shackled, so the aspirations fade, the ideas deplete, the lack of creativity, and the competencies flee. And the homeland becomes a resting place.
I said: O fairy, you are also a politician!!
She gave me a smile and continued: It is called sleep as well because it is repeated more than once in the same night in a sequential sequence with (sabbath). The receptacle is the receptacle of dreams, illusions, inspirations, visions, suggestive thoughts, connection to the spirit, feeling at a distance, and nightmares. And it came in the poem “The Ruins”: “A wakefulness overthrew the dreams of the stream, and the night took over, and the night is a friend.”
I said to her: You have enlightened me with meanings, descriptions, and the inclusion of art, politics, and history in explaining words.
And to meet.
The attached picture is the Sleeping Beauty painting by Victor Gelber, 1980.
