Deep Sleep

In the world of form, sleep has a clear function.

During deep sleep, the brain cleans itself. Waste products are flushed away, connections are reorganized, the system resets. Without it, we become foggy, irritable, less clear. Anyone who has slept badly knows this instinctively.

We don’t question things like brushing our teeth, taking a shower, eating, or going to the toilet. Sleep belongs in that same category. It is simply part of taking care of a body.

All necessary maintenance for living in form.

But now let’s pause for a moment and see if we can look at deep sleep a little differently.

What if we allow sleep to become a symbol to use in the light of acim?

A Course in Miracles is not concerned with cleaning the brain.

It is concerned with undoing the mind believing in separation.

The Course shifts our attention away from the mechanics of the brain and toward something more fundamental: the state of the mind that believes it needs constant activity in order to exist.

The ego never truly rests.

Even when the body sleeps, the ego keeps dreaming. It rearranges images, repeats stories, revisits fears and desires. Nighttime dreams are simply daytime thoughts without discipline, without social rules, without logic. They arise from the same belief system.

From the perspective of the Course, the world itself is already a dream.

A more structured one, perhaps, but still a dream.

So what would “deep sleep” mean on the level of the mind?

Not unconsciousness…..not disappearance, but a state in which the constant mental noise begins to quiet.

In deep physical sleep, the brain withdraws from external input. It turns inward, not to think, but to clean. To release what no longer serves the system. No effort is required. No decision-making. The body knows how to do this on its own.

In the same way, the Course points toward moments in which the mind stops interpreting, judging, comparing, defending. Moments in which it no longer tries to manage reality.

Moments of inner rest.

Deep sleep, symbolically, is what happens when the mind is no longer busy proving separation.

During our waking hours, we collect mental “residue.”

Judgments about others. Conclusions about ourselves. Reactions we replay. Stories we keep alive. None of this is sinful or wrong, but it does accumulate. And the mind, like the brain, cannot stay clear without periods of deep rest.

Forgiveness, in the sense the Course uses it, is that rest.

Not effortful forgiveness, not mentally correcting every thought, but the willingness to let the mind sink beneath its surface activity. To stop polishing the self-image….to stop rehearsing the past…to allow thoughts to pass without grabbing them.

This is why the Course so often invites us to not know.

“I do not know what anything is for.”

“I do not know what this means.”

“I am willing to see this differently.”

These are not intellectual statements.

They are invitations into a kind of inner deep sleep.

The ego resists this, because when the mind truly rests, its familiar structures loosen. Identity softens and certainties fade. And just as in deep physical sleep, there is a temporary surrender of control.

But this surrender is not loss, it is restoration.

This is why the Course says we need do nothing.

Not because nothing happens, but because the most important undoing cannot be done by effort.

The Holy Spirit works when the mind is quiet enough to allow Him.

Just as the brain cleans itself when we stop interfering, the mind is gently cleansed when we stop insisting on meaning, judgment, and control.

Perhaps this is why so many people feel exhausted even when they sleep enough. Not physically tired, but mentally worn out. The mind is constantly awake, constantly alert, constantly busy maintaining a sense of self in a world it believes is real.

Deep rest for the mind is rare.

And yet, every moment of willingness, every pause in judgment, every instant of not knowing, is like a brief descent into inner deep sleep.

We may not notice anything dramatic happening.

Just as we are not aware of the brain cleaning itself at night.

But we wake up different.

A little lighter….a little clearer…..a little less convinced by the dream.

And slowly, without effort, without force, the mind begins to recognize that it does not need to stay awake inside the dream in order to be safe.

It can rest.

And in that rest, awakening begins.

With love and light,

G.