The Sleep-Lust Parabasis

Dagwood's effrontery to "work" and its participle "product" (mown lawn) suggest an alternative to the vilification of sleep-lust as "play."

Whether or not we are willing to openly admit it, sleep becomes social capital the second we hit high school. The structure of social functions allows for braggadocio surrounding both the limitation and the indulgence of sleep. Whereas sleep on the one hand is a sign of bourgeois privilege and laziness it is alternatively a symbol of class struggle and rebellion. Sleep is both the limiting liminal structure of economic hierarchy and the means by which such a hierarchy is in theory attacked. To understand the paradox I am attempting to illuminate, consider that it is appropriate to bemoan the lack of sleep one gets at night whilst crediting one’s ability to sleep through lectures, meetings, etc. To this end, the yawn is in itself totemic of both ends of scapegoating structures in a cyclical sense. A yawn is challenge during the day, surrender during the night.

To the individual existing without the collective boundaries of hegemonic sleep social customs, sleep is still an object of desire made taboo by repetition of the cultural construction of “sloth”; the realization of communal fear concerning what the indulgence of sleep-lust may cost the continuity of human relations. In this animated opposition of good and bad, the holy office belongs to "work"—-not intended in the scientific sense—-but as a whole; itself attached to some ethereal notion of "product" that will only come about through an oblique exertion. Although this "product" may at times be represented in something expressly palpable (such as a mown lawn), the existence of the “product” is entirely arbitrary in that any perceived advantages of its advent demand to be immediately forgotten in lieu of the establishment of a new and more demanding “product.” Should any “product” bring with it the actual promised satisfaction its presence claims the aforementioned satisfaction would prove conclusive the core lubricious nature of “work.” In this scenario—-admittedly impossible—-understanding of “sloth” would be put into question, our damning of sleep-lust with it.

Therefore, the position of sleep in our waking subconscious understanding reflects the complexity of our physical actions in sleep. Our maneuvering with sleep in conscious hours sculpts our feelings towards ourselves in our sleeping moments. Traditional dream analysis fails to comprehend how our collective attitude towards sleep must be understood in order to approximate any psychological claims on our dreams, themselves property of our sleep-lust. The most telling evidence of this relationship is our intriguing and indulgent habit of physically acting out the dealings of our waking moments in sleep. To this end, if you throw food-lust into the mix, you are served one of the more compelling and complicit phenomena one can hope to examine.