On Sleep And Sleeplessness   

puffed up and subsiding in the part which is in them analogous [to the

region of the heart in sanguineous animals]. This is clearly

observable in the holoptera [insects with undivided wings] as wasps

and bees; also in flies and such creatures. And since to move

anything, or do anything, is impossible without strength, and

holding the breath produces strength-in creatures which inhale, the

holding of that breath which comes from without, but, in creatures

which do not respire, of that which is connatural (which explains

why winged insects of the class holoptera, when they move, are

perceived to make a humming noise, due to the friction of the

connatural spirit colliding with the diaphragm); and since movement

is, in every animal, attended with some sense-perception, either

internal or external, in the primary organ of sense, [we conclude]

accordingly that if sleeping and waking are affections of this

organ, the place in which, or the organ in which, sleep and waking

originate, is self-evident [being that in which movement and

sense-perception originate, viz. the heart].

Some persons move in their sleep, and perform many acts like

waking acts, but not without a phantasm or an exercise of

sense-perception; for a dream is in a certain way a

sense-impression. But of them we have to speak later on. Why it is

that persons when aroused remember their dreams, but do not remember

these acts which are like waking acts, has been already explained in

the work 'Of Problems'.



3



The point for consideration next in order to the preceding

is:-What are the processes in which the affection of waking and

sleeping originates, and whence do they arise? Now, since it is when

it has sense-perception that an animal must first take food and

receive growth, and in all cases food in its ultimate form is, in