Lennon and Sleep

I suppose this is all pretty obvious, but what the hell...

Sleep was a continuing theme in John Lennon's work -- he devoted three Beatles songs to it ("I'm Only Sleeping", "I'm So Tired", "Goodnight"). It seems to respresent peace, relief, refuge from life's worries. Lennon clearly had a very active mind, and I would venture to guess that he was one of those people whose mind won't let them alone... probably spent a lot of time listening to his inner demons, stuck in cycles of anger, fear, need. So he probably placed great value on the ability to "turn off your mind, relax and float downstream" (OK, that lyric isn't specifically about sleep, but still...). "I'm Only Sleeping" states most clearly his view of sleep as nirvana. "I'm So Tired" is the opposite side of the coin -- he's so obsessed by need that he can't even find relief in sleep. "Goodnight" seems to present sleep as an opportunity to return to the innocence of childhood.

(Given all this, it seems a little incongruous that he was so into acid, which certainly doesn't "turn off" one's mind. However, acid creates such a sensory overload that it's virtually impossible to think coherently about any one topic for more than about 30 seconds, so that may have had medicinal value for him... cutting off those long circular trains of negative thought.)

cj
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