The first two levels of self-awareness are the ones that are most often forgotten about. I mean, how could we forget that we’re sitting in a room while we’re getting undressed? We think about it and repeat it to ourselves until we start to believe it.
The next level is the level of self-awareness that I’m referring to. I mean, if I get tired of worrying about how I’m going to get ready for the party, I’ll start to worry about how I’m going to get ready for the party.
Like when we’re on autopilot, when we’re just sitting there thinking about what to do, we don’t notice that we’re just sitting there.
As we learned in the last article, we have a tendency to think we have a good idea of how we’re going to get ready in the morning, but it’s only because we think we have a good idea of how we’re going to get ready in the morning. Or at least that’s what it seems like at first.
The problem is that the first time you have an idea of what you are going to do in the morning, you don’t realize what you have actually done in the night. You think you have been doing the same thing all along, but when you step out of bed and realize that you are already doing something different, you are like a zombie. You can’t even remember what you were actually doing, so it’s like you’re just a dead thing.
I used to joke that I was a zombie of sleep. At least I thought I was. There were days I would get up in the middle of the night with no memory of what I was doing, but then I would think, “well, I’m still a zombie.” Now when I wake up, I think I’ve started something else.
The problem with being a zombie is that you are bound to eventually wake up and realize that you are not a zombie. As a result, it is very difficult to remain conscious of what you are doing, and your actions are often far from coherent. This is often the case with sleepwalking, because as soon as you go to sleep, you have no idea what you are doing.
The problem with sleepwalking is that you have no memory of what you were doing in the midst of sleep, and it is impossible to tell when you wake up from the lack of memory. This leaves you vulnerable to things like a booby trap that is meant to kill you, but instead has the effect of making you feel as if you are falling asleep and not waking up. In other words, you are still asleep but you are not asleep, so you are not really dead.
A couple years ago when I was a college student, I was on a sleep-in at my dorm. As I was waiting for my roommate to wake up, I was wondering what I should do. I had no idea what my roommate was doing, but I knew something was wrong. I just didn’t know what. I just had no idea. Finally I got up and walked out into the hall and I saw him walking.
The reason I walked is that I was thinking of my roommate. I was thinking of what he would do if I did the following, but I couldnt remember what I was thinking about. So I walked to the door and went in the corridor and there he was. He had no idea I was there. I went in and started looking around. That was the first thing I thought of. It was obvious I was looking for a man, but I was also thinking of someone.
