I must admit that this had a certain personal relevance. Twice I've smashed my car up (fortunately not hurting anyone except myself - and that mainly my pride) and both times it was after a few days with very little sleep. But that was many years ago, and hopefully I've learned my lesson. 

Yesterday’s Report on Motoring 2001 from the RAC says that Scottish drivers are the worst in the UK for falling asleep behind the wheel, with nearly one in five of those interviewed admitting to having dozed off while driving in the previous twelve months.

Now I’m not sure what can be inferred from this, apart from the fact that we don’t get enough sleep at other times. Do we not like sleeping I wonder? Are we afraid to close our eyes at night for fear of our dreams, or just afraid that we might not wake up?

For obvious reasons we see sleep as a little death, and like to think of death as the Big Sleep. Check out the tombstones in the graveyard for the number that are ‘only sleeping’. Yet one we tend to look upon with fear, and the other one most people welcome. How strange is that?

When we are conscious we are happy to go to dreamland for a while, as long as we know we are coming back to what we like to think of as reality. But the Prophet’s Companions said we should always go to bed at night knowing that we might not see the morning.

And always remember the Yellow Emperor, who dreamed he was a butterfly, who landed on a flower and fell asleep and dreamed he was a man. After which he was never sure if he was a man dreaming that he was a butterfly, or whether he was a butterfly dreaming that he was a man.

Qur’an says “God takes the souls at the time of their death, and He takes that which has not died, in its sleep; He keeps that against which He has decreed death, but releases the other until a stated term. Surely in that are signs for a people who reflect”.

Waking or sleeping, we are part of a greater life.

“God - there is no god but He, the Living, the Self-Sustaining. He is not subject to drowsiness or sleep; Everything in the heavens and the earth belongs to Him”.

“It is He who takes you back to Himself by night, and He knows what you work by day: then He wakes you up, that a stated time may be fulfilled; then to Him you shall return, then He will inform you of what you have been doing”.