While reading both A Wild Sheep Chase and Metamorphosis, the daily task of sleep was described as far from mundane.
In Metamorphosis, Kafka opens the book by waking up. And sleep is continually described as an all-consuming not so peaceful task. At the start of Chapter 2 Kafka writes " Only as dusk was falling did Gregor wake from his heavy, faintlike sleep". This reminded me of how Boku had endured instant fatigue when entering 'the other side'. On top of the mountain, secluded and abandoned, Boku experiences insatiable drowsiness. And it is almost as though he cannot resist sleep. Every time it comes knocking on his door, he does not drift but rather blacks out.
Sleep is a complex task, and don't get me started on dreams -- even science struggles to comprehend those. Everyone has a complex interpersonal relationship with sleep. Some are insomniacs, some are light sleepers, and some are diligent sleep olympians. But in the context of these two authors and books, I understood sleep, struggling to wake up, and hesitance to get out of bed as both ideological metaphors and depressive byproducts. For the ideology of "waking up" as Zizek mentions in "A Pervert's Guide to Ideology" is to see beyond what the world is marketing to you; for example, seeing a Sandals Resort billboard and knowing it means "REPRODUCE" (example from They Live). So when Gregor wakes, he is misunderstood by his family and has no desire to be at work. Yes, he is a bug, but maybe he just woke up burdened by society's ideology; existential dread dawns upon his route life. Thus, the dread becomes depressive, he does not leave his room nor care to be understood and stays in bed for a while struggling to deal with how he has awoken.
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