oil on canvas, 60x80 cm

About the painting

Sleep is a mysterious, almost sacred phenomenon of human existence. It is simultaneously mundane and enigmatic, familiar and incomprehensible. From a philosophical and psychological perspective, sleep opens the door for a person into another dimension of consciousness—a space where the boundaries between the real and the imaginary are blurred, and where the individual can come into contact with the depths of the psyche and, perhaps, with something greater than themselves.

From the standpoint of mysticism and ancient traditions, sleep is not merely rest for the body but a way of touching the One, of contacting a transcendent reality that exists beyond ordinary perception. In dreams, one encounters archetypes, symbols, and images that have no direct explanation within waking logic. Jung called such dreams "collective dreams"—a space where individual consciousness touches the universal psyche of humanity. Sleep becomes a mirror in which not only personal history is reflected, but also a multitude of experiences—the experience of the world itself.

In the state of sleep, a person becomes simultaneously a witness and a participant in events existing in another dimension, where time stretches, space transforms, and consciousness gains freedom from habitual limitations. Through such experiences, the possibility of spiritual experience opens up—a feeling of unity with one's surroundings, with nature, with the universe.

The mystical side of sleep remains inaccessible to complete rational explanation. Sleep is simultaneously a physiological necessity and a portal into the unknown, a bridge to another reality that the human mind can only partially comprehend.

By entering sleep, we find ourselves on a threshold—between the self and the non-self, between the material and the immaterial, between ordinary life and something eternal, unexplored. In this state, consciousness changes: it is simultaneously acute and vague, aware and free. Here, symbols, images, and archetypes begin to speak—things that cannot be contained within familiar logical frameworks.

The mystical quality of sleep reveals itself in the fact that here one can feel oneself to be part of the One. In those half-dream moments, we sense how the personal "I" dissolves, how the accustomed boundary between the inner and outer world disappears. Dreams sometimes seem like revelations: strange, inexplicable, they leave in the heart a feeling of depth and fullness of being that cannot be achieved in the waking state. Sometimes this feeling arrives as quiet knowledge, other times as an emotional explosion, awakening wonder, awe, or fear.

The depths of sleep are a mystery: the awareness of one's own multidimensionality, an encounter with inner worlds, a journey into a space where the boundaries between self and the world dissolve.