This excerpt from a meditation on sleeping is written by Verlyn Klinkenborg for the New York Times — Aboard the Sleeper:

A load of sleeping commuters is one of those scenes that make you stop short and marvel at the strangeness of humans. How is it that we plunge headlong into unconsciousness even with the lights staring down at us, the air-conditioning rushing, the wheels clattering, the conductor calling out the stations? Sleep is not only a blessing. It’s also a wonderful joke, a truly sportive adaptation. I look around, watching bold chins receding, the appearance of every intention giving way to the haplessness, the aimlessness of sleep. Composure becomes discomposure. The avowed sincerity of wakefulness becomes the far greater sincerity of slumber. And then I, too, drift away, caught in the undertow, forgetful of the rain-streaked windows and the dark world outside.