Abstract

The essay starts from a state that is typical of philosophizing—namely an attentive consciousness—and from there finds its way towards ‘threshold experiences’ in human consciousness. From sleep as contrasting consciousness when being awake, the considerations lead to the transition of falling asleep as a threshold between these two modes of consciousness. This in turn leads to different forms of tiredness, which also constitutes a threshold experience. The essay focusses on a gradually changing worldview in tiredness. In its final step, the essay outlines threshold experiences on the representational level and interprets the physical threshold as entanglement of the concrete and the metaphorical.