Ghost Sleep: Do spirits, angels, guides, ghosts and/or demons sleep; and if not, how do they rest?

Do Spirits Sleep? If Not, How Do They Rest? 

A reader question - 

Question: 

Do spirits, angels, guides, ghosts and/or demons sleep; and if not how do they rest then?

Thanks, Mike

Hi Mike - 

Some would say that it's not necessary for spirits to sleep, others say that there are states of consciousness similar to a coma or dormancy state (or what you would call torpor for hummingbirds) that all spirits go through during their transition process, and others still say that because sleep is related to the physical body's needs for recovery and the fact that spirits lack bodies, there is no sleeping, drinking, or eating at all in the Spirit World. 

I believe the verdict is: it really all depends on the spirit, and what stage of development they're in, as to whether they sleep, what type of sleep it is, how much resting they need, if any at all... as for how we'd classify it as humans. 

If we asked the same question and applied it to earth such as:

Do birds, frogs, lichens, and trees sleep? 

We'd all say, it depends, too! (Pause here: A recent study conducted by Austrian researchers just came out, showing trees resting their branches at night, indicating that they do indeed sleep). 

Despite this, the above answer does really all depend on the type of species we're discussing on earth, and I believe when answering this question, the answer would also be dependent then, on what type of spirit we're discussing, too. 

However, there is a general consensus in the community on these few points: 

- That some deceased enter a period of rest as they transition to the other side like I've discussed here or as Bob Olson has discussed in his article here. 

- Angels are not thought to sleep at all as they're thought to get all their energy from God and the closer you are to the Holy Spirit, apparently, the less physical sleep you need (here's a biblical answeron that from Paul Silway which explains this concept in greater detail). 

- On Demons: the answer is two fold. Some say Demons don't sleep at all because they feed off the energy of the living, similar to the way some earthbound spirits are thought to operate. These are concepts discussed heavily in both Mary Winkowski's book When Ghosts Speak: Understanding the World of Earthbound Spirits, and in Annabel Chaplin's book, The Bright Light of Death. Whereas others say, Demons *can* go into a sort of dormancy until they're called upon, unleashed, or disturbed in some way, not unlike how you see it happen in the movie Fern Gully. 

Now that we've gone over those more spiritual rationales, let's get a bit more scientific to answer this question. 

Both from my observations and from the observations of others, there does seem to be different states of homeostasis in the spirit world, and where the beings seem to operate on a spectrum of various running and at-rest states, not unlike the balance of kinetic energy and potential energy that exists here on earth. 

The reality is that objects generally carry both the potential for running and at rest energy and that an energy at rest tends to stay at rest, whereas an object in motion tends to stay in motion, unless acted upon by some external force, gravity or otherwise. 

Rest and sleep being really about storing energy, or as we might say, has potential energy. 

Being awake or active is really about moving energy, or as we might say, using kinetic energy. 

One is measured by an object's relative mass and its relation to the earth's surface, the other, by the object's rate of speed at any given time and what force acted upon it to get it to move. 

So taking the principles of science, a spirit's time at rest versus its time in motion might really depend on: 

• How large a spirit is in overall mass
• How close the spirit is to the earth's gravitational pull at any given time
• That particular spirit's rate of speed at any given moment
• What force has, is or is not acting upon that spirit that would get it to move

All of these factors in addition to:

• the specific type of spirit, their size, their influence, and their baseline energy resources
• the life stage of the spirit, where they are in the crossing over process, if they go through one
• what the particular specialist you've asked and what they've encountered, noticed and have recorded in their field

Would all go into exactly what answer you'd get for this very interesting and thought-provoking question, and as to whether or not sleep was happening or would ever happen for each specific spiritual being. 

So to end, there are a lot of factors that go into answering this question but I'd say the answer is yes for some, no for others, and maybe for others still.

Though... I do think there is some form of rest that exists for each group andby looking at the energy at rest versus the energy at-motion for each particular "species" and its environment, this would certainly help in determining the more specific answers to this particularly complex question across the spirit groupings.