In order to give a perfectly concrete turn to the process of learning to which we must subject ourselves, nothing is more instructive than to meditate on the first and the most elementary of these three forms of death, the art of lending ourselves to sleep.

…“to sleep is to let things go”.  Man let’s go his usual mental experience for the sake of an interest of prime importance: that of recuperating in depth, of allowing God to restore him.

….  Like Jesus sleeping in the middle of the storm, sleep expresses a perfect trust in God who “neither slumbers nor sleeps” (Psalm 121) and who takes care of us all the more sense we let him do so.  That is why the Lord makes the harvest of the just man grow, instructs Joseph about his secret wishes during his sleep, suggests a totally dedramatized image of death for the death of the just (“the girl is not dead but sleeping”—Matthew 9:24, the same for Lazarus).  But one must go further.  The effort which the one seeking sleep must make when he does not easily drop off to sleep, in contrast with the happy mortal of the psalm who “lies down and sleeps” right away, is a typical example.  It is, as it were, the model of full spiritual effort. –Father Andrew Doze “Saint Joseph Shadow of the Father”