The Book of Dormia

Dormia is not the goddess of sleep, nor of waking. She governs the hypnagogic threshold — the moment between, when the mind is genuinely uncertain which state it inhabits.

Her followers report that she visits during the fifteen minutes before the alarm goes off, and again during the five minutes after it. She considers both visits equally valid.

She is depicted with one eye open and one eye closed. The Church has debated for generations which eye is which.

1. IThou shalt not shame the snooze. The snooze is theology.
2. IIThou shalt acknowledge that whatever you were thinking about as you fell asleep was probably not as profound as it felt.
3. IIIThou shalt remember: the dreams you remember are the ones that chose to be remembered.
4. IVThou shalt not set more than three alarms. This is not a commandment about productivity. It is a commandment about self-knowledge.

Dormia's gift to the newly arrived is the ability to hold two states simultaneously: the state of knowing you must get up, and the state of not getting up. This, she has said, is the most human of all divine gifts.