the white, neutral awakening:
This suspended-time (=a definition of the Neutral as such): like an airlock, not perhaps between two worlds (dream≠awake) but between two bodies.
In reality, this neutral awakening-precious, rare, fragile, brief- relates back to the substance of sleep: it is like a readable (perceptible, verbalizable) version of utopian sleep. Indeed, the aporia of sleep= anticipated, fantasized as a happy state: implies a divided consciousness cut off from speech. In that, we will call it utopian sleep, or utopia of sleep, since we can’t speak of it except as a fantasy: sleep that can only be inferred from some privileged awakenings, so fragile that they are heart-rendering.
The utopia of sleep is dreamless.
THE NEUTRAL ROLAND BARTHES COLUMBIA UNIV PRESS NEW YORK 2005
