“We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep.”
Incessant mental activity is a form of sedation, and so is repetitive emotional projection—not merely addiction to pharmaceuticals or intoxicants, or to sexual obsession. This includes, also, self-limiting, deeply-engrained habits of perception. Each of these is a form of sleep.
We sedate ourselves so as to not be present to the moment and to the causal tendencies that rule our mechanical lives.