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The naturally recurring (especially nightly) condition of repose and inactivity in which consciousness and response to external stimuli are largely suspended. Sleep is understood in terms of the heart, kidney, and provisioning and defense. A healthy person under normal circumstances is alert in the daytime and has undisturbed sleep at night. In the daytime, defense qì moves in the yáng channels, the heart and kidney work together, and essence-spirit is vigorous. At night, defense qì enters the yīn channels, the heart spirit returns to its abode and the kidney mind (see mind) becomes calm. See ethereal soul. Disturbances of sleep primarily include insomnia, reduced sleeping time, hypersomnia, which is the ability to sleep night and day and to fall asleep quickly and return to sleep after waking, and drowsiness after eating, which is the tendency to sleep after meals. Excessive or confused dreaming, called profuse dreaming attends some forms of insomnia. Somnolence with clouded spirit is called clouding sleep, observed in heat entering the pericardium. Other sleep-related conditions include profuse urination at night, enuresis, seminal emission, dream emission, and grinding of the teeth. Sleeping with the head in poor posture may cause crick in the neck. Excessive snoring may indicate nasal polyp.

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