Hypnos?

[wormgiy]

Hello all.For the last 2 years or so I have been drawn to Hypnos  the greek god of sleep.For some reason everything I have researched about him has drawn me more to him.Of what I have researched and learned there is not to much about him,and im not sure if he really is out there or if there is another god or goddess of the same nature,like of sleep I guess.Does anyone know more about him?

[Waldhexe]

Hello all.For the last 2 years or so I have been drawn to Hypnos  the greek god of sleep.For some reason everything I have researched about him has drawn me more to him.Of what I have researched and learned there is not to much about him,and im not sure if he really is out there or if there is another god or goddess of the same nature,like of sleep I guess.Does anyone know more about him?

At the moment I'm reading the Sandman comic series by Neil Gaiman. It centers about a deity called the "dream lord" which is partially inspired by Hypnos, but Gaiman mixes lots of mythological stuff together, so it's a good read, but not accurate.

[Eastling]

Hello all.For the last 2 years or so I have been drawn to Hypnos  the greek god of sleep.For some reason everything I have researched about him has drawn me more to him.Of what I have researched and learned there is not to much about him,and im not sure if he really is out there or if there is another god or goddess of the same nature,like of sleep I guess.Does anyone know more about him?

You're correct that there isn't a lot out there about Hypnos compared to many other Theoi. This is common for abstract personifications in Greek myth and lore; most of them were developed as deities relatively late and to a lesser extent than the other Powers around them. That doesn't mean they aren't "really out there" any more than any Power.

The Orphic Hymns, however, do contain a hymn to Hypnos--the third-to-last in the collection, followed by Oneiros and Thanatos, related personifications. From that you can draw the conclusion that he was pretty tightly connected to his brothers (all sons of Nyx alone, with no father, according to Hesiod). In particular, Hypnos and Thanatos were seen as twins, one auspicious and one ominous: gentle Sleep and hated Death.

If you haven't already, you might want to have a look at his page on Theoi.com. It might also be worthwhile to investigate the Hellenic concept of the daimon or spirit in general, as personifications like Hypnos were often seen as closer to that category than to godhood.

[Hariti]

The Orphic Hymns, however, do contain a hymn to Hypnos--the third-to-last in the collection, followed by Oneiros and Thanatos, related personifications. From that you can draw the conclusion that he was pretty tightly connected to his brothers (all sons of Nyx alone, with no father, according to Hesiod). In particular, Hypnos and Thanatos were seen as twins, one auspicious and one ominous: gentle Sleep and hated Death.

Nyx and her children are fascinating beings in Greek mythology. They are treated differently from the children of her sister Gaea (the titans and Olympians) presumable because they were different in their nature and in the role they played in the cosmos.

They were very much fearful, othered beings who were rarely worshipped, and almost all of them were personifications of negative, or at least liminal, conceps and powers.

Nyx is interesting because, like Gaea, she's one of the few primordial deities, born of Chaos, to actually play an important role in mythology. Erebus and Tartarus exist primarily to sire children with the primordial Godesses, but don't play a major role themselves. Eros's status as a primordial God is contested, but if he was one, he was treated much more like the "normal" Olympians and Titans than his siblings were, consorting with them rather than being remote and removed.

Gaia and Nyx both sired quite a few important children, and both play background roles in mythology, but those roles and children are different from one another. The children of Gaea are in the spotlight and forefront of human religion, the children of Nyx lurk in the shadowy background and pull the strings of several important universal concepts and processes.