But there is a moment upon falling asleep that “all of a sudden I’m terrified by what I’m doing. And I tell myself: 'You're crazy to write this! You're crazy to attack such a thing! You're crazy to criticize such and such a person! You're crazy to contest such an authority, be it textual, institutional or personal. And there is a kind of panic in my subconsciousness (...) In this half sleep I have the impression I've done something criminal, disgraceful, unavowable, that I shouldn't have done. And somebody is telling me: 'But you're mad to have done that!(...) Stop everything! Take it back! Burn your papers! What you're doing is inadmissible.'"
Once he wakes up though, this fear is over. Derrida concludes: “When I'm awake, conscious, working, in a certain way I am more unconscious than in my half sleep.”