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Do you think sheep count people jumping over a house or gate whenever they (the sheep) can't sleep? It would make sense you know. The sheep in their turn will be imagining people jumping over the barrier within which they are often held… Then again, people are not the captives of sheep, and too, they are hardly ever restricted by houses or fences, at least from the sheep's perspective.
The way I see it, people count sheep jumping over fences because in that transitional stage between consciousness and unconsciousness, the forces of the conscience are most powerful. Man, therefore, has his most overpowering feelings of culpability, remorse and justice at this time. In this state of limbo, he is thus compelled to make things right. He knows that those sheep are wrongfully imprisoned, and he is the captor.
(It is here important to note that the terms "man", "he" et al, are, for the purposes of this disclosure, used as generic terms, encompassing all mankind and other creatures that count sheep jumping over a fence)
Think for a moment and the entire symbolism of the thing makes itself known. The sheep are man's captives, wrongfully and forcefully so, but his captives all the same. Feeling guilty and sorry over being their tormentor and eventual executioner, a fact that is by no means hidden from the guiltless sheep, man attempts to reconcile his atrocities. These atrocities are symbolised by the fence. The sheep always have to get over something, in other words they must overcome their adversity, symbolized by their barrier, the fence. Since the sheep are often penned or fenced in, the fence is, naturally, the symbol of evils committed.
So here we have countless innocent sheep and the fence, which is the embodiment of all the barbaric persecutions they have had to suffer. Now you
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