Among the many fascinating issues in Heraclitus’ discourse, this paper focuses on two: the predominance of the theme of wakefulness in contrast to “those asleep,” and the striking predominance of the hearing metaphor for knowing, largely replacing for Heraclitus the already more common sight and grasping metaphors.  By putting the two together, the paper will attempt to show what a different conception of philosophic thinking Heraclitus is proposing, and even what a different experience of the world he espouses.