Jesus explained further why He needed to go to Bethany. Sleep was a common Old Testament metaphor for death (e.g, someone "slept with his fathers;" cf. Mark 5:39). However the idea that people would awake from this sleep, while revealed in the Old Testament ( Daniel 12:2), was not the common perception of the outcome of death. Normally people thought of those who fell asleep in death as staying asleep. Thus the disciples" confusion is understandable as is John"s clarification of Jesus" meaning. The New Testament writers commonly referred to death as sleep for the Christian because our resurrection to life is a prominent revelation and is sure (cf. Acts 7:60; 1 Corinthians 15:20; 1 Corinthians 15:51; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18). That Jesus was not teaching soul sleep should be clear from Luke 16:19-31. [source][source][source]
The doctrine of soul sleep is the teaching that at death the soul, specifically the immaterial part of Prayer of Manasseh , becomes unconscious until the resurrection of the body. The story of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16 shows that people are conscious after death and before their resurrection. [source][source][source]