#oneaday Day 92: Dream On

Discussing dreams is regarded by many as self-indulgent, but then so is blogging, so to the people who whinge and moan about everything I say “RASPBERRIES, GOOD SIR” and bare my bum at them. (Maybe not the bum bit.)

But anyway. Dreams. Weird, aren’t they? A statement that surely qualifies for the “Captain Obvious Award 2011”, yes, but it’s true — which is why it’s obvious, obviously. I have, however, come to the conclusion recently that the most vivid and bizarre dreams seem to come not during your big long sleep that you (hopefully) have throughout the whole night, but instead in those brief “snooze” periods you have between alarm clock harassment in the morning. Assuming you use an alarm clock. If not, it’s those brief snooze periods you have between waking up and deciding you can’t be arsed to get out of bed just yet.

Anyway. Regardless of when those brief snooze periods happen, that’s when your brain suddenly decides that the most interesting and/or fucked-up dreams really need to happen. Because, as everyone knows, the brain works best under pressure. Ask any student or journalist with a deadline coming up.

Take this morning. I woke on an airbed on my friend’s floor (I do know how I got there, I hasten to add) and considered getting up but wasn’t sure if it was a good idea because my phone battery had gone flat and I wasn’t wearing a watch. And this being the digital age, of course there were no clocks anywhere to be seen that weren’t on mobile phones or on TV-connected things that made noise and would wake up my sleeping companion (who was on a different air bed, I hasten to add, and sleeping off an enormous amount of alcohol that he had consumed over the course of the whole day in celebration of both digits of his age changing) so basically, I couldn’t tell if it was late enough to wake up in a suitably sociable manner. You get me? Good.

Now we’ve established that, I can explain; following the above, I established that it probably was too early to wake up, so I promptly fell asleep again. (Oddly enough, I find it enormously difficult to fall asleep at actual normal bedtime, but have absolutely no problem dropping off again in the morning. Somewhat frustrating and a little impractical.) My brain decided that this would be an appropriate time to imagine going to the fridge, taking out a 4-pint bottle of milk to take a refreshing cold swig from and discovering that it was actually full of egg-fried rice.

“Hmm, seems a bit ricey,” I said. The people in the kitchen at the time (whom I didn’t see) found this hilarious and we all had a good giggle about it. Then I woke up. Cool story bro.

If dreams are supposed to be some sort of “message”, then I have absolutely no idea whatsoever what that was trying to tell me. I drink too much milk? I really fancy a chinese? I’m going to die? I have no idea, but I guess it’s no weirder than the time I dreamed about navigating a field made entirely of strawberry mousse.