I love to sleep.  In fact, I love it a lot.  I wish it was a real, tangible, living thing because I would bake it a cake and buy it a puppy.  A little over a year ago, I had some problems with insomnia and I spent a few months in a miserable stupor because I couldn’t sleep.  I still don’t sleep well, but at this point it’s certainly not as bad as it used to be, except for the fact that when I do sleep, I am inevitably plagued by extraordinarily vivid dreams that at best are just a little off-putting and at worst are pretty horrifying.

There are a few recurring themes, which I suppose is kind of comforting, because at least it eliminates the element of surprise.  There’s the one where I dream I’m exhausted but my alarm goes off and I force myself to get out of bed (this usually happens a few minutes before my alarm actually goes off, which means I get woken up to the bad news that I am still in bed and have to do it all over again).  There’s the one where I get to spend a few short minutes with a loved one who in my real life is either no longer alive or who I will likely never see again, for whatever reason, and I feel compelled to make those last few minutes count, both in their eyes and in mine.  There’s the one where there is some sort of attack or natural disaster and I am responsible for the safe evacuation of a bunch of kids that I don’t know.  And there’s the one where I am horribly unprepared for some major or minor life event, like an exam or a youth group event or a wedding, and I realize it is 5 minutes to the event and I have never studied or attended class, or I forgot to book the bowling lanes, or I never did order my bridesmaid dress.

Sometimes, though, I think my dreams are my subconscious just checking to see if I’m paying attention.  Last night, I dreamed I was on a humongous cruise ship at the turn of the last century.  For some reason, I was hanging out with the captain.  A crew member came in to let him know that we were approaching an area that was rife with icebergs, and the captain laughed derisively and responded with:  “Smith, we’re a big sturdy ship.  Why on earth are you worried about a tiny little iceberg?  Leave me alone.”

Thankfully, my alarm went off at that point and saved me from a nocturnal overdose of dramatic irony.