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.
Wow. I think we are the same person.
Once I was at this stupid orientation for a school board and in a room of 200 other new teachers, we had to play a game where we put our favorite past time on a card, then we were supposed to find everyone else who had that past time.
My favorite past time was sleep.
Did you manage to find anyone with the same pastime?
One… of 200.