I have a dream

I had a dream last night.

I know, a terrible opener for both a blog entry, and any conversation ever. If anyone ever starts a conversation with me telling me about their dreams, I immediately join in with the spirit of the conversation. By daydreaming. Don’t worry, the ending’s even worse.

Bare with me, I had a dream last night. Since getting a new (and unbelievable comfy) mattress, I’ve been sleeping much deeper, and getting some REM in. Not the band, although anyone who knows their stuff about REM, or like me, has looked at their wikipedia page, will know that REM comes from rapid eye movement, which is what you do when you dream. So in this case, I was dreaming, rather than listening to REM. Although I can recommend that too.

Since I found out about the concept, I’ve been desperate to be able to lucid dream. This is where once you’ve recognised that you’re in a dream, you can control the events, rather than just going along with it. Apparently there’s a technique to it, so I’ve put it on my list of things to learn to do, along with drive a car and make people think I’m normal.

When I dream, though, I am absolutely sold to it. I have no idea that each 20 minute period (most dreams only last 15-20 minutes), aren’t reality, for their duration anyway. Sometimes, when I wake up, I am genuinely surprised that I’m not a dragon, and have never have been. And let’s be honest, a little disappointed.

What dreams have a habit of doing is portraying the world in a way that I, subconsciously, want it to be. A few days ago, I had a dream where I was going out with a girl, and she was perfect. Not conventionally beautiful, but in my rapidly moving eyes, she was perfect. She was blonde which surprised me, as my usual preference is brunette, but everything seemed right so it didn’t matter. What struck me most was her perfect personality. Everything she did and said was exactly how I would’ve wanted her to do and say, and she exactly shared my sense of humour and interests. I’d found the one.

Here’s a fact that I found interesting, when you dream, everyone you see in your dream is a face that you’ve seen before in real life. Your brain lacks the power to invent faces, so everyone you see is someone your brain has stored, be them a local news reporter, a lollipop lady or the Pope. Remembering this, I realised that my perfect woman must actually exist, so I took to Google. Not too much looking revealed her to be actress Rachel McAdams, off of out of Mean Girls and Sherlock Holmes. What my brain had done was essentially taken Rachel McAdams’ face, and given her my personality. Shame, our children were beautiful.

I am fully aware that this entire post has been entirely self-indulgent and not particularly entertaining. So true to form, and as promised, it was have a rubbish ending, the ending you’re never supposed to use. Brace yourself……

….and then I woke up.