Sweet Dreams are Made of These...

Academic studies have indicated that the average person over the age of 10 dreams between 4 and 6 times per night. The reason that this number seems excessive is that 95-99% of our dreams are forgotten the moment that they end. Occasionally, an event will occur that allows us to recall the dream in vivid detail. Personally, I rarely remember my nocturnal adventures and there have been several occasions where I can recall feeling bored in my own dream.

One instance was where I was having a dream about my normal morning routine in glacially-paced real time. It ran something like this:

1. Get out of bed and immediately realize that I am already 10 minutes late

2. Check my phone to see if I have received any messages that indicate I have been fired and /or “corporately reallocated”

3. If step two yields no change in my employment status, I continue to the shower

4. Once in the shower, I divide my time between washing and attempting to find an acceptable water temperature between “Hypothermia” and “Burn Center”

5. Spend 10 minutes agonizing over which SAMS Choice polo to wear

6. Spend another 2 minutes checking for a crotch hole in my pants (it happens, and can lead to mandatory attendance at a special seminar )

7. Flip between Headline News and Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew while eating breakfast

8. Brush my teeth

It was at step eight that my dream took a turn for the worse. I placed a dollop of Colgate on my brush and began giving my incisors a once-over while generating what seemed to be an unusual abundance of dental lather. I then leaned over the sink and proceeded to expectorate the excess and wash it down the drain.

Unfortunately, this action was being duplicated in real life, and while still asleep I had produced and ejected a big league loogie onto my face and pillow. The presence of the saliva jolted me from the dream and I took immediate action in order to mitigate any threat that the loogie posed to my second pillow, my comforter, or my wife.

Grabbing the pillow case by its edges, I sprang from the bed and began attempting to separate the pillow from the case by shaking it loose. As a matter of unhappy coincidence, we had just purchased two new pillows that day and our old pillow cases could scarcely contain their impressive polyester girth. The result of this was twofold:

· The case was all but cotton-welded to pillow it contained and was not coming off

· The vigorous shaking motion had only succeeded in distributing my demon loogie to every available surface in a two foot radius

At this point, I glanced toward the bed and found my wife staring at me and likely reconsidering her decision to allow me to someday father her children. I immediately froze and began to assemble an explanation that did not involve me spitting up on myself. Several tense moments passed as I strained to perceive her facial expression through the inky blackness.

To my relief, she said nothing and simply rolled over to face the opposite side of the bed. This meant that either she was never actually awake at all, or felt that it would cause less of a scene to pack her belongings after I left for work the next morning and just leave me a note attached to a man-bib.

I am proud to report that time (and several laundry cycles) has healed all wounds and my dreams continue to occur at infrequent intervals. I face this uncertain future with guarded optimism and the sincere hope that I do not have any realistic dreams about digesting Mongolian BBQ.