Dream A Little Dream

Every now and then, the occasional strange dream will hit. You will be jolted from sleep by the sheer absurdity of it, or the sheer horror (depends on the dream), and you will lie in bed, shaking, blinking, and wondering just what the heck you saw.

The following are examples . . .

You were walking down the street wearing a green suit while drinking milk from an expired carton when you suddenly realized your house is on fire, but you live in a rainforest, so what is your house doing there?

Or:

You're drowning in the ocean when the city of Atlantis apears below you and singing mermaids and crabs usher you in, a la The Little Mermaid at which point you find out that you are slated to sing before this undersea audience and you've forgotten your clothes.

Something like that.

The dream is weird. You find it weird, and you know it is weird, and it is so weird within the dream that you tell yourself "This is TOO weird . . . this has to be a dream," and a voice in your head (also you) says, "Wait, it is!"
And you sit up.

I've done that.

The fancy if not elaborate dreams above notwithstanding, what else could possibly happen? Instead of one bad dream, there might just be the possibility of a triple feature bad dream matinee. Those are the ones you have to watch out for.

I, for example, just had one so strange that I woke up merely as self defense.

Dream One: A boy I know here at college, much smaller than me and with an odd temper, threw a chair at me during some sort of stage rehearsal and broke my foot, whereupon I chased him all over campus and would up completely shattering my foot.

Dream Two: My suitemate's hamster, dead over Christmas, came back to life and sat on my dining room table back at home in the middle of a party, at which point I fed it a carrot.

Dream Three: My mother informed me she'd rented out my room to an enemy I hadn't seen or even thought of since high school, and I predictably was angry.

I rest my case.

See, a dream is an odd thing. Who cares about it? You barely remember them anyway, at any rate. But when you do, they really sit with you.

I'm asking myself, what did I do to this boy that made him hit me with a chair? And why did I chase him on a broken foot? That's just crazy. For that matter, how does a dead hamster in Rhode Island crawl all the way to Boston and onto my dinner table? And do hamsters eat carrots?
Ultimately, why would my mother rent out my room to someone I hate?

The questions.
The hidden meanings.
The . . . something else to complete this small comedic triad.

Sound Effect: (rim shot)

We all have these dreams. No, not THESE but ones like them. People you don't know, things you don't care about, and memories you've generally forgotten. They're all fair game in a dream.

So, what am I suggesting you do to fight it?
All you can do when you wake up is take a shower, fast, and hope it all goes away.