Follow your dreams?

I’ll be the first to admit that it’s rarely exciting to read a blog that starts off with the sentence: “I had a really weird dream last night.” But tough luck; I really did have a weirdo dream last night.

It was one of those dreams that your brain sends you to let you know that your bladder is full and it’s high time you woke up, staggered down the hall in the darkness and emptied it; all the while praying to yourself that, because your eyes are still closed, you are still asleep and NOT going to lie awake scratching yourself for the rest of the night.

In this particular dream I was wearing one of those pointless Nascar race-goers’ hats that had a siphon running around the brim and a tube that fed beer directly into my mouth.In all honestly, there’d certainly be a fair few Aussie car watchers (Grand Prix, Clipsal 500) that would regard such a device as being the best thing since getting a sun-browned butt-crack whilst still fully clothed. Anyhow, I was sipping away on the tube happily, feeling mightily pleased with myself and life in general.

A quick glance around me revealed the location to be my old university: lots of tall, gracious old buildings, green grass and climbing stairways. ‘What was I doing here wearing this hat’, I wondered idly, noticing that no-one else walking by had one. ‘Perhaps it’s a concert or an all-day family event’, I guessed.

However then I looked down towards the blurry thin outline that was the drinking tube. That cloudy plastic python stealthily wound itself down around my waist, further down around my hips and disappeared into – well, gulp – an area that no-one would wish to drink some yellowish liquid from…..

As I sat up in bed and brushed my sticky fringe out of my eyes, it made me realise that it put a new spin on the phrase: “I tip my hat off to you.” It also explained why I've never ever liked the taste of beer in my waking/sane hours.

Unlike the other bloggers, I very rarely have dreams that I can remember. If I do remember them, they’re normally recurring ones that are mundane: many’s the time I’ve been dream-running for my life/bus/partner/Frisbee/nearby toilet and woken up to find the sheets all twisted into a fabric plait and my legs still kicking along.

The other regular nocturnal nightmare is one where I am prevented from getting to where I desperately need to go. People call me, intercept me, accidents happen, I fall over, get caught in a traffic jam or asked to do more work before I can leave. This normally finds me clenching the sheets and quilt so tightly that I’m covered in sweat and still feeling unaccountably angry long after I’ve woken and skipped to the loo and back. Love Chunks once had inadvertently woken me up during this nominal nightmare so that he could have his share of the sheets and I yelled at him to “LEAVE ME ALONE, YOU HOLLOW-HEADED MOOSE MUNCHER!” No, I don’t know what it means either, but he seemed content to lie on his side of the bed without any covers.

Love Chunks has thumped me in the face on more than one occasion. Put the phone down, we don’t need the Domestic Violence unit; he was asleep at the time. He tends to nod off on his side, with both arms raised to his chin, ala Rusty ‘Cinderella Man’ Crowe. Unfortunately for me, when his muscles go into their psychotic spasmic dance, one of the fists shoots out and pops me a sharp one on the nose. Needless to say, we don’t tend to sleep face-to-face much any more. Also the thought of waking up to each other’s Morning Butt-Breath isn’t convincing us we’re missing out on anything either.

Love Chunks, like me, doesn’t have much to report inside his noggin’ at night-time. Well, maybe that’s a bit harsh, because he also has a recurring dream. In it, he’s sitting on the toilet, feeling OK, feeling comfortable, doing what a bloke has to do. Laying a cable; Dropping John Howard off at the pool; Posting Osama a letter...... All is well and good until he realises that he’s not in a stall or at home, but is instead plonked right in the middle of Rundle Mall, right by the Silver Balls sculpture. No-one is noticing him, but his embarrassment is enormous. Does he finish what he’s doing and walk away with confidence? Stay seated so that nothing pops out and scares the old gals on their way to Harris Scarfes? Ah, if only we had the foresight and lateral thinking we (mostly) possess in our waking hours – he should have put his cap on the ground in front of him and convinced some shoppers that he’s a living art busker. Might be more money in it than meteorology….

Perhaps I should try what my buddy Jillaroo recommends - Dilmah decaffeinated tea. Both she, hubby Kent and their friend Ingrid have all sworn that they’ve had the most psychedelic and off-the-planet dreams the night of slurping one of the Dilmah decaff bags. I’ve forgotten all of the details, but I know that in one part of Jill’s jolly nocturnal journey she “did something to anger a nearby ferret, who rode his bike over and…..”

I'm not yet convinced though. Couldn't I sniff a few whiteboard markers at the office and then go home to inhale a full family-sized block of Nestle Dark Cappuccino chocolate and get drunk on Bailey's irish creme instead?