I Dream About Sleeping

In my dreams, I sleep.

I wake up, but I'm still asleep.

And sometimes I don't know what's a dream or a dream-within-a-dream.

I sleep behind the wheel.

I sleep on benches.

I sleep at bars and in classrooms and at work.

When I wake up, it's dark. And I wonder where the time went.

It even happens during a daytime nap.

The people in my dreams let me sleep. No one tries to wake me up. And I wonder why, both during my dream and when I wake up for real.

I sleep hard in my dreams—harder than I ever actually sleep. It may be the most restful rest I ever get.

And when I wake up in my dreams, I feel the sleep hanging over me, trying to suck me back in.

I have a hard time staying awake in my dreams. I have a hard time keeping my eyes open in my dreams. I'm often falling backwards in my dreams.

Do I dream while I dream? I'm not sure. I'm not even sure I'm actually dreaming when I'm dreaming.

I harbor grudges the morning after.

I have déjà vu. I dream the future.

Sometimes I know I'm dreaming, and I can let go of the stress or the anxiety of whatever's happening, because it's very clear that I haven't actually, say, lost my purse. I'll wake up eventually.

But when I'm sleeping in my dreams, I don't know that I'm not actually sleeping.

Except I am.

I see things in my dreams. I remember things in my dreams. But sometimes they feel like other people's experiences and other people's memories.

Even when they're happening.

Sometimes, when I wake up in my bed in the middle of the night or the morning, I think I may have just spent some time living someone else's life instead of dreaming.

There's no way to know for sure.

But it makes sense—since that other person has to sleep, too.

It just so happens that they tend to sleep at the most inconvenient times and places.

And they can't hold onto me for long—because I end up getting sucked back into this so-called reality, in this supposedly "real" corporeal self.

But maybe right now, I'm just taking a break from some other person—the one who's really real. And I just don't remember it while I'm here.

Perhaps I'll never know.

I do know, however, that the answers aren't in my dreams. Every time I dream, it just complicates matters further.

I guess I shouldn't complain. Any sleep is good, no matter how I get it.

Even if it's inside of some other reality.

Related Posts:
That Which Haunts Me
Under a Sleepy Surveillance