Oct 19, 2020 3 min read

When my alarm goes off, I get up, walk across the room and turn it off. It’s far away from me for two reasons. One, the electrical wiring in my room is screwy; the outlet by my bed shuts off when you turn the lights out. Two, it’s much harder to hit snooze and fall back asleep when you have to shuffle across two yards of carpeting. Sometimes, I crash right back into bed anyway. Today, I hopped up out of there like Farrah Fawcett just lit my mattress on fire (that is an archaic reference to a movie of the week produced back when they made movies of the week).

I did leap out of bed this morning, though. Since the pandemic started, I’ve been having vivid dreams, and, occasionally, gruesome nightmares. They seem very real. Too real.

Sometimes my dreams are like mini movies without the popcorn. I’m not even in some of them. I do have some featured recurring characters, though. Sometimes, I am the lead character. Sometimes it’s a combination of both. I’ll watch a scene play out. Then, I enter – like Kramer busting through Jerry Seinfeld’s apartment door. Hey! I’m in this one!

I dream in full color. I don’t even understand the concept of dreaming in black and white. Who am I, Humphrey Bogart? I know I dream in color because last night I was in Laguna Beach in my head. I was up on a high cliff looking down at vibrant aqua water and up at a turquoise sky, palm trees swaying in the wind. It was more of a memory than a dream. Then, it got weird. Cause that’s what dreams do.

One minute I was walking around in sunny California, then I turned the corner and I was in Pittsburgh in the rain. It made sense at the time. Dreaming about Pittsburgh in the rain was probably the closest I’ve ever come to dreaming in black and white. There was a lot of gray – just like real life. It’s funny, I remember the rain falling on me, but I wasn’t getting wet or cold. The upside of walking around in my mind.

I’m also in better shape in my dreams. In nightmares, I’ve been chased by serial killers and I don’t get winded. I assume they are serial killers because they usually have a knife and they are chasing me. They could just be disgruntled readers of this column. I woke up thinking that I was seeing a vision of the future, except I’m pretty sure in real life I’m easier to catch. I haven’t been to the gym since March 16.

I’ve had a lot of strange dreams lately. Dreams where I walk around an abandoned mall by myself. Dreams where I fall. Dreams where I fly (those are the best ones).

In most of my dreams, I’m usually wandering around trying to find a bathroom. That’s the real reason why I leap out of bed every morning.