Monday, May 31, 2010

Dream trippin'

When we bought our house (four years ago today!), one of the best things that Mr E Man and I did was to invest in a really good bed. We'd been sleeping on a queen-size futon, and although it was a good fit for our small rented apartment, we decided that our larger space and newly-acquired grown-up status were worthy of a better place to lay our heads. So we found a beautiful cherry-wood bedroom furniture set on Craigslist, including a king-size sleigh bed frame, and bought the best mattress we could afford to go with it. Memory foam pillows and a lovely heavy duvet complete the set, and we both now (usually) sleep better than we ever have before in our adult lives. We like to cuddle up when we first go to bed, and again when we wake up, but we separate to sleep - and in our lovely lovely bed, there's plenty of space for us both to move around and get comfy without ever touching each other!

The problem comes when we go on vacation. We've spoiled ourselves rotten at home, and have a terrible time sleeping in inferior beds. Anything smaller than a king-sized bed has us tossing and turning and fighting for space in an extreeeeeemely mature way ("stop touching me!!!" "I'm not! YOU'RE touching ME!!!"), and back in November The Most Uncomfortable Bed In The World forced us to abandon our otherwise wonderful accommodation in Cienfuegos, and upset our gracious hostess in the process.

Hotel beds are usually fine, but our budget is better suited to B&Bs and friends'/relatives' spare rooms. And so it was on last week's trip. With my parents in tow, we didn't even get the best spare room in each case. We slept on a pull-out sofa bed at my sister-in-law's, an old and not terribly comfortable queen-size bed in the condo we rented in Whistler, and then foam pads on the floor of the computer room at my mother-in-law's. (The latter was actually the most comfortable bed of the three - or at least the one that offered the most space). These inferior beds meant that I got little sleep on our "vacation", typically waking two or three times during the night and waking up for good by 6:30 am at the latest. We always relish sleeping in our own bed for the first time after a trip, but last night's return to home base was particularly welcome.

There was an upside to last week's inferior sleeping arrangements, though: I got to experience two new categories of dreams!

I love dreams. I find them fascinating. Where do they come from?  What are they for? (And do my cats' dreams serve the same purpose as my own?) So whole new dream categories are extremely welcome, even if the dreams themselves suck.

Category I: The Boring Dream. 

I had Boring Dreams twice on the trip. I can't remember what they were about - because they were really, really boring - but I woke up with a huge sense of relief - "thank God that's over with". This made waking up at 6 am on a vacation day feel much more welcome than it would have done otherwise.

Category II: The PMS Dream.

I woke up (early, of course) one morning to find myself really, really mad at Mr E Man. The reason? Well, you see, he'd been put in prison for something or other, but I knew that he was innocent, and I worked my ass off for six months to prove it. When I finally got him out of jail - having lost my job and several friends in the process - he wanted to see his friends instead of just spending time with me all the time, and I turned into Super Bitch. In my dream, I knew I was hormonal and wasn't being entirely rational or reasonable in my anger, but I couldn't stop myself from escalating the situation, until I ended up screaming at him in front of all his friends - at his prison release celebration party, no less! - and storming off down the street in a dodgy neighbourhood in the middle of the night.

I'm not quite that bad in real life when I have PMS*, but the sense of "oh this is because I'm hormonal but oops I don't seem to be able to stop myself even though I've now realised that I'm overreacting" was uncannily familiar. First time in a dream, though - but not the first time I've stayed mad at someone in the morning after "they" pissed me off in a dream!


*although I did once storm out of a restaurant in a huff because Mr E Man kept tickling my knee after I'd asked him to stop it - TWICE. I already felt silly by the time I got home, about two minutes later...


  1. Ah! I see. You're shitty at me, again, because of something dream-me did in your fucking head last night? And you just can't quite let go of the righteous indignation you're feeling, right?


  2. Exactly! I'm so glad that you understand. Where else is that righteous indignation supposed to go, after all?

  3. haha, I love the "waking up and feelin angry at you for something the dream you did" :)

  4. MrsAntipodeans dream me is a right bastard. Some days I wanna give him an uppercut


  5. Chall, it's always funny once you've remembered why you're mad!

    Antipodean, the real-life Mr E Man is much, much nicer than the dream version sometimes is.

  6. LOL about the boring dreams! I've had those! So boring, in fact, that I think to myself during the dream how boring it is.

    Dream DH is a much bigger jerk than in real life - with the cheating and leaving and what-have-you. Real DH wants to kick Dream DH's ass.

  7. Alyssa, I'm sensing a trend here wrt dream versions of male partners! How amusing!

    I'm glad I'm not the only one having boring dreams. What a drag they were... and they seemed to go on for days.

  8. I feel your pain regarding the bed situation. We purchased our first king about 8 years ago and any time we've slept in a queen or worse, a full size bed, I've gotten almost no sleep. Aside from the lack of space to turn over, I hate constantly being in contact with another person. It makes me too hot (not in the good way), resulting in an even more restless sleep. Recently we upgraded to a king-sized memory foam. I am dreading our first overnight trip.

  9. We almost got the memory foam. It was so much more expensive though, and Mr E Man was worried that it might feel too hot in summer.

    Good luck with your first trip... the one good thing is that having your own bed back makes you feel a lot better about the end of a trip!


