Nightmares

As a child, I always seemed to have really exciting nightmares in which fantastical creatures would attack me and I would try (and fail) to escape. I remember explicitly the content of the majority of these nightmares, and for a while, I was convinced of the fact that I had night terrors. I actually just wanted to have night terrors, because to be honest, it sounds awesome.

"O no, I don't just have nightmares. I have night terrors. I thrash uncontrollably in my sleep, and I wake up screaming. Jealous?"

Although, at this point in my life, I am absolutely sure that not a single person  would be jealous of night terrors.

Anyway, as of late, my brain has decided to play some tricks on my dream sequence. Instead of having awesome nightmares of wax figurines coming to life in a museum of death or falling into a grave, I am now having what I will refer to as mundane nightmares.

A mundane nightmare is when something arbitrary happens in a dream that really would not matter in your waking hours. However, in this dream, your life shuts down when this event occurs. I am the only person that I know that has this strange nightmare.

My latest nightmare consisted of me running out of checks. Now, in real life, running out of checks absolutely does not matter. In the least. Like this is absolutely the farthest you can get from a big deal. But for some reason in my dream, I was freaking out.

I WENT CRAZY.

I found that I had come to the last check in my checkbook, and my dream self COULD NOT HANDLE IT. I just didn't understand how I could let this happen.

My dream thought processes:

"O, look I'm at the last check in my checkbook. Wait, what? I don't have anymore checks. How am I supposed to pay my bills and my rent? I'm going to have to order more checks. That's going to take two weeks for them to be delivered. Wait, in two weeks, these bills will be past due. (Normal brain patterns stop here.) If I don't pay my bills on time, I AM GOING TO DIE. I will be thrown on the streets and I will die of starvation. I AM HOMELESS AND HUNGRY.

THIS IS THE WORST THING THAT COULD EVER HAPPEN!"

I am absolutely sure that I was thrashing in my sleep, terrified of my checkless life. What would I ever do?

Well, to say the least, I woke up in a cold sweat. I'm pretty sure I was actually panting in exacerbation. The dream seemed so real. And embarrassingly enough, I ran to check that I still had checks.

I still have half a book of checks. I win this time dream Marty.

Other mundane nightmare topics include a shirt not being ironed for work, your room being dirty, bad cellular phone reception, etc. The thought processes are exactly the same, with the ending realization that this minor problem will cause your imminent death.

Sweet dreams? Also, how fitting that I am writing about nightmares that actually leave me sleepless in Oakbrook Terrace. I think so.