Oh, god, this morning I had just gotten out of the bathroom after my morning pee and was standing in the kitchen doorway scratching my ass and staring dreamily at the cat food at my feet trying to decide whether or not to feed Bo-Kitty and I look up and realize someone's staring right at me. There's a large window by our oven that we never close the blinds on and the next door neighbors' back door looks right into the kitchen and they smoke there. It was 8 o'clock in the morning -- who would've guessed anyone would be up at 8am on a Saturday.

Before getting out of bed, I was drifting slowly out of sleep and remember rubbing my index finger across my thumb -- I dreamt that I had cactus needles in my fingers, and then fully awake was surprised there was nothing there -- I distinctly remember being awake and rubbing my finger across my thumb and feeling that needle. And it got me to thinking about how detailed dreams are sometimes and how in that hazy moment between wakefullness and sleep your conscious mind is still your dream mind -- the neurons are firing off in our brains like these made up things are real.

And they still don't really know why. Our brains are just as active in REM sleep as they are in real life. Except that there's a REM sleep region that's active that's not active when we're awake that prevents certain neurotransmitters from being triggered -- that's why most people don't get up and walk around as though they're awake no matter what they're dreaming. But our eyes and our brains go at full speed.

And since I'm a lifelong nicotine patch addict now, I've recently started wearing it again and the last few nights have been full of intensely vivid and weird dreams. Dreams involving a lot of people I know including my roommates, my sister, my good friends, co-workers. Dreams involving giant sea creatures in shallow bodies of water eating puppies, naked co-workers sprawled across toilet seats, Kevin Klein pinching my ass, me wandering around in my pjs (my boxer shorts and tank top) in a palace (which is also where Kevin Klein pinched my ass), my sister a vampire...I could go on, but out of context, they don't seem nearly as weird as they do when I wake up and remember them. Imagine all those things connected and interwoven in one night of dreaming. Now you understand why I can't manage to get myself off the patch :)