I’m laying in bed, ready to sleep, wondering if I’ll remember my dream while also pondering “Is it all but a dream?”. That is the thought, isn’t it? That the thought that you’re thinking when you’re sleeping is nothing but a random collection of data that your brain is trying to sort through, a sort of nightly defrag for your mind. And it probably is. Occam’s Razor does spring to mind. The simplest or most likely explanation is probably the right one. I do not want it to be the right one.

All those hours where you’re fighting aliens, running from monsters, saving the galaxy, having that person you’re lusting after do all thos….we’ll perhaps skip that one…but that’s just it. Life is for the most part ordinary. A Groundhog Day of never-ending routine that makes you wish your dreams could come true. With the possible exception of the one where monsters are chasing you and you’re trying to run away but it feels like you’re running through treacle and when they do catch you your frantic pummeling is so weak and feeble you embarrass yourself in front of Lord Monster, Lord of all the Monsters. His parents knew he was going straight to the top of monsterdom when they named him.

But what if a dream isn’t just a dream, or rather not just your dream. Out there in the multiverse, there’s a plethora of you, in theory. And with so many of you swimming about the cosmos of unconsciousness for an optimistic eight hours but a realistic five hours and forty-seven minutes, perhaps you cross paths. Perhaps that weird dream you had where you had to collect five magic rings to save the world wasn’t a dream but a memory of the person that could have been you if your life decisions had taken you a different path. While you’re having a raucous adventure saving the planet their slumber is filled with the exciting moments of you laying in bed watching “Die Hard: With a Vengeance” at 2am.

Now let’s say that’s all true. That you spend your nocturnal nap taking a trip through the unconscious landscape of the…perhaps not landscape but a battleground. Who knows what one version of you will be conjuring up inside them to make sense of the day. Although you’re only a visitor what happens if you take a wrong turn on the way home? That you wake up in your body but not your body, in a universe that is so much like this one but with only a smidge of a difference that makes you feel like you’re constantly missing something. And that is how you manage to lose your keys even though you know you put them in exactly the same place as your routine commands.

That is it. It’s not the sock that went missing, it was you. This all makes so much sense now, assuming you’re from a universe where sense is something different. It is a ridiculous but possible notion if you leave yourself open to endless possibilities.

Just don’t leave yourself open to monstrous pummelling through the night. That’s how you end up waking up with all aches and pains and the feeling of age attempting to slowly assassinate you. It’s always someone else’s dream but one day there’s a good chance you’re dreams will come true. Yes, eight hours of sleep. Dream away.