It’s not at all uncommon for me to have strange dreams. They tend to be very vivid, and they tend to tell a story. But the story is always a little “Alice Through the Looking Glass ” – everything’s a little weird and jumps around in strange ways that theoretically makes sense in Dreamland, but make absolutely no sense once I wake up and think about it.

But apparently 2018 has decided to up the ante.”Weirdness” is so last season – we’re into META now.

Unfortunately I woke up this morning with one hell of a migraine. (And before you get too excited, yes I said MIGRAINE, not hangover. My New Years Eve wasn’t nearly interesting enough for a hangover – not so much as a sip of champagne). So I took some medicine and promptly fell back to sleep in an attempt to evict the tiny dwarven assholes tunneling in my brain. And this is the dream I proceeded to have –

I was walking through a store wandering up and down the aisles looking for something. At first I can’t remember what I might have actually been looking for, but I stumbled upon a friend who was like “Hey the headache medication is over here.” (In the dream I totally knew this person and we’re good friends. But the person didn’t have the same name as someone I know, didn’t look like anybody I know, and at least as I recall they weren’t supposed to represent anyone I actually know. But they were absolutely my friend. This is important.)

So we find the medicine and I’m trying to decide what to get, and for some reason I cannot figure it out. So dream friend – he puts his arms around me, cradles my head on his shoulder and starts kissing me. (Apparently all I needed was a little Love Potion No. 9????) And dream me is like “Whoa this seems awkward! I’m happily married, dream friend!!”

But then I wake up. And realize that I’m still in my bed at home and the reason I was dreaming about somebody kissing me was because my husband has come home to comfort me since I’m sick, and he has crawled into bed and is kissing me. It was just reality influencing my dream. This happens to me all the time so it’s a perfect explanation (and this instance is certainly much less traumatizing than the old “I have to pee in my dream…”)

So my husband snuggles with me and we talk for a few minutes about how I’m feeling and whatnot. It’s really helping me feel so much better just to have him all warm and comforting next to me. As I’m drifting back to sleep he asks me about my trip to the drug store – was dream friend able to help me find something to help my headache?

And then I wake up. I am immediately hit by the blazing pain of my migraine and I’m confused. I’m looking around my bedroom trying figure out where my husband went. Did he go to the bathroom? But I realize that I’m on the opposite side of the bed as I had been, so my husband must have gone back to work after I fell asleep. My head hurts so badly and I’m really sad that he had to go back to work because I want him here comforting me.

I rolled over and looked at the clock and became completely confused. Wait, it was only like 30 minutes since I’d taken medication and crawled into bed. How did my husband get home from work, spend any time with me, and have already left again in such a short amount of time? And… I don’t think I went to the store to get medication…

It took me a full two or three minutes to completely come to the realization that my husband had never been there.

I’d had a dream (my husband coming home) about having a dream (my friend and the store) about what was going on in real life (my migraine).

Wow, 2018. Clap attcha.

Don’t forget to check out the rest of The Tangent Girl Volumes’ posts! Dozen and dozen of posts ranging from Christmas shopping violence to struggling with self-doubt to coping with sucky people to how I really feel about meatloaf. TTGV has it all! And don’t forget to follow me on Twitter (@tangentgirrl) and Facebook! https://www.facebook.com/TangentGirlVolumes/