Let Sleeping Zebras Lie

My subconscious frequently horrifies me. I dream luridly and in colour, always in the first person. Sometimes I’m not me but a complete stranger, a fictional character invented and given temporary existence only in the world within my skull. That’s ok with me, the characters my dreams give me to wear are usually much nicer people than the self my subconscious reflects back at me.

Dreaming Me is a dickhead and an arsehole. She throws violent tantrums, treats loved ones appallingly, lies, cheats, murders and ravages. Dreaming Me is the person I fear lurks beneath a thin veneer of civilised adulthood. Maybe she’s the emotional regulator that Awake Me needs to keep my darker impulses in check. I spent most of my early years behaving like a monster without realising it, my nightmares are mostly retellings of my least fine moments, resurrected and amplified, made even more hideous by full awareness of how awful I’m being but complete inability to stop being a complete cunt.

Now and again I have a nice refreshing nightmare about being buried alive and unable to scream for help, or chased by monsters and unable to run. Those are fun compared to dreams about Rosie being a ghastly bitch.

Now and again I have dreams that are as good as a movie, with arcing plotlines and realistic characters. Quite a few of those seem to involve the Zombie Apocalypse – no, I can’t explain it either.

One thing that Dreaming Me and Awake Me have in common is our ridiculously overactive libido. Dreaming Me gets a lot of sex. Not all of it good sex, or consensual sex, but where Awake Me has boundaries and ethics, Dreaming Me has neither. Dreaming Me had sex with Boris Johnson BY CHOICE, and if that doesn’t give you a clue as to her appalling depravity, well I don’t know how to spell it out any more clearly without giving myself PTSD flashbacks.

I occasionally dream about having a dick. I have no idea where in the shadowy corners of my mind this comes from but it’s a recurring motif. I can feel it, stiffening, filling with blood to an aching tautness, hard and keen against my fingers as I wrap it in my fist. Sadly, I’ve never yet dreamed a dick-orgasm. I always seem to wake up just as it gets close. Disappoint.

I’ve had sleeping orgasms that don’t feature the extra appendage, but these are muted and stunted by unconsciousness. If I were a morning person, I’d probably be making up the difference with a wank on waking, but despite the dubious in-slumber entertainment, sleep is precious to me and I guard every minute with the ferocity of a wasp-stung honey badger.

Oh yeah, and I have plenty of random sex dreams about people who I know in wholly platonic or professional contexts, with whom I have no chemistry or compatibility when awake. It makes for some slightly awkward meetings sometimes. Colleagues, clients, parents of friends, occasionally public figures, and once or twice, utterly horrifyingly, family members. My subconscious is a fucking sewer, thank god I don’t sleepwalk.

I’m glad Dreaming Me is imprisoned inside my skull where the only damage she can do is to my peace of mind. My idea of the worst nightmare imaginable is for her to escape into the waking world and take over, leaving my conscious self trapped and watching in horror as I spread destruction and heartache. As long as she stays in my head, she can do whatever else she likes, and if there’s a silver lining, it’s that experiencing her in my dreams helps me be someone better when I’m awake.