Dreaming is a seemingly pointless part of everyday life.  We go to sleep to rest our bodies, but our brain decides that whilst we rest, we might as well kick back and watch whatever movie our imagination has concocted based on that day or week’s events.

Our brain isn’t particularly good at researching the movie it shows though.  You might be at your house making tea, but it’s completely normal for your house to actually be your friend Steve’s house, and for Steve to be played by someone you’ve never met before – almost as if Steve wasn’t available at the time, so he was replaced by the man who delivered your post that morning.

I’ve done no research on the matter, but based purely on a YouTube clip of a dog chasing something in his sleep, I am aware that we aren’t the only creatures to dream.  I have no idea where the cut-off for dreaming creatures is though, because I’m almost certain insects don’t dream, mainly because I don’t think I’ve ever seen an insect sleeping – they’re way too busy working on being generally annoying, as if it’s their duty to infiltrate every part of your daily routine and ruin it in some feeble yet marginally effective way.

It’s as if all insects get together with their leader every morning to meet and plan out that day’s missions.  “Right, the ants – you’re on sugar bowl duty, make sure you get in there before it’s needed for the morning cup of tea, rain spider - please make yourself comfortable on the car door so that he feels nervous using the handle despite being fully aware that you’re completely harmless, cockroach – you’re on desk drawer duty at his office, be idly waiting on top of the stapler, blending in with your surroundings so that he only sees you just as he’s about to pick up the stapler, thus insuring he ends up screaming like a girl, and mosquito – wait till he’s about to fall asleep and then start flying past his ears at three minute intervals.”

Although perhaps insects do dream and can fall asleep mid flight, because then at least that would explain why so many of them end up in my pool.  It’s either that or the less logical reason that they are simply incorrectly assuming they’ve evolved gills and the ability to swim.

I used to read a lot into dreams.  Nothing too extreme - if I was wearing a red shirt in my dream, I wouldn’t fear I was secretly a communist, but I would take them decently seriously - when I had a girlfriend and I would wake up after having dreamt that I had cheated on her, I would feel genuinely upset with myself, and incredibly guilty in her presence that day.

The problem with reading a lot into dreams is that I reached a point where my dreams started becoming too upsetting and weird that I essentially had two options: write off all my dreams as complete nonsense, or check myself into a clinic.  Needless to say I chose option one.  It’s cheaper.

So I don’t analyse dreams anymore.  Just because I often have a recurring dream of myself beating up my junior school bully, doesn’t mean I secretly want to beat up my junior school bully.  Why would I want to beat him up anyway?  I’d much rather make fun of him in this blog, because I’m almost certain he can’t read.

And also, he’s bigger than me, and I just Facebooked him and it looks like he became a Nazi.