3:53am

Usually this time of morning the only thing I'm pondering is the inside of my eyelids, but about ten minutes ago I woke up feeling more nauseous than I remember being in a long time. I blame the meal I had last night at Ruby River Steakhouse (which was not good) before seeing Nightmare Before Christmas in 3D(which was very good). So in an attempt to settle my stomach I'm drinking a Dr. Pepper (which was the only carbonated beverage I could find in the house), and while I let the good doctor do his thing, I thought that I'd blog a little bit about nothing. I usually don't drink the hard stuff; rather, I drink Caffeine-free Diet Dr. Pepper when I drink the stuff at all (my friend Bust calls it "super unleaded.") So ironically, the stuff I usually avoid to get a good night's rest is the very thing I'm using to try and go back to sleep. Ha.

So what's on my mind at this hour of the morning? Not a whole lot. I can't even remember if I was in the middle of a meaningful dream or not. Dreams are silly... I had a professor once describe dreams as being like "a bunch of overhead transparencies stacked on top of one another and your brain trying to make sense of the picture it sees as a result." I think that's fairly accurate; however I have no idea how my subconscious has access to some of the things it drudges up. Maybe I'll describe some of my most bizarre dreams for your entertainment while I drink the last of my soda and then I'll try to go back to bed.

A couple years ago I had a dream that I was on a beach of some sort, and I had a carton of orange juice in my hand. For some reason, the orange juice carton was the embodiment of a woman I taught on my mission named Wendi. And, for whatever reason, I was arguing with it (or, uh, her.) She (as the carton of orange juice) was being sassy with me, and I kept threatening that if she didn't stop her mouthing off that I was going to drink her until she was gone, and then she'd be sorry. She persisted and so I began to guzzle away, and I remember her pleading with me to stop. At this point in my dream I woke up.

Another time in high school I dreamed that my friend Cammie and I were in a field of waist-high weeds, just chatting and shooting the breeze. Then suddenly we heard something rustling in the weeds. It was a pack (or herd or gaggle or whatever) of weasels! So Cammie and I ran for our lives, terrified, to a nearby abandoned car in the middle of this field and barricaded ourselves inside. As we were watching the weasels jump and claw at the windows and doors, the last thought I remember thinking before I woke up was "Wait... it's not like they're bears or lions or something; they're weasels. What are they going to do, nibble at our ankles?"

I've only had one recurring dream, and it isn't even a specific dream as just a theme of a dream. Every now and then I'll have a dream that a boy with whom I'm friends but toward whom I have no romantic interest will somehow convince me to marry him. So the dream usually is about the time after engagement but before marriage trying to figure out how I can gracefully get out of the situation without hurting anyone's feelings before the deal is done and it's too late. Every now and then it's already too late, and I'm trying to figure out how to get out of the marriage. Kind of strange... it's always a different boy and a different setting, but the same plot unfolds. Is it some kind of message from the heavens warning me about something? As much as I hate conflict, I'm pretty sure I have enough of a spine by now that I'd definitely end things before they were taken that far in real life.

Contrarily, every now and then I'll dream about a boy with whom I am sublimely happy and comfortable and safe with, and we'll talk and laugh and battle wits and go on adventures together, but it's always a boy that I don't recognize and I can NEVER see his face. It's almost as if he were standing in the bright sunshine and were a silhouette so that I can't see any detail every time I consciously try to figure out who it is I'm with. Weird.

Well, my Dr. Pepper is gone and I'm feeling a bit better, so I'm going to try this sleep thing again. Thanks for allowing me to spend this time of nausea with you.