I dream a lot. In fact, I dream almost every time I sleep.

I also sleep a lot.

Sleeping used to be the way for me to escape the awfulness of being alive, back during the darkest days of my depression. As my illness mutated and changed and I found medications to keep me balanced, the sleep followed me. I sleep at night, without difficulty. I sleep when I’m not at work. I sleep during the day, often for hours at a time. I take naps, snooze, drift off … you get the picture.

And when I sleep, the dreams come. They aren’t bad dreams; nor are they particularly good. In fact, most of my dreams involve mundane, everyday things, like brushing my teeth or driving to work. I can even remember some of them, long after the initial grogginess of waking has left me.

I am also—sometimes—aware that I’m…