Jimmy Carr once said, "There is only one thing more boring than listening to someone talk about their dreams, and that is listening to someone talk about their children."
If the prospect of boredom has not deterred you, join me on a weird and wonderful trip featuring cocaine, duvets, bicycles and much more besides.
To set the scene, I come from a family of "active sleepers". One of us has nearly choked on an imaginary stylus and also tried his hand at taking the curtains from their hinges, because he thought he was taking down the sails on his boat.
While sharing a bedroom with my brother we once woke up chatting away to each other, simultaneously deep in sleep and chat.
The feeling of relief that comes with waking from a particularly dastardly dream is reward for the moments lost trying to comprehend what I have just done. Recently I was wandering the streets of Dublin selling cocaine without a blind bit of interest in being discreet. I was robbed of my "snow" and woke up terrified of what my supplier would do to me.
More recently I came face to face with a US Army operative wielding an automatic weapon. He had the upper hand as I hid behind a banister, in my old apartment, and bravely avoided a hail of bullets. My survival skills, or the sound of my alarm, allowed me to come out unscathed.
That very same apartment was the stage for some memorable night time activity... no giggling.
After a charity cycle, spanning 6 days and over 700km, I took to my bed with slumber in mind. A recent spate of bike robberies in Dublin meant I kept mine beside my bed. I fell asleep and hours later I woke up, lying on my back, nothing unusual there... except I was now holding my bike by the frame above my chest.
For some unknown reason I had decided to chest press my bike while fast asleep.
"Get the bike out of your room!" I hear you cry. If I had done that, this wouldn't have happened.
The sound of my chain going around and around woke me one Sunday morning. I ignored it for a while until I could take it no longer. Eventually, I moved to the bottom of the bed and stuck my hands into the chain but the sound continued. As the aural pandemonium increased I pulled the chain off the bike. That didn't stop the assault on my eardrums.
I came to my senses when my housemate arrived to check on the commotion. There I am at the bottom of the bed covered in black chain oil. "You alright, is that your alarm making all that noise?"
One summer night, I awoke with my head and duvet hanging out the window of that very same bedroom. I was clinging to my duvet as it dangled three storeys above street level, the fresh night air woke me with a start. I thought the duvet was full of water and it made sense to empty it out the window.
Have you ever shared a room with a colleague on a trip abroad, gone to sleep in different beds and woken up on top of them?
I think I was trying to evade something on one side of my bed so I scarpered to the other. I didn't consider how close our beds were as I made my escape and next thing I knew half my body was between both beds... which probably would have been fine, if the other half of my body wasn't draped across his.
The next morning, "Should we talk about last night?", he asked. It's an awkward conversation to have with anyone, least of all a Director in the company you work for.
I'm not really sure what to do with my dreams. Some have very useful outcomes, I'm now very good friends with my Director, but how do I analyse the outcomes of my other night time narratives?
Should I sleep in a room devoid of distracting objects, complete with locked windows and doors? Do I contact as many coke dealers as possible to warn them of the perils of lacksadasical dealing? Would the Don appreciate a tweet advising him of a rogue soldier intent on, at best, destroying a staircase?
Part of me would love to wake from a sleep where my mind has completely switched off but I also have an overriding sense of intrigue to find out where I will end up next.
That intrigue will no doubt win out, which will put me in a fairly healthy position if the Corrs ever come true on their promise to start buying dreams, "Have you any dreams you'd like to sell?"
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