self-made narcoleptic

One bright afternoon in my sophomore year, one of the girls across the hall came wandering into my room. She looked more dazed than usual, but addressed me directly. "Am I awake?"

"As far as I can tell," I said, which did not seem to reassure her.

It turned out that she had just woken from a dream in which she had just woken from a dream in which she had just woken from a dream in which she had been walking down the hall of the dorm. In each dream she had risen from her bed, left her room, and begun talking to familiar people, only to have events turn strange on her. It was then that she figured out that she was dreaming, and woke up... only to find herself dreaming once more. So when she finally woke completely and walked into my room, she was suffering a perfectly well-deserved fit of existential angst.

I've had dreams of waking before, but I've never popped that many places up the stack. It must be terribly unnerving. But regardless of levels it's always strange to wake from a dream of reality; it leaves you unsure as to whether you're still dreaming or not.

Today I woke several times to find myself bent over the same connector diagram, about to decide the wiring of J3. I must have wired J3 a dozen times in my dreams before I finally got around to doing it in person.

Clearly, I need to get more sleep.