Yesterday afternoon, my stomach started hurting. No, this isn’t one of my I-went-into-the-hospital stories. I laid down to rest, as I have learned to do, and the pain went away, thank heavens. But I fell into such a deep sleep that I began to dream.

Dreams are funny business, aren’t they? They frequently combine subconscious thinking with what’s happening in real life, and then react in you like you took Ambien with a glass full of Wild Turkey combined with an Ecstasy tablet you found under the cushion of your sofa. (Does Ecstasy come in tablets? Having never taken Ecstasy, I pulled that one out of my You Know What.)

Afternoon nap dreams are the worst. I rarely dream in the afternoon because I usually sleep pretty lightly and then only for 45 minutes or so. But yesterday, fueled by a pain pill I took to ease my aching abdomen, I slept soundly for a couple of hours. I woke up in the middle of a dream that was something like a Salvador Dali painting….

It involved my former next door neighbor, a light rail ride that went on forever, and a light rail conductor who eventually came to us and admitted she had no clue how to get to the location. The ride went on for hours, and when I looked over at my neighbor (who had suggested we take light rail to a restaurant she wanted me to try), she was sound asleep. On her feet. When I awoke her, she explained that she wasn’t sure where the restaurant was located and had just randomly suggested we take that specific light rail line. And went back to sleep, still standing up.

All of this was a combination of my guilt that I didn’t call that particular neighbor/friend over the holidays, a recent Next Door post I read about a situation where the writer had to wait an hour in the cold for a light rail train that didn’t appear, and my own recent real-life experience with a Lyft driver who had to ask me how to get on the highway that would take us to Denver International Airport. Coupled with a pain pill (but no Wild Turkey or any alcohol whatsoever).

I woke up in the sweat that I always thought was myth. I didn’t scream or pop up in horror like they do on television, but the dream definitely shook me up.

I’m calling my friend and taking Uber or Lyft from here on out!