Zzzzzzzhaahahahaazzzzzzz

I can only remember laughing in my sleep once in my youth. I was quite young and dreaming in cartoon. The big bad wolf was chasing the three little pigs, and just as the wolf’s jaws were about to snap down on one of the porker’s heads, the pig miraculously transformed into an astronaut. In place of his fat, pink noggin was the astronaut’s helmet. The wolf, whose teeth had just slammed down on hard plastic, was stunned. His plan was foiled, and my infantile mind (I was probably four or five years old at best) delighted in this sudden turn of events. I woke up giggling.

Given the rarity of such somnambulist joviality, I find it interesting that twice in the last seven days, I have woken up in a fit of laughter. Last week, I was dreaming that one of my best friends and I were getting snow cones. Something about the guy who was serving us was incredibly funny. Now that I’m awake, I have no idea what it was. And I’m not 100% sure I ever did. All I know is that, while we weren’t outright teasing the man, I could tell from our fervent attempts not to laugh that he was the butt of our joke. That’s all I can remember.

Last night it happened again, only the laughing was much more intense. Even when I came to full consciousness, I had to take a few moments to chuckle. This time, the dream centered on a magic trick being performed by none other than Fred Willard (I feel I have an extremely high ratio of celebrity “guest appearances” in my dreams—it’s a subject I’ve thought about posting on before, and I probably will someday). The trick went something like this: two little kids climbed under a tarp that was covering a swimming pool. The tarp then transformed into solid ground. The audience was supposed to be in suspense, wondering how the kids would get out of the pool. Fred then went over to a black gym bag sitting on the newly formed ground. He was leading the audience along, reaching into the bag and saying something like, “I wonder what’s in here!” The obvious expectation was that the children would be pulled up out of the bag, presumably coming up through some hole that the bag was covering. However, when Fred pulled his hand out of the bag, he revealed nothing more than a human bone. He screamed in an “oops, that’s not what’s supposed to happen!” type of way. I woke up with guffaws aplenty.

While the humor in these dreams aren’t built upon uplifting moments or anything overtly positive, I can only assume it’s a good sign that I’m having them. To wake up laughing would suggest my life is going pretty well, or so I would hope. Either that or I’m just going crazy. Regardless, I’ve had fun with it and thought I would share. And it also gave me a reason to start a post with the letter z, which is something I’ve never done before. Talk about dreams coming true!