COMICAL DREAMS

Oh, dreams. Where do I even start? Sleep offers the promise of many things in the realm of dreams, but often delivers only lies. I mean, is it just me, or are most dreams utterly ridiculous? You close your eyes, expecting some profound, life-altering vision, and what do you get? A bunch of nonsense that makes zero sense, and some are downright retarded. They say every dream holds a special meaning or message, like a secret code from your brain. Well, if that’s true, my brain must be a stand-up comedian with a vendetta. Last night was a prime example. I was naked and flying on a giant pizza slice through a candy-coated sky. Then the scene quickly switched. I found myself in the shower and arguing with two squirrels about which shampoo smells better. Oh, well, good luck interrupting that one.

I’ve never been a skeptic when it comes to this dream stuff, but lately, my dreams have been a circus of the absurd, and they’ve been getting worse. And the dreams kept coming, each one more ridiculous than the last. A few nights later, I dreamed I was at a job interview, but instead of a suit, I was wearing a giant foam hot dog costume. The interviewer was Abraham Lincoln, wearing his typical black hat and dressed in a yellow Speedo, who kept asking me questions like, “Why should we hire you?” and I’d respond by squirting ketchup all over the desk. Then, the room turned into a bounce house, and we were all jumping around like lunatics while a choir of squirrels sang the national anthem. I woke up tangled in my sheets, wondering if I’d accidentally eaten a bad burrito before bed. That was the second time squirrels have appeared in my dreams. But why squirrels? I never once fed a squirrel, or kicked a squirrel, or had a pet squirrel. I can’t even stand squirrels. It’s just a rat with a fluffy tail.

By this point, I was starting to lose it. These dreams were invading my waking life. Was my subconscious trying to tell me I needed to get my act together? Or was it just my brain’s way of saying, “Hey, dude, life’s a joke—enjoy the ride”?

Desperate for answers, I did what any rational person would do: I signed up for a dream interpretation course. The class was held in a dingy community center, run by a man named Dr. Hashbash Dingelpuss. He looked like he stepped out of a 1970s psychic hotline ad—flowing robes, crystal necklace, and a voice that sounded like it was filtered through a haze of incense. There were about a dozen of us in the circle: me, a wannabe writer who dreamed of retarded things, and a guy named Eido Labido who dreams of constantly being naked and chased by smartphones with pitchforks.

Dr. Dingelpuss started by saying, “Dreams are the universe’s way of whispering truths to your soul. They may seem absurd, but beneath the surface lies profound meaning.” I raised my hand. “What if your dream is just… stupid? Like, what if you’re a hot dog at a job interview?” The group laughed, but Dr. Dingelpuss fixed me with a serious stare. “Ah, the hot dog symbolizes your hidden desires to be noticed, to stand out in a crowd. The ketchup? Repressed emotions spilling out.”

I nodded along, but inside, I was dying. Repressed emotions? I just wanted to stop dreaming about condiments. Eido piped up next, describing a dream where he was continuously poked in the ass with an Android wielding a pitchfork everytime he used his IPhone to google which camera is superior when choosing a smartphone.

Dr. Dingelpuss interpreted it as a sign of impending retardation of the brain. That Eido’s inability to make decisions in life is slowly transitioning to consume and rapidly eat away the few cells he has left in his brain.
I whispered to the Eido, “Or maybe it means you got a weird fetish for smartphones.” We both snorted, earning a glare from Dr. Dingelpuss.

As Dr. Luna tried to maintain order with his crystal pendulum, I felt no closer to enlightenment. I think I just traumatized myself further.

Something about dreams that just doesn’t click with me anymore.
I’m convinced that dreams are the universe’s way of mocking us. Like when I was running late for work, but my legs are made of spaghetti, or I’m giving a speech in my underwear to a room full of judgmental cats. But lately, my dreams have taken things to a completely new level of stupidity. Let me tell you about last night because if I don’t get this out, I might just lose my mind. Or what’s left of it after all this nonsense? I went to bed around 11 PM, exhausted from a day of staring at a computer screen.

In the dream, I’m back in high school, which is ridiculous because I graduated decades ago. My high school has been transformed into a floating island in the sky, complete with cotton candy clouds and a moat of chocolate milk. I’m wandering the halls, trying to find my locker, but every time I turn a corner, I run into my old science teacher, Mr. Katona. Except now, he’s not the weirdo we all knew. No, he’s a giant penguin. Same head and face, but with the body of a penguin. “Ah, Mr. Dabajeh,” he squawks, “you’re late for your quantum physics exam on underwater basket weaving!” I try to protest, but my voice comes out as a series of honks like I’m a goose. Utterly ridiculous.

I laugh about it now, but in the dream, I’m panicking. I start running down the hallway, my webbed feet slapping against the floorboards, and suddenly, the school transforms into a shopping mall. Not just any mall, the kind where every store is selling something completely pointless, like “Whiskey for Toddlers” or “Invisible Hats for Your Imaginary Friends.” I duck into a store called “Dream Bargains,” where the clerk is my ex-girlfriend from junior high, Sarah. She’s got three heads now, one for each of her personalities, and she’s trying to sell me a lifetime supply of self-doubt in a backpack. “It’s on sale for the low price of your dignity!” she cackles. I tell her I’m not interested, but then I realize I’m completely naked and wearing nothing but a polka-dot bowtie. Classic dream embarrassment, but wait, it gets stupider.

As I’m fumbling for clothes, the mall starts shaking like it’s in an earthquake. Turns out, we’re not on a floating island anymore, we’re inside a giant hamster wheel, and the whole thing is being powered by a team of celebrity hamsters. Yep, you heard that right. Yoko Ono is there as a hamster, wearing tiny sunglasses and spinning the wheel with his paws, while Pink Floyd, all Hamsters, belt out Comfortably Numb. “I…….Have become Limburger cheese!” they squeak. I’m trying to escape, but every time I run, I just end up back at the start.

At this point, I’m thinking, “This is just a dream. Wake up!” But no luck. Instead, the scene shifts again. Now I’m in a kitchen, but not my kitchen. It’s a massive, industrial one, like something out of a cooking show, except the ingredients are all alive and talking back. I’m supposed to be baking a cake for my boss’s birthday, but the flour is a snarky little cloud that keeps floating away, yelling, “You can’t handle me, dude! I’m too fluffy for your amateur skills!” And the eggs? They’re not eggs, they’re tiny, egg-shaped versions of my childhood pet goldfish, Bubbles, who swims around in a bowl on the counter, judging my every move. “You’re doing it all wrong,” Bubbles gurgles. “Remember when you forgot to feed me that one time? This is karma!”

I try to ignore them and mix the batter, but then the oven turns into a portal to another dimension. Out pops my long-lost neighbor, Uncle Joe, who passed away years ago, but in the dream, he’s alive and well, except he’s made entirely of jelly. “Dabajeh, my boy!” he wobbles, his arms jiggling like Jell-O. “I’ve come to teach you the secret of eternal youth: eat more pickles!” He hands me a giant pickle the size of a baseball bat. I have no choice but to eat it. But before I can spit it out, the kitchen floods with pickle juice, and I’m swimming for my life alongside a school of fluorescent fish that are singing show tunes. “We’re off to see the wizard, the wonderful wizard of blunders!” they chorus.

By now, I’m laughing in the dream—because what else can you do? It’s so stupidly over-the-top that it’s almost fun. But then things take a turn for the worse, as dreams often do. The flood carries me out of the kitchen and into a courtroom, where I’m on trial for “excessive dreaming.” The judge is now a robot version of Mr. Katona, with laser eyes and a gavel that shoots confetti. “Order in the court!” he booms. “The defendant is charged with turning his dreams into a circus of nonsense. How do you plead?” I try to defend myself, saying, “Your Honor, it’s not my fault! Dreams are just ridiculous!” But the prosecutor—guess who? A squirrel named Roden, who’s somehow wearing a tiny suit and tie, jumps up and says, “Objection! The defendant has been slacking in real life, and this is his brain’s way of protesting!” The jury, made up of dancing peanuts, nods in agreement.

I’m sweating bullets, real bullets, and I realize I have no evidence to prove my innocence. So, I do what any sane person would do in a dream: I make a run for it. I bolt out of the courtroom, through a door that leads to a desert, where the sand is made of Pop Rocks that explode under my feet. I’m being chased by a horde of angry emojis, yelling things like, “You never use us in texts!” and “Thumbs up or else!” It’s chaos. I trip over a cactus that’s a whoopee cushion, and as I fall, I think, “This has to be the pinnacle of stupidity.”

In the dream’s grand finale, I end up in outer space, floating weightlessly, but I’m still wearing that polka-dot bowtie from earlier. The stars are rearranged to spell out messages like “Buy more socks” and “Remember to call your mom.” And the earth is below me, spinning like a disco ball. Then, out of nowhere, the Village People showed up in a spaceship that had giant speakers mounted outside, and they started singing, “In the Navy.”

Finally, just as my stomach rumbled and I was about to puke to their disco beat, I woke up. I’m in my bed, tangled in sheets, heart pounding like I just ran a marathon. The clock reads 3:17 AM. I sit up, rubbing my eyes, and burst out laughing. What the heck was that? A floating high school, celebrity hamsters, talking ingredients, and a trial with dancing peanuts. It’s like my brain decided to host the world’s dumbest party and forgot to invite common sense.

After I calmed down, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Sure, dreams are ridiculous, but maybe that’s the point. They’re our minds’ way of blowing off steam, of turning the mundane into something wildly entertaining. I’m still annoyed by how ridiculous dreams can be. But I’ve learned to roll with it. That night, I went to bed again, half-dreading what my subconscious might cook up next. Who knows? Maybe my dreams aren’t so useless after all. Or perhaps they’re just retarded, as I like to say, and that’s perfectly fine. Either way, life’s too short not to laugh at the chaos, even if it’s all in my head.