Sleeping Duty III – The Final Nightmare

It’s official – I’ve got the apnea! No surprise really.

It was a really interesting experience. There was so much wiring stuck all over me. Two days later I still have the marks:

Photo Credit: E.D. Productions, Inc.

Luckily I did not have to go to the bathroom, which would have been quite a process, despite what the paperwork said. I managed to get into REM sleep pretty quickly (the tech was surprised by how quickly, actually) so we were able to do the next part, which was wearing the mask thingy that is plugged into the machine thingy (I really could look up all proper names and the technical jargon, I have no excuses, it is the day after a holiday and the office is dead but I just can’t be arsed). That part made me feel like Darth Vader, what with the mask and the breathing sounds. So much so, in fact, I am very surprised I did not have Star Wars-themed dreams. Which brings me to the most embarrassing part: my dreams.

I have always been pretty good at remembering my dreams (maybe because my waking life is so dull). My dreams that night were horribly racist and homophobic. Now, those who know me know I don’t have a racist bone in my body (I may be white but my soul is black) and well, that I am a gay man trapped inside a woman’s body is obvious. So when I saw a section on the exit paperwork that said “Please write a brief description of any dreams you may have had” I panicked. I know what I dreamed about has no bearing on the results but I do believe in full disclosure. There was no way I was going to describe the racist parts. So I just cleaned up the homophobic part a little and wrote that I dreamed I was engaged to a woman but wanted to get out of the engagement because she was planning on serving cereal at the reception (that part was not edited but it did come from the racist dream). I ended the notes with the parenthetical comment “I am straight in real life.” WTF?