I was in my bedroom, reading a book. But I wasn't really looking at the book; I had my eyes closed and I was holding the book (which was also closed). The words were going into my head, but I can't remember what they were. I think it was some kind of poem or something. Even though I had my eyes closed, I somehow knew that the words were visibly flying out of the book and into my ears. Then I put the book down and sat up, but suddenly I was under my bed, instead of on it. I hit my head on the bottom of my bed (which makes me think that I must have hit my head on something in my sleep, because it actually did hurt). When I got out from under my bed, all the lights were on in my bedroom. I turned all my lights off and went to sleep. When I woke up (and this is still in the dream), my dog Dusty was on a pillow in my room. It was the same as the pillow she usually sleeps on in my mom's room. I got up out of bed and went over to the pillow to pet her. I patted her on the head, and she looked at me. Then I saw that she was a cat. I remember feeling not surprised, but... crestfallen. A little bit disappointed. I went into my kitchen. My house looked the same, but it seemed like I had to take a lot more turns and hallways to get to the kitchen than I really do. So anyways, I went to the kitchen, and my mom was at the table. She was on the phone. I don't remember what she was saying, but when I walked in she was just saying bye. She hung up the phone, and then saw me sitting at the table.
"Mom?" I said. "Dusty is a cat?"
"Yeah," she replied matter-of-factly. She didn't look at me strangely or appear surprised that I didn't know we had a cat. She also appeared very confident in the knowledge that Dusty was a cat. No doubt about it. I shrugged and tried to think of all the times that I should have realized Dusty was a cat, but I couldn't think of any. That's when I realized I'd never seen Dusty's face before. That's how I didn't realize she was a cat. Which doesn't really make a whole lot of sense, because you wouldn't have to look at a cat's face to know it was a cat.
"Oh," I said. We both went on with our day. Now, if you suddenly found out that your dog was a cat, would you let it go that quickly? The me in my dream apparently would. So, I went into my basement. I went to sleep on the couch. When I woke up (still in my dream), I was on my bed. I opened my drawer, and my phone was in there. Something I didn't consider strange in the dream, but now seems really weird. Anyways, I changed into my cross country stuff, and then filled up my water bottle. When I dropped it into my bag, it made a huge clanging noise. I also didn't find that the least bit strange. Other than the phone thing, though, that was the only odd thing about this portion of the dream. I ate my breakfast, and then I walked out the door.
Then I heard my mom saying "Maura! Come on, get ready!" I turned around and my mom was at the door.
"Mom, I am ready, I'm going to cross country!"
"Maura! Come on!"
And that's when I woke up.
Pretty weird, right? There's two ways to think of this. Here's one: The whole thing was a dream, but I fell asleep twice in the dream.
Here's the other: When I first fell asleep in the dream, I had a dream about Dusty being a cat and laying on the couch. When I woke up from my dream, I got ready for cross country in my dream. This is kind of hard to explain, but what I'm basically trying to say is that the Dusty being a cat part was a dream within my dream about reading and going to cross country. That's the simplest way to explain what I'm thinking. I don't know which one really happened, or if there really are different layers of dreaming.
I wonder what happens in my brain when I fall asleep in my dream when I am already asleep. I wonder if a dream happens over a span of time when one is sleeping, or if a dream is just a false memory that one sometimes wakes up with. I wonder if it is possible to know that you are dreaming, and I wonder what evidence your brain leaves that a dream even occurred. I wonder if one day we will be able to record our dreams by figuring out what the brain does when it makes a dream, and I wonder if we will one day be able to watch each-other's dreams, or go back later and watch our own dreams. I can think about all of these things, but for now, dreams are a code that remain un-cracked by the minds in which they occur.