Since I was a very young child I have had extremely vivid dreams, to the point that sometimes it can be quite difficult to differentiate between what has happened in my sleep and what is real life.
Sometimes, after a dream about someone I know I will feel weird and uncomfortable for days on
end.
Uncomfortable can mean extra affectionate, or extremely unsettled if they've done something extra unpleasant. This week, I bought a memory-foam pillow, and to my horror it seems to have made my dreams merge even more with reality.
The memory foam is like a strange, comfortable tablet that moulds to the shape of your head. I think it's good for your body, and I can confirm that my neck has been so disconcertingly un-sore for the last few days I'm almost worried that something might be wrong.
Before acquiring a memory-foam pillow I thought that my dreams couldn't get any more bizarre. When I was a little girl I had recurring dreams.
There were two of them and they were both scary. The first was that I was stuck in a giant hand-held maze, the kind where you try to get the little silver ball to the centre.
I was tiny, and the ball was enormous and I was suspended in space with huge, leering Disney characters floating nearby. In the second dream I and my family were all organ pipes, the women had soft, high-pitched organ sounds, while the men made terrifying booming noises.
These dreams have stuck with me, but the two nights I've been using my memory-foam pillow have produced some strangely specific narratives.
The most significant was a realistic dream about watching Sleater-Kinney play in a loft in New York, and later holding hands and giggling with Carrie Brownstein about a pair of my English professor's running shorts.
I laughed to the point that I drooled all down my chin and Carrie was so amused that she offered my band an opening slot for the New Zealand Sleater-Kinney show. But I was so excited that I couldn't respond because I was worried I was going to cry. Then I got lost in a hallway of infinite fancy bathrooms.
I know nothing about the science behind dreams, all I know is that I once read a book by Carl Jung, who said a whole lot of stuff about keyholes and neurosis.
This means I don't really know if sleeping on a pillow that is better for my neck has anything at all to do with what happens in my dreams, or if it's only related to my mindset, my diet, or how tired I am when I fall asleep.
What I do like to think, however, is that because I am being kinder to my body by sleeping on a truly excellent pillow, I am becoming more in touch with my subconscious. I didn't have strong feelings about mazes, Disney characters, or organ pipes when I was a child, and I still don't.
I do have strong feelings about Sleater-Kinney, New York, fancy bathrooms and what does and does not constitute an appropriate running short.
I'm tempted to think that my memory foam has given me some kind of clairvoyant ability, and that I dreamt about Carrie Brownstein because I am actually going to get to play with her band (something I want while I am awake, too).
Maybe, when my body gets used to sleeping in a position that doesn't wreck my neck and shoulders, I will lose this ability. Only time will tell whether my dreams manifest in reality, but I do hope that it's only the nice things that eventuate, and not the horrifying running shorts and organ pipes.
● Millie Lovelock is a Dunedin student.
