The 5 Minute Dream

Have you ever slept for a few minutes, then when you wake up, you feel you lived a whole life? No? Good for you, I guess. Because this happens to me every day. It falls between my grand law study times (because, in reality, I do study) and when my job starts at 9:45 a.m., where I pretend to be an adult for 8 hours. But lunchtime? That's when things get fun.

Let's break it down: I wake up early because I love to torture myself with law books. It's peaceful. It's productive. It's the only time I can pretend I'm not already half dead from the previous day's stress. By 9:45 a.m., I'm dressed in something other than pajamas (shocking, right?), ready to head to work, pretending to be an office wizard who's got it all together.

Then it's lunchtime. This is the moment I have been waiting for, where I eat a lot and feel strong and satisfied. Guess what? That's when the naps hit me. You can't avoid them. One minute, I'm bent over my desk pretending to work, and the next, I've somehow fallen into a deep sleep that lasts. Well, it's meant to be 5 minutes, but in my head, I feel like I've traveled to another world.

In those amazing 5 minutes, my brain becomes very creative as if it’s had a lot of caffeine. I’ve dreamed about arguing in a court (very fitting, I know), jumping through magical doors, or flying over cities like I’m in a big movie. I wake up thinking, “Wow, that felt like I lived a whole century!" But then, I look at the clock and discover that in real time, it has only been five minutes.

Wait, what? I’ve read somewhere (again, I’m no expert) that during certain stages of sleep, like REM, our brains distort time like it’s some magic trick. Apparently, what feels like a marathon in your dream could actually be less than the time it takes to brew a cup of coffee. But it’s like my brain’s version of Inception, a dream within a dream within a dream. I have just slept for five minutes. Kind of life do I lead now? Am I in some alternate universe where nobody cares about any concept of time?

It's as though my brain just became a director of these ultra-long (although totally fictional) storylines that only take it some seconds to devise. I would have more twists in one napping time compared to what many films have within its entire runtime. Meanwhile, the body remains sitting in the chair, drooling on my keyboard, while the mind thinks: "Oh no biggie. Just saving the world while you slept in Dreamland.

And then I wake up, dazed and not knowing where I have been; all I care about is my clock to ascertain whether I was late for work tasks.

Thank you for reading! If you have had similar times when a 5-minute nap felt like a different life, I would love to hear about it. Please share your stories with me on my social media links in my bio. Who knows, I might share your story on my blog! And don’t forget to follow me. I could use more people who love dreaming!