and tell you all my dreaming...dreaming is free. and sometimes a little creepy. ok, a lot creepy

Other than a dream I had last year involving me, Zac Efron, and an elaborate plan to repopulate the planet after a mysterious post-apocalyptic tragedy that was interrupted just as Zac was telling me I should check his ammunition supplies (hint - "ammunition supplies" had very little to do with actual ammunition)(second hint - when I say "very little," I mean absolutely none), I very rarely remember my dreams.

Lately, though, my mind has been revving up during my REMs, and I've been haunted by a variety of different dreams I've been unable to shake. Some of them have been fantastic while others are simply confusing and perhaps a wee bit terrifying. For example, early last week, my mind raced through a trippy masterpiece involving a gang of giant, evil dolphins flying through the air with tiny, terrified humans screaming out their panic while clinging to the dorsal fin of their captive dolphin. Did I mention I could tell the dolphins were evil because of the suits of armor they were wearing? Oh, yes. Ornate battle armor conducive to, well, battling, and apparently, flying through the sky. Because dolphins can't swim while wearing armor, and they were smart enough to know that.

Also, they're smart enough to forge their own armor despite a lack of hands, apparently.

I have no idea what this dream meant. A Facebook friend suggested I'd perhaps had a traumatic experience involving a dolphin as a child, but growing up in the landlocked Midwest would seem prohibitive of such a thing. I was, however, nearly trampled to death by a pen of escaped cows when I was 9, so if there's a metaphor to be made there, I'd be curious. My thought is the dream was meant to serve as a spirit guide sent to prepare me for Shark Week (a moment of silence, please, for the end of Shark Week 2010...), and it sent dolphins rather than sharks because it didn't want to actually scare me (but it sort of did!). If such is the case, then thank you, spirit world, because thanks to Shark Week, I now know there are sharks swimming off the coast of Massachusetts, and it makes me laugh to think of them having hella wicked Boston accents.

Because if I ever actually have and remember a dream about sharks, I'm sure they'd talk.

You know who else talks in my dreams? Paul Rudd, star of stage, screen, and nocturnal fantasies like the one I also had last week involving the two of us and a party at my Mom's house. The first clue it was a dream wasn't that Paul Rudd was at a backyard barbecue on my Mom's patio, but that I looked ah-may-ZING, as I am wont to do in my dreams, including but not limited to the ones where I turn up naked at some Big Important Event, or am falling from a tall building. Or falling naked from a tall building at the conclusion of some Big Important Event. Anyway, after hours of crazy flirting, it was obvious Paul and I had reached a point where one of us was going to be screaming "I love you, man!" before the night was over, and, well, since I'm not a man (which was obvious by my very large dream breasts), clearly I was to be the scream-ee.

I know you're probably thinking, "Sure, it's Paul Rudd. Every man wants to be him, every woman wants to do him. I can see why this was a dream you'd not necessarily want to wake up from." Believe me, that was the case, but then, in the dream, my Mom pulled me aside and said, "I really don't condone you having sex with Paul Rudd in my house, but if you're going to, in my house, and of course you are, you damn well better not get pregnant! While in my house!"

Um...OK? I mean, by then, he'd musked up ("That's the smell of desire, my lady!") and both of us wanted to do the no-pants dance, so I couldn't let him down (heh heh...veiled double entendre!). I have no idea why my mom had to step in and try to, OK, I'm just going to say it, cock block me, but let me just say, I'm glad she didn't succeed, because the sex was - wait for it - dreamy. There was floating, spinning, harp music, tiny birds descended from the heavens to weave ribbons in my flowing locks, and, yes, unicorns pranced about during the proceedings. Hell, a disembodied voice even narrated the festivities!

Seriously.

It was the kind of dream that made me mad when I woke up because (a) now I'm going to have to pay full price to see "Dinner for Schmucks" to get my fill of Paul, which was never on my life list, and (b) I didn't want it to end! It made me want to look up that crazy dream-stealing team from "Inception" and hire them to replant that dream deep inside me (and by that I mean inside my brain...of course...) so I could have it again. Over and over and over again. I want to have this dream again in four weeks just so I can take a pretend pregnancy test to see if I AM carrying Paul Rudd's seed because, despite my Mom's warning, I think I might actually be with dream child!

Then, of course, there's the nightmares. What could possibly be worse than giant flying dolphins wearing battle armor, you're perhaps asking. Maybe a dream involving sex with a giant flying dolphin wearing battle armor? Yes. That would be incredibly terrifying. Thankfully, that wasn't my nightmare!

No, the dream that haunts my slumber involved me, Guy Fieri and acts so depraved I can honestly barely look at him when I watch one of the 8 million shows he has on the Food Network because I feel like he's watching me and he knows what he did to me and he's feeding me signals that let me know he's not done driving the bus to Flavor Town, if you know what I mean. And I think you know what I mean if you take that wonderful sex dream I had involving Paul Rudd, strip away Paul Rudd, and insert Guy Fieri in the equation. Or the position. Whichever you prefer.

Holy-moly Stromboli, that dream scared the Bejesus out of me! Guy went on and on about Triple D, and I was all, "Listen, I know in my dreams, I have tremendous breasts, but I draw the line at triple Ds, and trust me, there will be absolutely no dives of any kind!"

(yep, I'm just as wordy in my dream state as I am in my non-dream state, so it's no wonder I'm constantly exhausted, hmm?)

As things progressed, he'd say things like "This sauce is so money," or "I'mma need more than a minute to win it!" and I'd clamp my eyes shut tighter, hoping he'd finish soon. I tried to distract him at one point by asking why he was making me yell out "FEE-ET-TEE," when it's clearly not how his name's spelled, but then he'd interrupt me by making me say "What's winner, winner?" and I'd have to say "Chicken dinner."

You know those dreams you have when you realize it's a dream and you absolutely don't want to be having it, so you try to wake yourself up from it? THIS was that dream for me. I've never seen an episode of "Minute to Win It," but after I had this dream, I came across one while flipping channels and paused (frozen with fear is more like it), and listened as Guy set up a game for a new contestant. It involved tossing some Velcro wrapped ping pong balls down a sloped board and trying to get the balls to attach at the end. The name of the game?

Sticky Balls.

Guy Fieri said sticky balls on national television. Then he may have turned toward the camera, looked directly at me, and winked.

And I no longer sit up at night watching Food Network before going to bed.