flying in the face of awake-ness

Nine hours to Krakow. At least, the longest leg of the layovers. Nine hours isn't that big of a deal, I guess. When one considers it's just a really good night's sleep. Eight hours plus an extra dream or two. The good dreams don't kick in until about 6 hours, anyway.

Actually, I think REM theory is suspect. I fall asleep dreaming, and wake up dreaming differently. So what about all that time in between? Some little librarian OCD'er in me wishes I could catalogue all those forgotten dreams. I wonder if the ones in the middle are as intense as I think they are. Does the dramatic formula follow us to sleep? Is there some hour in there, just past the midway point, where the suspense of all the backstory culminates into one huge, tearjerking, mindblowing plot twist.

Arguably so. When a storm hits and the thunder rocks my windowpanes, or the cat knocks over a glass in the kitchen...oh, those are the dreams I wake from – engorged. The dreams with the thickfaced protagonists, or murky, smoke-colored villains...those are the ones that resonate. The ones that steep fragrant in the foreground until I can calm myself. Drift back off. Go back in. Nightmares don't really bother me much. I enjoy their intensity. They make my heart race. Clutch the pillows. I love dreaming, period.

But flying is a different story. All that wakefulness - for all those hours. All that staring out the window at little square sections of predetermined land and sea. Counting the rows, and accounting for manmade patterns. Interrogating the cloud shapes of their gassy masses. Fuel steaming off the wings...

No sleep. No sleep for so many hours.

Always wish the long-term flier her dreams. Wish her dreams that saturate and yank and glorify and outlandishly frighten. Anything but the sore-eyed fit of lidless, reptilian limbo. The torture of waiting. And wanting to grab the stranger's hand next to you.

Sometimes doing so. That’s always awkward.