Dreams can be so strange, yet still convincing. I have some fascinating dreams, but rarely remember them for long. There was one recently that stuck, however.

Last Saturday, I dreamed that a senior manager asked me to help organize an event at work (I am a supervisor in a huge automated warehouse). He wanted me to call the police (?!!!?) and to order the chicken breasts. I failed to do so. I remember being confused about both orders. Why the police? And who do I order hundreds of chicken breasts from?

The orders were given to me in such an off-handed way that I would be embarrassed to ask for clarification. "What are you? Stupid?" would be the expected response, and I didn't want that.

(This is not characteristic of me -- I'm fairly assertive in real life.)

That was it for the dream, as far as I can recall.

I took a long time to wake up that morning. I'm sick with chest congestion, so I'm in no hurry to rouse. I lay there, drifting in and out of sleep, flipping between worried about the trouble I would get in for not taking care of those tasks, and wondering if it were real. Even after getting up, I had doubt regarding the veracity of either seeming reality.

I watched some TV. After an hour, I realized the whole thing could not be true.

The tricks we play on ourselves.