To Sleep...Perchance to Dream

I have never had a problem falling asleep. Usually, within minutes of hitting the pillow, I drift off to the wonderful land of Slumber. I sleep like a corpse, except of course when Jack decides it is playtime at 3:48 am. And I have never needed an alarm clock to wake up; you could set Eastern Standard time by my biological clock. I normally do not recall most of my dreams, though lately I have been awakened in the morning thinking 'what the sam hell was that all about?'. Those in the know will tell you that remembering your dreams depends on whether or not you wake up in the midst of one. Or that the context of your dreams is dependent on daily factors that influence your life. Have a stressful job, you will dream about work. I have even been told that your dreams can be effected by eating before you go to sleep. Now I realize that having that bowl of mint chocolate chip ice cream with chocolate sauce, pecans, and whipped cream is a sure fire way to get a less than perfect night of sleep. All that sugar at 10 pm is bound to keep you wired. But come on, I don't think it induced the dream I had a couple of nights ago (when said bowl of ice cream was devoured). It was all still a little fuzzy when I woke up, but in the dream I was being chased by a woman with a butcher knife who for some reason thought I was holding her cat ransom. And when she caught up with me and proceeded to get down on one knee and propose to me in the middle of this city square with all these people looking on. I woke up with this image, and I may have discerned it's origins. Before I went to bed the previous night (and after the ice cream), I started reading a book a friend gave me, 'Husband Hunting Made Easy' (a feeble attempt by a concerned friend to get me settled down, but I will go into that soap opera at a later date). And I was awakened the next morning by my kitten Jack, who so lovingly had decided to use my nose as a chew toy. No amount of psycho-babble in the world will convince me that is was anything other than those two factors that converged to form that dream....the book and my cat. And perhaps an overactive imagination..

Did I forget to mention that the deranged lunatic that was chasing me was driving a Carvel Ice Cream truck???