Why it's better not to dream (literally)

I do not often dream (or at least I don't notice somehow), which I generally find to be a good thing. When I dream, I find that I wake up more often in the middle of the night, I find the sleep itself to be more restless, and generally, I'll only finally groggily get out of bed while still not rested after one dream is particularly disturbing and makes me not want to go back to bed. So, yeah, that's fun.

Perhaps more importantly, for our present purposes, it should be known I very rarely dream of anything, you know, sexual. I'm not entirely sure why that's the case, but my subconscious just doesn't seem to go that route with dreams. Sure, when I was a kid, I could have the same dream twice where I had to chase the Red Baron through labyrinthine trials and mind games, but does my dream self ever get freak nasty with some hot ladyfolk? Never. Also, "freak nasty with some hot ladyfolk" may or may not be the correct contemporary nomenclature. I didn't go to the Urban Dictionary for this one. Anyhow, usually, I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything, and it's been pretty sweet to never have to deal with the dreaded "nocturnal emission," but sometimes, you know, having a dream like that might be cool?

But, BUT, I dreamed last night, and the set-up for my dream is one that is entirely sexy. In this dream, this super-attractive girl and I were friends...with benefits! Come on, guys, you know this to be objectively sexy. I mean, this dream is literally, "Meet up with a hot girl for touching." So this girl and I are going to meet up, and my dream is basically taking the next left turn possible into Sexytown. So, as you can tell, the dream is going well. But just as I put on the blinker to make that left turn...

Dream sexy friend wants to talk about emotions and feelings. She would like to discuss how it's obvious she wants something more than just "friends with benefits," and how I've been messing with her head for a long time now, because why don't I just get it? And the worst part is, as she was saying this, I saw her point. I thought to myself, "Oh, man, the signs have been obvious. I am a dick, even if unintentionally!" I felt pretty bad about my dream self. In my dream, I actually felt remorse, and that pang you get in your stomach when you realize you've done something pretty terribly that's not exactly fixable. You know that feeling? You know that feeling you get at work, when you realize that you've been doing something terribly wrong the whole day, and then you think about whether you can fix it or not, and then realize you can't, and have that thirty seconds of sitting there staring ahead before you tell your boss, and it feels awful? I physically felt that, times ten, while sleeping, and even once I woke up, while being berated by a friend that doesn't even exist.

So, obviously, there was not antiquing in Sexytown in this dream.

My subconscious, basically, set up the ideal sexy dream scenario, only to then pull the rug out from under me and make me feel guilty about a friend that I literally made up. Nice work, brain. Thanks. Just, whose side are you on, anyway? Oh, and then my next dream was one in which I met up with an (actual) ex-girlfriend. And then I helped bring groceries in from her car to her house. No joke. That was the very next dream. The one after that was the disturbing one that made me get up. We don't have to discuss it.

This is why I'd rather just not dream.

Social contracts in reference to my naptime

Back in school, I've been studying, to some extent, the history of culture in humanity. Mostly to figure out how religion came about/is useful to human beings as a whole. However, in doing so, I began to think of Rousseau and Hobbes (and Locke, yes, but who wants to talk about Locke), who both discussed why we decided to give up autonomy to live in civil society. The main reason, to reduce large philosophical texts to sound bites, was for safety. We say, okay, I don't need to have total control over my life, so that my life may be extended, and lived in relative safety.

The other day, I realized that, to be completely honest in determining how these social contracts best pertain to me, the greatest advantage I have in giving up some basic freedoms to stay secure is that I can sleep during the day. Yes, that's right. One of the best reasons I have for appreciating social constraints is the nap.

The state of nature is dangerous. Were we still the "noble savage" in the case of Rousseau, there would be feral animals out there to harm me. My cave would not be adequate in protecting me from creatures that could maim or kill me while I slept during the day. Were we still in the state of nature as describes by Hobbes, other humans would will me harm so that they could possess what is mine. But now, in my apartment - whose locks cannot actually protect me from other people - society has all but deemed me secure. Which means I can lie dormant on the couch during daylight hours literally oblivious to the world around me. I'll be clear: this could not be the case were it not that I had given up my natural state. And that, sadly, is the best reason I can find for appreciating the fact that we have given up some freedoms and have decided to be governed by law. So I can pass out during the afternoon.