Musings, Jokes, and Dreams to Wake Me Up 1

I have a certain routine that I like to keep, but that hinges on me waking up within a certain timeframe. Sometimes, I don’t wake up within that timeframe and it winds up being afterwards, but it isn’t as if I can’t still do many of the things that I want to do throughout the day. But everything gets pushed back, or I often wind up with less time for certain things, etc. That will bother me if I do it too often, because I’m not being so strict with the timeframe in which I need to be up and starting to get ready. It’s not like I’m asking too much of myself. As long as I’m up and starting the necessities between 7:30 A.M. and 8:30 A.M. I’m happy. Too often I am not starting to do anything until a half an hour or an hour after. Every once in a while is OK. But I don’t want it to become a habit.

The problem is that I don’t NEED to be up at those times and I CAN wake up an hour later and be fine with all the essential stuff. It’s my writing, my projects, my time to work out, all of those other things that suffer. But I had an instance one morning, in which I wanted to submit to a publication, and they would open submissions at 8:00 A.M. Their submission cap wasn’t too high and so they’d reach the cap quickly in the past, and if you weren’t submitting right away, you’d miss it. So, that one morning, I was up well before 8:00 A.M. getting ready so that I could submit.

It dawned on me. If I have something that I NEED to do, then I can get up much more easily. The solution? I need to give myself some NECESSITIES. But what? I decided I could hold myself accountable by posting here. Not every day. But I needed to write every day. I needed to timestamp myself, and be honest about it. So, I decided that I would start my routine, and then every morning just take a minute or two to write something, whatever was on my mind, whether it be the dreams that I just had, or some funny musings I’d been… well… musing about, or maybe just something else funny. I’d tell myself that I NEED to do this every morning, and timestamp myself, so it would give me something to wake up for. And then knowing that at the beginning of each week, I’d post all of these from the last week, there would be no hiding from the times I got up.

I’d be holding myself accountable. And with that, I begin.

8/13/26 8:26 A.M.

I don’t think I remember any dreams from last night, but I do still remember a dream from the night before. I was trying to cross the street and got hit by a car, granted it was only going about 10 miles per hour. When I looked inside, there were two old guys asleep, looking like they were drunk.

Their car stopped, luckily, after striking my body, (would that happen?) but they still hadn’t woken up. I took my phone out and recorded them, ready to send the video to the police, when someone else showed up on the scene and pulled a gun on me! And it was one of my neighbors down the street! It turns out he was related to these men and he couldn’t let me turn them in. He made me delete the video in front of him so he could see I had no proof. I did it, but I remember thinking how I was pretty sure when I deleted a video on my phone it went into a Recently Deleted folder and stayed there for a month before being permanently deleted. I was just going to wait until I was allowed to leave the scene and then un-delete the video to send to the police, but I was just hoping my neighbor wouldn’t realize this.

That’s all I really remember, but what was strange was that I hadn’t seen this particular neighbor in several weeks in real life. The morning after I had that dream, I happened to see him drive by outside. No gun, very friendly, not threatening to shoot me.

And as I write this I actually remember a dream from last night, vaguely, and I think it was just me telling someone about the irony of having this dream and then having seen my neighbor right after? A dream talking about a dream and also about real life? Sounds warped and confusing and also boring and like I need to let the dream go.

8/14/26 8:27 A.M.

Only one minute later than yesterday, not bad. I don’t recall any dreams from last night. I guess I slept well because there’s nothing that’s popping into my mind. 

But then, I started thinking of this… sometimes I come up with ideas that I think would be a great business or an excellent feature for a product, and I think, now that could be an invention. Or maybe that needs a patent. Now, I’m never going to go out and start a business or invent something, but I often muse about how I’d love to explain my idea to someone and have them make it, and then we can split the profits 20/80 because all I did was come up with a great idea and they implemented it.

This one on my mind now, I thought was such a great idea that it would come in handy for police, military, etc. And then I also thought, this would be so good in a story or a script! And then I watched a movie, and clearly I wasn’t the first person to think of this. The idea was to have guns that would work only when activated by your personal fingerprint, so you could use your gun, but no one else could take it from you and use it on you. I watched “What Happened to Monday” which is from 2017, and they had incorporated that idea. Oh well, I’ll keep coming up with new inventions. By the way, I recommend that movie if you want a dystopian future, sci-fi thriller, it was a good one!

8/15/26 8:23 A.M.

I do remember one dream from last night. I was out in the yard with my tortoise (which is what I actually do every day) and there were three other tortoises that are often gone most of the day but then return and live here (not actually what happens) and all five of us were hanging out and having a good time. 

My real pet tortoise’s name is Joey. In the dream I had named one of the other tortoises Lightning. But it wasn’t really an ironic name; that tortoise was legitimately fast. It was a pretty casual dream, definitely better than one of the last ones where I got hit by a car and then had a gun pointed at me.

I’ve had some dreams that have sparked on some great story and script ideas, but I don’t think any of these are hitting the same way. That’s OK, I don’t think I need more ideas right now, I still haven’t gotten to all of my old ones. But one script that came together from a dream is the one that won Best Feature Script in a film festival, was an Official Selection in two others, and was a Semifinalist in a different screenplay competition. So, when I have a dream that I think can be a story or script, I don’t ignore the feeling and I go with it.

8/16/26 9:24 A.M.

Well, I definitely didn’t manage to get up when I wanted to today. But it’s OK for today, because it’s Sunday, right? Wasn’t that God’s whole thing? On the seventh day he rested… and that was Sunday… so we can sleep in and rest on Sundays?

I kind of don’t like that whole notion though, because doesn’t it make it sound like Sunday was the only day God rested? It sounds like the poor guy worked a 6-day workweek, and I am not cool with that being the norm. We already have too many corporations trying to get us to work more hours and be available to work during unscheduled times, I don’t like normalizing a 6-day workweek. One day off a week and then I’m so tired I sleep in and lose precious hours? No, I don’t like that. God should set an example and start resting on the sixth and fifth days too. Let’s make that the norm. 

Oh well, anyway, I’m going to try to get back to it next week, hopefully with better results.