Ive always been fascinated by dreams.
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Not necessarily whether they come true, like the Thailand cave rescue, or are shattered (think Federers exit from Wimbledon), but how you can be laying in bed awake, yearning for sleep but unable to achieve it.
Then without warning the sleep juice kicks in and you go level-four Inception.
Chances are, you dont even know youre dreaming.
The brain is an amazing mechanism for distracting you from reality, or confusing you about reality, or just being reality.
For evidence of that look no further than the Trump-Putin summit in Helsinki this week. I thought I was dreaming watching that, even though experts reckon dreams only last two or three seconds.
Mr Putins dream run seems to be lasting a good while longer. Just ask the CIA.
You believe what you want to believe, I guess, or what they want you to believe, or what your brain allows you to believe.
Depends on whos hacking the system.
The other night I went to bed aware that I had to get up early next morning. I set the alarm on my phone and duely went to sleep.
About two hours out from the assigned wake-up time I found myself wide-eyed watching the clock wondering if the alarm was any closer to going to go off.
No matter how much I tried, I couldnt get back to sleep. A couple of times I toyed with getting out of bed and doing something useful, like watch the World Cup or Wimbledon or wake everyone up.
Then without warning I fell into a deep sleep that I didnt even realise I was having.
The detail was notable, in retrospect, because I remembered it.
I drove a Tuk-Tuk-type vehicle, which had a door on the right hand side but none on the left, up to the East End of Newcastle where I ate soup from a bowl using a spoon which had a bit of rust on it. I believe it was minestrone soup.
Draw from that what you will.
As I made to leave the place where I was eating, my progress was impeded by a courier van. The van may have represented Shannon Noll, or Australias stance on coal-fired power stations. Im not sure. I just know it proceeded down a one-way lane, before reversing back past me. Beeping a lot.
Once the lane was clear, I made my way down that lane and noticed laying on the footpath, my mobile phone.
This was a relief, because I thought Id lost it. When I picked it up, the phone alarm went off in my hand.
With that I realised it wasnt just the phone alarm in my dream.
The phone alarm on the dresser next to the bed was going off too, telling me it was time to get out of bed.
For a moment there, I wasnt sure which world was reailty. A bit like watching the Trump-Putin summit.
Trying to interpret all these considerations leaves me thinking its a fine line between a dream run and a nightmare finish.
Lets hope that soccer ball thing isnt a wake-up call.