Dreaming of Doshas: A 3 AM Sleep Experiment

So last night, I tried something different to break my shitty sleep cycle. I kept my phone miles away from me, hoping for an undisturbed eight hours of sleep. But lo and behold, I woke up right along with the ghosts past midnight—at 3 AM sharp, just like I always do.

This kind of waking up is tricky: either you go back to sleep quickly, or you stay awake like a night owl staring into nothingness. Luckily, last night I did drift back to sleep. I ended up dreaming about masala doshas with my child, which was strange since we hadn't eaten or ordered them recently.

In the dream, we walked into a humble-looking South Indian breakfast restaurant with steel tables and simple sofas. We waited for someone to take our order. Finally, we decided to walk around to find a waiter to place our masala dosha order. As I kept thinking about that dosa, I wondered who was actually going to eat it; Riaan loves puris, and I am off carbs. Yet, for some reason, the masala dosha was stuck in my head.

When we turned around to look back at our table, we discovered to our shock that it was occupied by five or six potbellied uncles. Luckily for us, we suddenly spotted my mum at another table. As I looked at her face in the distance and wondered why on earth I wanted to eat a masala dosha, I woke up again.

This time it was 5:30 AM. Phone or no phone, my sleep is definitely still disturbed. But looking on the bright side, without my mobile phone, I suppose the time taken to drift back to sleep was quicker. And masala dosha dreams, however perplexing, are never a bad thing to have.

Not-so-tired owl, out!