Have you noticed that when you wake up your emotions are in the same state they were in your dream? If you have a dream about your beautiful and hilarious friend who you haven't spoken to in years, you might wake up with an irresistible urge to call her.

Of course you sober up from sleep a little, and remember you haven't spoken to her in years for a good reason (like she's dead, or never existed, or a comic book character.)

My question is, which is the real you? When you get out of bed, do you construct a fake set of emotions and tell yourself you own them? Or is being asleep like being drunk or on drugs? Does it make you not yourself?

My brain - the director of the ongoing panoply of death and destruction that comprises my dreams - terrifies me. Every night the lights go out and my brain puts together another X-rated snuff/natural disaster/NPR/disco/slasher movie, and I'm the only one that gets to see any of it. Could you imagine a newspaper column that went on and on about dead babies and rape and famine for an entire year? How sick would you have to be to write it? That's basically my brain's creative process.