Reality versus dream

Reality

I slept at my sister's house last night. I have just woken up and am about to cook some yummy homemade fishcakes for my breakfast.

Dream

I was in an odd place, not sure what it was, but I had a tiny poky little room with no windows and no light. It was stuffy and claustrophobic. I think we were all part Croatian in this place. Outside my door was a little landing and there was another tiny bedroom next door to mine. The person in it had a window. I was envious of the window. I couldn't work out if it was a he or a she. S/he spoke to me and apologised about the drunken behaviour the night before. I said to him/her "It's okay, you don't need to worry. I'm not really here. My body is actually sleeping in my sister's flat and I'm only here for a few hours. I wasn't here last night either, so I don't remember anything - I didn't hear anything, I wasn't here."

For him/her this was a life, s/he'd been living here. My room looked like I had been living there too, but I knew it had all been constructed for just those few hours of me being there, that I was really fast asleep in my sister's flat and that before my sleeping, I'd been awake and in Reading and London.

I then 'woke up' in my sister's flat and cooked some fishcakes for my breakfast. After I ate them I wiped the surfaces and put stuff in the fridge, then found these three homemade fishcakes and was gutted I'd eaten the shop-bought ones.


Reality

I was woken at 6am and then again at 7.30am (when my sister got up and then left the flat) and I guess that the combination of this left me confused. I heard sounds that didn't make sense. I saw bright lights that weren't daylight and my mind was so confused when I finally woke up into reality.

I woke up for real at 8.30am, relieved I still had nice fishcakes to cook. I felt I'd been asleep either four hours or 20 hours, but in reality I'd been asleep about 8.5 hours, but broken.

It's funny. The first time I 'woke up' I 'knew' I was awake. Now I am really awake I have no doubt that I am really awake. There is no fear that I am somehow still trapped in a dream.

What is it with this dream within a dream? I've always had them and always found them fascinating. Sometimes wonderful and sometimes irritating when I've lived a whole day and have to do it all over again, depending, of course, if it was a wonderful day or a difficult day.

The new thing for me, with this, was knowing where I was - asleep in my sister's flat. This hasn't happened before. I've always known I was dreaming before, but this had a different, kind of Matrix-esque quality.

Thoughts welcome. Please post. :-)