The world we wake up to is so often a hazy mix of dreamworld and reality. Fortunately there are ways to prevent the taint of the following three types of dreams from lingering until lunchtime:

1- False awakening dream: The alarm goes off. You get up…yada yada. Rinse and repeat. Last week I braved the skin screaming chill of a Calgary morning 3 entirely separate times getting up to plug in my phone before waking up cozy and smug… just to see my phone still on the bed beside me. So not impressed.

2- False solution dream: You wake up with the full confidence of having solved, if not perpetual motion, than at least that problem you went to bed gnawing on. No joke I woke up this morning with a full blog post prepared (plus visual!) ready to publish. It took almost a good full minute to realize that I wasn’t an Australian Outback chef who’d designed an paradigm shifting appetizer display that finally won the respect of my male coworkers. I’m pretty sure it involved… triangles? My fault for watching this (don’t ask) before bed – and ya ya I already know about the whole blue light thing.

3- The sense of doom dream: There is no deeper taint on the day than the sense of doom dream. When you wake up from a nightmare into a life or death battle you already know you’re going to lose. This isn’t the world you wished goodnight sweet dreams to. This is a bleak, apocalyptic landscape where familiar forms take on malevolent intentions. And gawd help us all if the phone rings! There is no future here, no hope, and when your parter tell you to just “get over it” his/her future begins to look very bleak indeed.

So how do you stop these 3 types of dreams from messing up your mornings? How do you press your brain’s reset button so you can concentrate on working towards your real dreams? Keep reading… (go to part 2)