Approximately 57 thousand hours ago (6 years, 6 months) I was laying in a reclining chair, watching blood in a tube. No, I’m not describing a dream. I didn’t get to watch very long. I fell fast into a drug-induced sleep, my eyes closing involuntarily. I remember trying to itch my nose, but for some reason my arm kept getting pushed back down. I was having my wisdom teeth out. Thankfully, I don’t remember much about the surgery.

The next thing I knew I was being led down the hall by a nurse. I could barely walk. I was laid down on a little recovery bed, I have no idea how long I was there. I remember waking up, my hands and arms outstretched in the air, trying to find the mouse and keyboard to my computer.

Even though I was drugged up, I quickly remembered where I was. I sat up. There was a window, and I looked through it. I saw a nurse. I remember feeling stupid, thinking she was probably wondering what in blue blazes my arms were doing flailing in the air. I wonder if I’d been trying to type.

I’ve loved reading for as long as I can remember (I suppose I should ask my parents when I actually started to enjoy reading). When I got into computer programming (circa 1996) I kind of forgot that I liked books about other things. I remember reading a lot of non-computer books from 1996-2001, but the more entrenched I became in programming, the less I read other things.

I like to think that had I been reading some science fiction book at the time of the oral surgery that I might have woken up, sword and shield flying around defeating some horrible enemy instead of looking for the mouse and keyboard. Then again, perhaps I was the geek hero in the dream. Who knows.

In the year 2005 I had a realization: “hey, books are awesome.” Some people can manage 100 books in a year. I’m not there yet, but working on it. I’ve managed to finish 6 books so far this year (I think I read 12-14 books last year, 16 the year before that). At this rate I’ll only have read 36+ books by the end of this year. I really gotta make more time to read! My goal is 80 books this year. We’re in the 8th week of 2008, leaving just over 44 weeks left. That’s almost 2 books a week. Yikes! This is going to be fun!

For the record, I think it’s completely fair to count audio books as “read.” 2 of the books I’ve “read” so far this year were audio books.

Anyway, so about dreaming. Those 2 audio books were book 1 and book 2 of the Artemis Fowl series. Since I started listening to them I’ve noticed that I’ve remembered far more of my dreams. While I haven’t woken up wielding any imaginary weapons, the dreams I’ve remembered have been more interesting (though still weird). I wonder if it’s the specific genre of books (Science Fiction / Fantasy) or the fact that they were audio books? I read a fairly wide variety of books, from religion to history to fiction to self improvement; I don’t remember the science fiction books I actually read, or the history books I listened to as having an impact on my dreams. Perhaps I forgot or it’s the combo of audio book + science fiction/fantasy. Anyone else noticed anything similar?

P.S. A podcast I listen to, Windows Weekly, was offering an Audible promo for a free audio book. Anyone can use it. You just go to http://www.audible.com/windows/ and you get a free audio book. You have to sign up for a monthly subscription, but there’s nothing stopping anyone from getting the free audio book and then canceling before your card is charged the following month. I’m quite excited to have the subscription though, so I’m keeping it.