Dream Cake

I once had a dream that I was eating a piece of chocolate cake.

That's boring, you're probably thinking, why are you telling us this nonsense?

Because.
It's amazing how our brains can fabricate things; they pull  from thin air experiences that we have never truly felt- flying, driving a motorcycle or salsa dancing- and manifest them in sensory experiences so intensely real that we can remember how they feel hours, days, or even years after we dream them.  

In all other circumstances I would  agree with you. Chocolate cake is not an exciting topic for a dream. Jason has dreams where he's running from the mafia or shooting machine guns. I dream about eating. But if you had tasted this dream cake, you too would be reflecting on it with greedy relish. It was cake that could never grace the mortal Earth, like ambrosia. It was cake that my brain had fabricated just for my taste buds-- rich, luxurious, fluffy as air, fresh as a spring morning and delightful to the very end.
I woke up in a pool of my own saliva.
Hmmm... chocolate cake! I thought as I manically searched our kitchen cupboards for the object that haunted my dreams. While the malaise of the flavor still clung to my tongue, my breakfast tasted like cardboard in my mouth and I could NOT GET OVER THAT CAKE! It reminded me of that time in eighth grade when I had a dream I kissed the object of my boy crush for the first time ever. Wow, what a kiss! I couldn't believe how blissful, how beautiful, how absolutely engrossing and utterly perfect that kiss was. When I woke, I had a brand new perspective on kissing-- I couldn't wait for it to happen. Later, when I kissed that person FOR REAL, my first thought was this is weird and then this is nothing like my dream! A disappointment? Perhaps. But in my heart I think I knew that the dream kiss was not a real kiss, just like my dream cake-- which felt and tasted so magically real-- was nothing but a figment of my mind.
How is it that my brain can take something simple and make it even better than the real thing?
Sometimes the human mind frightens me.
But then I think of the chocolate cake that I ate once in my dreams- the most delicious cake imaginable- and the swooping feeling in my stomach as I'm lifted off my feet and fly high into the sky,  and I close my eyes, letting the wisdom of my dreaming mind take over.