A few years ago, I attempted a nap—a good old-fashioned Sunday afternoon collapse. The kind of nap that practically requires you to sigh dramatically before slipping under the covers. The weekend had done what weekends often do in this season of life—it ate me alive and asked for dessert. Between errands, emotional whiplash from making sure the kid driving in the rain made it safely back to college, and trying to have a conversation with my husband that didn’t revolve around insurance deductibles or “Is the dog in the trash?”, I was toast.
So I made the grand announcement: “I’m going to lie down for just a minute.” Which, in mom-language, means do not speak to me unless you are bleeding or the house is actually on fire. I nestled into my pillow, wrapped myself in a blanket, and drifted off toward what I hoped would be a cozy, unremarkable nap.
Instead, I was abducted by aliens.
Photo by Danie Franco on Unsplash
Okay—not literally. But my brain cued up the most vivid, cinematic, borderline award-winning fever dream I’ve had in years. It was like Spielberg and Tim Burton got together and said, “You know what Rachel needs? A subconscious rollercoaster with zero chill.”
But first, you need some context: Sunday naps were sacred in my childhood. Practically institutionalized. I grew up in a small Indiana town where the rhythm of Sunday went like this: church in the morning, lunch with the family, then naps or enforced “quiet time” until church again in the evening. You could go home with a friend after church, sure. But you weren’t going to play Barbies or run around in the yard. No, ma’am. You were going to nap. Or at least lie very still in a guest room with the shades drawn, pretending you weren’t terrified of your friend’s crocheted clown pillow.
Honestly, I’m not sure if this was a Sabbath-observing church culture thing or just a small-town 1980s “everybody shuts down at 2 p.m.” thing. Either way, the expectation was clear: Sundays were for silence.
Which is why it felt especially rude when, as an adult trying to reclaim the holy art of Sunday rest, my brain hit me with a dream that would make an X-Files writer pause mid-episode and ask, “Girl, are you okay?”
It started in my childhood hometown. But dream logic being what it is, my old high school also had a Shake Shack attached, my elementary school was a trendy brunch spot, and my music teacher’s house had been converted into a tattoo parlor that sold boba. (No notes. Would visit.)
I was just wandering, mildly confused but rolling with it, when the sky changed colors. Not a cotton-candy sunset, more like “the simulation is glitching.” Purple, green, flickering static overhead.
Enter: the aliens.
Not the little green men variety. Not even the jump-scare guy from Signs who still haunts my nightmares. No, these aliens looked like people I know. Co-workers. A neighbor. Possibly the woman who once cut me off at Target and made eye contact like she dared me to say something. They were oddly friendly until they weren’t.
Then came the second wave. These aliens looked like bridal magazines left out in the sun too long—melty, angular, mildly terrifying. Think angry wedding coordinators in blazers, holding clipboards and glaring at me like I’d double-booked the venue. They spoke in that aggressive whisper that always precedes, “Per my last email…”
And apparently, they hated my glasses.
One clipboard alien just yoinked them off my face and handed me a sparkly new pair. Sleek lenses that made everything clearer—but also wrong. It wasn’t just vision correction. It was thought correction. Suddenly I could only see what they wanted me to see. My opinions fuzzed at the edges.
I tried to protest. Tried to say, “Hey, I actually liked my old glasses. They worked just fine.” But the words shrank into something pitiful, like: “Oh, that’s okay, I’ll just hang onto my old pair, you know, in case these don’t work out.” Because apparently even under alien mind control, I am still Midwestern nice.
Then one of them stepped forward and said, “If you’re going to complain, we’ll just remove the problem.”
They gestured to my back.
And tried to unzip my spine.
Not painfully. Just… rudely. Like I was a Jansport backpack from 1997.
All the while, this awful screeching noise kept grinding in the background. Like metal on pavement. I assumed it was their spaceship. I even tried to ask if they’d considered routine maintenance.
But no.
It wasn’t aliens.
It was my neighbor mowing the lawn.
On a Sunday.
During nap time.
The betrayal.
I woke up sweaty, confused, and convinced I needed both a chiropractor and an exorcism. I looked around the room, clutching my blanket like it could ward off sentient bridesmaids, and whispered to no one, “What in the world was that?” Followed closely by: “Where are my glasses?”
Once I confirmed my spine was still zipped, I couldn’t stop laughing. I thought about that Mitch Hedberg bit: “I hate dreaming. Because when you want to sleep, you want to sleep. Dreaming is work. Next thing you know, I have to build a go-kart with my ex-landlord.”
Accurate. That nap felt like clocking into a second shift I didn’t sign up for. And yet—here’s the thing—it reminded me of something magical: even when we think we’re resting, our brains don’t stop creating. They spin stories from scraps. They weave borrowed landmarks, unresolved anxieties, and random characters from old commercials into something absurd and unforgettable.
That dream didn’t give me rest, but it did give me proof: the creative part of me is alive and kicking. Still playful. Still weird. Still casting co-workers and teachers in bizarre roles for no reason other than—why not?
And that same muscle? It’s what helps me survive the real world. It’s how I explain hard things to my kids without making them roll their eyes into the next dimension. It’s how I make work problems less boring, how I keep my marriage funny instead of fragile. It’s the muscle that takes “What just happened?” and turns it into, “Hang on, I think I have a story.”
We don’t always get the rest we crave. The quiet, the blank space, the do-nothing afternoons—they get hijacked by dreams, noise, kids, life, or lawnmowers. But maybe rest isn’t always about stillness. Maybe sometimes it’s about nonsense that makes us laugh. Maybe it’s about remembering we’re still here, still imagining, still tethered to something bigger than the to-do list.
So here’s to the nap-takers and the dreamers. The ones who lie down “for just a minute” and wake up with an alien screenplay, a boba tattoo parlor, and a spine zipper. Your brain is weird and wonderful. Let it be.
Write it down. Laugh about it. Share it. Use it. There’s a story in there—even if you didn’t get any sleep.
Rachel L. Richard is a small-town farm girl turned suburbanite, a delightfully irreverent optimist, Mrs & Mama, floppy dog ear scratcher, lifelong learner, channel surfer, wanderer, believer, occasional creative, out-of-practice musician, cupcake addict, book devourer, and lover of all people.
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