Dreaming in the Arms of Benadryl

Last night I fully intended to wake up as usual at 3 am and submit my previous post to the Carnival of Cordite .45 Edition, play some Steel Panthers, then go back to sleep around sunrise. It's a routine I don't care for, but I've gotten used to it. Around 11 pm I started feeling itchy all over, not surprising because I'd just played some roughhouse with the ferrets before caging them for the night (no more ninja forays for Lenny!). I popped a Benadryl to kill the itch and maybe help me get some better sleep. After my latest Soviet campaigners were crushed under the treads of German StuGs, I grabbed some sci-fi from the paperback stacks in the closet; by the time Captain Blaine was notified that a possibly alien spacecraft was entering the New Caledonia system via normal space, I was drowsy enough to take a shot at sleep. I was a bit surprised that when I woke up, it was 8:30 am. I remember the dream vividly (I was bitching out my Ground Mission Supervisor trainer for not teaching me about some reams of paperwork that were overlooked my entire tour, but now were gonna keep me from returning to the States this month) and still a little drowsy closed my eyes and could almost immediately see the dream continue. This was kinda neat! I think I woke up again around 11 and watched some more dream through closed eyes but lucid mind. It had morphed into some kind of WWII story (probably an aftereffect from all the Steel Panthers I'd played this week) that didn't affect me personally, but was rather enthralling. The shock of seeing the clock read 3:30 pm bounced me out of my relaxed state!