Only in your dreams

I love afternoon naps - especially those with the rain dripping out the window. My bed puts out an extra oomph of effort to make itself inviting enough to tempt me from everything else I should be doing during the day. I heard just the other day that the time of day you are most craving a nap corresponds to the time twleve hours later during the night that you get your best sleep. How would one even go about checking this?

One of the best things about naps are the dreams - they feel so real! Your lover really is there next to you, that elephant really is in your backyard, and none of the neighbors seem to mind, and the fact that you're running around without your pants is inevitable, yet natural.
They feel so real because you're never quite sure when you crossed from waking to sleep. I'm convinced most naps start with an element of denial--I'm not sleeping, I'm : resting my eyes, checking my eyelids for cracks, thinking really hard and need to focus, writing the next great novel in my head, just blinking for a long time... No matter what it is I'm doing, however, you should probably not be asking me such an inane question, because can't you see I'm busy? I'll create a character that resembles you in that novel of mine, and they'll be the really annoying, nosy type of character that nobody is sad dies half way through.

Nap dreams are also more intensely strange. Part of this is because they feel so much more real, being half awake and all. But perhaps the strange storylines that come out of nap dreams are due to your brain still being up and at 'em, instead of curling into a corner for rest for the enveing. Every thought you tried to put on hold in order to enjoy the sweet abyss of sleep and rest really just hid behind the corner like an errant three year old, so you couldn't see that it intended to spend the next 20 minutes to an hour playing in its room with all the toys you try to hide because they're too loud, age inappropriate, or you have no idea to work them yourself. It is this pile that comes out of the toybox to run screeching and colorful through your nap dreams, like a small child who has discovered that you have no idea what to do when she takes all her clothes off and runs laughing through the house in front of those neighbors you just met. How exactly do you explain to another what it is that just happened, and why? Well, that's also the glory of it - you don't. Just learn to laugh along and close your eyes for the good part of the ride.