Not long ago, I noticed a strange thing about the dreams I have at night: I’m always thin in them. Not model thin, mind you, but pretty much with the same body I had before I gained weight. (Read: before I began blogging.)

Back then, of course, I still thought that I needed to lose weight and I obsessed over it. I’d dress in clothes designed to disguise my figure, hated being caught in a bathing suit and would rather have had a root canal than get undressed without first dimming the lights.

Nowadays? I’d love to go back in time and kick my much-skinnier-self’s ass. “Lighten up,” I’d say. “Think you’re fat now? Look at what’s waiting a few years down the road! Now doesn’t that swimsuit look a bit less intimidating? I thought so.”

Recently, however, I began having dreams in which I’m not thin. Not anywhere near it. As a matter of fact, I look pretty much the way that I do now — which is to say, fairly ample.

Oddly enough, I didn’t begin having these dreams until I started using my treadmill, so perhaps this is my psyche’s way of saying it’s accepted that I have a whole lot of dieting and exercise ahead of me? Like my dreams are some kind of spy camera into my subconscious?

Last night, though, I had a truly strange one. I started out dreaming about myself in my current state of ampleness… then I dreamed that I went to sleep and woke up thinner overnight. Still not model-thin, mind you. Not even skinny by, well, most people’s standards. But I’d dropped enough to get back to the attractively curvy body I’d had back when I was younger.

I’m not sure what it means, to be honest. But after dreaming of myself looking that hot in a pair of shorts and a halter top, I’m quite tempted to start sleeping a heck of a lot more.