You hadn't meant to sleep that long, not really.

You just closed your eyes--but only for a moment.  You were already comfortably lounging on your bed, a soft knitted blanket wrapped loosely around you.  A paperback in your hands.  Your eyelids had grown heavy between reading one chapter and the next.  Just for a moment, you thought.  You'll close your eyes and practice your meditation, focusing on your breathing.  Yes, that's exactly what you'll do.

Before you know it, your book had slipped from your hands just as you have slipped from this world.  A part of you is vaguely aware of the knitted blanket pressed against you, its little folds and ridges conforming to your body, your head relaxed against your pillow.

And then you go deeper. 

Images flit past your mind--the backyard you grew up in, your now kitchen, and other places. Places you've only seen in your dreams but know well--and deeper still you go.  Narrative after narrative unfolds, your dreams like layers of an onion, each one peeling back to reveal another. 

And as you sleep you feel your body mending, your soul filling up in another world, your mind recharging as your real world concerns melt away, float off like clouds, somehow less important when drifting in another realm. 

When you wake, hours later, it is slowly, gently.  You are disoriented, not sure of the day or time or where, frankly, you are.  Then you feel your knitted blanket around you, see the bubbles and shadows of the popcorn wall above you.  You see it now.  You are home, in your bed, having slept the afternoon away.  You close your eyes again, not quite ready to leave your sanctuary.  For now, it is enough to linger in your bed, halfway between sleeping and waking.