I was standing at the counter of a beautiful patisserie. In front of me was a stylish French barista with his attractive French accent wearing his exquisite French clothes. He was trying to upsell me pastries to go with the coffees I’d just ordered.

‘Try the tarte tatin. Or the pain au chocolat. And the éclairs are especially good today.’ His voice sounded a little muffled as if coming through an antique speaker.

I agreed to a couple flaky pastries, one with jewel-like berries, another with apricot jam.

I was about to walk away when he said – ‘this is for you’ and in my hand he placed a log of nougat.

I looked at it and broke a piece off, biting into the soft, gooey, chewy confection. It was sweet. So sweet.

I sat down at a nearby table, waiting for the pastries and coffees to arrive.  They were placed in front of us and all I could focus on was eating and tasting the delicious pastry. The jam oozed from one and I scooped it up, licking it from my finger. I greedily picked a strawberry from the other, exposing the frangipane underneath.

I pulled my coffee towards me and added a couple of sugars. Then a couple more. And a couple more. I stirred. And I stirred and I stirred the sugar into the bowl of milky coffee. More sugar. More stirring.

And then.

Then I woke up and realised with great clarity that I was low.

My hypo had infiltrated my dream. I was imagining a feast of carb-laden foods that would, of course, address the low blood sugar muddling my thoughts.

I sat up, adrenaline surging, realising just how low I was and grabbed the jar on my bedside table.

‘Are you okay?’

‘Mmm – just low. I was dreaming about French pasty.’

Diabetes has a way of twisting its way into my subconscious. On nights where my BGL is high and I need to get up overnight to pee, I wake suddenly, remembering dreams of water and pools and swimming in the ocean.

When I am low, I dream of gingerbread houses, fluffy marshmallow clouds and giant bowls of Skittles. Once, I dreamt that I was being chased by a huge jelly snake. Another time, the chair I was sitting on became a cupcake. I woke in the middle of one night confused and disoriented after dreaming I was in Enid Blyton’s Land of Goodies at the top of the Faraway Tree. (Obviously all that climbing had sent my BGLs plummeting!)

Alarms on my pump blend their way into dreams so that suddenly I hear doorbells ring, or metronomes ding.  Once, my dream turned frightening – I was running (ha – as if!), running, running during an earthquake. The ‘shaking’ ground was actually my pump vibrating.

The other night, after I ate my jelly beans and felt the adrenaline rush subside, I lay back down and started to fall asleep, willing myself back to the patisserie. And thinking about how when it was morning, heading to a local French bakery for breakfast sounded like a perfect start to the day. It seems that I like to spend my time dreaming just how I like to spend my time awake. Food and coffee. Coffee and food.