Fleeing naked along endless paths through mountains of jagged debris. A world torn apart. Feels like moving through molasses. Enough light to register, but not enough to see more than looming shadows. The air is hot and oppressive. It’s hard to breathe. Sounds are muffled, no echoes. Safety lies at the centre of the maze but the path shifts and twists away like a living thing.

It was a recurring nightmare throughout my childhood. I still get anxious in really dim lighting, like when lights on a dimmer switch are down really low or candlelight in a dark room. I call it nightmare lighting.

I don’t know which was first, but around 4 or 5 years old I had a bunch of dreams that I confused with reality. They were so vivid, even now when I’m back in that town I half expect to see these impossible things.

A towering rock garden in the park, a hair comb shaped like an ice block, a man in a beefeater costume who gave rides in his horse drawn cart, a singing black cat on the fence of that house on the corner,…