I used to think that I dreamt like everyone else, but my partner hardly dreams and recounting my dreams often gets me a few strange looks. A lot of my writing work has been inspired by the worlds whipped up by my subconscious. I often get lost in them, decades of story unravelling before I start to realise that I’m waking up in a rental on a mattress on the floor. But I close my eyes and try to stay in that world as long as I can, often finishing off the story before I finally drag myself out of bed and try to get as much of it out as possible, weeding and encouraging parts of it to blossom.

I used to think that dreamt so vividly because I wanted to get out of my real life, but I’m now in the best place I’ve ever been, and I still have these dreams where I wake up and have to remind myself who I am and where I am. Although, it’s interesting that everything is so vivid until I completely wake up. It’s then when you realise how fake the physical sensations had been … although the emotional ones usually stay with me for a couple of hours.

There’s a part of a dream that I remember often. We were going into some sort of ancient temple to collect something, but on the way out we were attacked by large dogs. One of the dogs pounced on me and I held it back with a spear. As I grab at its fur, trying to put it away from me, I noticed something on its neck. It was a tag, like a clothing tag that was part of his fur just on the line of his neck. I managed to read it but had stabbed the dog several times to stop it from killing me. The tag said, “I’m sorry”. I remember feeling terrible as I knifed the dog, understanding that they were attacking because of the will of someone else.

That one sticks with me because it was so vivid in those moments and so bizarre. Sometimes I tell people about it, and they just don’t understand how my brain puts things together for my dreams. And to be honest, I don’t get it either. It’s easy to understand dreams what my dreams might be caused by, stress or anger or sadness, but trying to pin a reason for a particular moment is a bit more difficult. Because they might just be something my brain is vomiting without reason after all. But, in the end, even if I can’t quite understand what’s going on in my head while I sleep (and I suppose I’ll never completely know, even when I’m awake), it’s a good source of crop for plot.