Nightmares

A mind of sharp colour, vivid shapes - the conjuring of images with acute, intricate detail - capturing all the minutia. Thoughts that travel in all directions and intertwine in swirling unison - like the branches of a tree.

Heart always racing, senses always raw and alert, mind spiralling.   This is my mind. 

3 years old and lost inside my vivid dreams. The nighttime is a dark and frightening place.

In one dream I am in a purple, metallic room with a dome-shaped greenhouse. Inside is a small, well-tended garden and a tall Bart Simpson figure. I enter the greenhouse and he comes up behind me, says in a sinister voice 'I'm Nana', and bites off part of my skull.

Another night, all I see is red and black, like the world one sees when eyes are closed. I am lost, suspended in the air in a series of dark tunnels. I see a small golden carriage and am invited inside. I am then dropped into a small, brightly lit room. This room has pale yellow walls and contains nothing but a single bed with pale green sheets.

There is a door ahead. I peer through the key hole and see a pack of small, bloodthirsty wolves with snarling jaws and sharp teeth. I know I have to leave this room, even though it is not safe. I have to leave.

I open the door and run. As I run for the staircase, I feel a wolf seize my finger between its jaws. I feel the searing agony... and then I wake up. Alone and terrified in a dark room, full of shadows and looming shapes, frozen in fear - 3 years old and unable to distinguish between dreams and reality.

I run for escape. Desperate for safety, but unable to leave. I cry hysterically and fruitlessly try to push against the door. This memory scorched into my mind. Inexplicably distressed.  Alone in the darkness with the wolves.