The dreams that flooded my eleven year old brain (the ones that I will probably always remember) were not the dreams that we all refer to by any of the definitions adhered to the word ‘dream’. They were more the dancing of synapse that occur betwixt and between wake and sleep. Sleep; where true dreams of one type cradle, love, lust, confuse, and scare the shit out of us until day releases us back into the humdrum. Wake; where a different type of dream, yet still true to definition, slingshots us through our hopes and aspirations into our perseverance and discipline with the force of a trebuchet.

I would lie there, certainly not wanting to sleep and not wanting to wake up if I should. Eyes shut but not asleep. Eyes shut but not awake. Flashes of my room; the posters, the stereo, the television, a few models; would colour my eyelids convincing me I was still awake. My breathing would be slower, my heart chugging along at the “you are almost sleeping” pace. The silence coning, coaxing, and compelling me as if the lack of sound itself had donned a striped jacket and matching straw brimmed hat in order to guise itself as some carnival barker verbally frozen into pantomime. Then I would hear it so softly rubbing the quiet that I could have easily convinced myself it wasn’t there; snapping my eyes open and rolling over, re-sealing my eyes into attempted slumber. I could hear it in both ears but it was not a stereophonic image surrounding me, it was more two different sides moving towards each other. Two opposing forces working their way into the colour of sound. I would look from ear to ear without moving my head and see the arcs of two distinct horizons being splattered with balls of lightening. Each infinity oozing; velvet green plush with corrosion, reds that would harden and crack as each droplet shattered on the earth; fiber optic snowflakes turning black as they bounced up off the ground. Each night new colours, new sounds, brand spankin’ new ways of building and building.

From beneath the colour, from within the sound, I could begin to see the shapes as my head would feverishly tic-tock it’s way left and right as if watching the Wimbledon of meth-amphetamine. First banners and flags hung high upon pikes and poles with words I could not read. The sound, ever gradually building and with such presence, forced the mottos and creeds to epileptically rip into shreds. The shadows beneath them, holding them, began to take shape all with building colour and sound. This is when fear would rape and pillage my sanctity of curiosity, pummeling it down and injecting the foul stench of panic. I would look forward and see the two horizons meet and the sound would die, the colour would stop. Looked right, looked left, and again straight ahead. Then it would be there again with such an abrupt entrance I would not be knocked down but knocked up into a vibration that only the darkest point of the night must feel as a star explodes into it. Sound vibrated not to me but through me, while fear and panic and despair would not just take me over but become me. The shadows rose up taller, more defined into less definition than before.

Sometimes my ears would bleed me to sleep, while at other times my eyes would melt. On two or three occasions I came to the conclusion that it was war; it would stop and then attack with more ferocity than ever before. Most times it would just fade away leaving me confused. I had always known it wasn’t a dream but was never quite sure if I was awake either. I never knew what was happening. It wasn’t real. It wasn’t fake. It just was and was for two years.