My legs won’t move, my arms feel like they’re made of wet sand, and the scream building inside my chest comes out as some pathetic muffled noise. For years I blamed scary movies for these dreams, but I haven’t watched a horror film in about a decade. Having kids will do that to you. These days the scariest thing I’ve seen on a screen is probably that lava monster from Moana. Yet the nightmares keep turning up anyway, as if my subconscious has its own film studio working night shift. Maybe it’s mould in the house. Maybe it’s the cheese I ate for dinner. Maybe it’s just the human brain entertaining itself with absurd little rehearsals for disasters that never happen.
Andy C Marshall 