It is never dark in my dreams. The world is bright and filled with light. But this time — I was walking down a street that I was familiar with (in the dream world), though I had not been there for some years. There were shops, and I was walking downhill. As I came closer to the bottom of the hill everything got darker. There was one shop, selling antiquities, that was well-lit inside, but most of the other shops were shut and dark, possibly closed down. There were no street lights. I could hardly see. A dimly-lit cafe seemed to be open, but was barely visible in the misty darkness all around me. I wondered what had happened. It never used to be like this.

I didn’t hear them coming.

Suddenly someone put an arm around my throat. I choked and struggled, and woke up.

My memory of the dream is vivid because of the darkness, and because it seemed to me that I did know that street, and whoever or whatever attacked me, I knew them too.

We say these things are only dreams, but they are as real as life itself. They are life itself, or part of it.

This dream did not leave my waking life alone. I could not shake off the disquiet and the sensation of not being able to see properly, of being alone in a strangely altered place, at the mercy of someone who wanted to do me harm.

The dream darkness was not clean — it was as if there was a dirty mist over the world, or perhaps the darkness was not only from a lack of light, but also from a dimming of my own vision. I became increasingly convinced that there were things around me that I was not seeing. Something was stalking me. Each night I went to bed, hoping for another dream to show me the truth.

Again, I was walking in a dark place, but not one I knew. There was the same quality of murkiness, of a lack of light and a dimming of sight. The ground was hard underfoot and gritty. The air felt damp. There was a little light, as much as might be given by a slender moon behind thin cloud, but not enough to see by. I held my hands out in front of me as I went, but felt nothing but a fine cold mist.

A shadow moved to my right, but when I turned, there was nothing there. On my left side some darker patch of darkness moved. I turned towards it and saw something else behind me. They were all around.

I ran. Pale hands reached for me out of the grainy air. I screamed and fell, and woke.

The darkness loomed at my back through my waking days, but it did not come into my dreams for many nights. The days filled with gloom were worse than the nights of disturbing dreams. I was dragging a great burden behind me, one that might at any moment waken and destroy me. It made me so uneasy that I began to wonder why these dream people were hunting me? Had I done something to deserve it? Was some transgression of mine causing these nightmares?

No matter how hard I looked at myself, I could not find anything other than mundane failings such as any human being commits, yet I felt as much uneasiness as I would have if I was a murderer, and the body was buried in my garden.

I reasoned that perhaps, since my persecutors lived in dreams, the sin might have been committed in the dream world. Of course, I remembered only a tiny fraction of my dreams. In that world I might be a monster, and would never know on waking.

The third time I dreamed of that dark place, I was aware that I was dreaming. This had never happened to me before. I had spent so much time thinking about the dreams that I recognised what it was. Now, I thought, since I was fully here in the dream I was in control. I could steer the dream in the direction I wanted it to go.

The ground under my feet was wet and muddy this time and I had a sense that all around there were trees, crowding close. I told myself that there was a torch in my pocket. I was wearing an old blue coat of mine with deep pockets and, feeling among all the inexplicable bits and pieces in there, I did find a torch. Pulling it out, I pointed it ahead and turned it on. It flashed and died, but not before it had illuminated a terrible face, dark grey and so deeply wrinkled as to look melted. Purple lips curled back to reveal many yellowing teeth in a bright red mouth. The eyes — they were not human, ochre irises with vertical slits for pupils.

I was terrified, but told myself that this was only a dream and that I could be the monster here if I willed it — if only I knew how to be a monster.

Taking a deep breath, I prepared to roar my monstrousness, but the now unseen thing took one squelching step towards me and grasped me by the throat with a scaly clawed hand. I tried to scream. I should wake now, the fright should wake me. Stinking hot breath blew foul against my face, teeth sank into my flesh. I screamed once, briefly, then all was pain and silence.

I did wake up, of course, but what am I now? My sleep is a black empty void. I am not even a ghost in the world of dreams. I feel like a ghost in this place that we call the real world, broken and empty. The dark mist is inside me, and that is all there is.