If I think about it while it's happening, the slow, mushy minutes between wakefulness and full sleep are a time of curiosity, anxiety, and fear. I always dream, always, with the rare exception a few times in my life. More than that, I often remember what I dream for long periods of time, and while I'm experiencing a dream it is the realest thing in the world to me. Often my dreams are more real than my waking life, the sensations more vivid and the impressions more clear.

For all that, though, I do not tend to have "good" dreams. They can range from the benignly bizarre to confusingly odd, from mundane with shocking twists to terrifying bloodbaths with exquisite detail. Frequently I dream of abuse, rape, my abuser(s), the present with macabre oddities to pollute it… Sometimes I wake up screaming. Sometimes I wake up not sure where I am, not certain at all of my safety. Sometimes I don't wake up and Corey must do it for me. Sometimes I wake up and I think that the man next to me is one of my molesters. I tremble and I shake and I try to catch my breath while my brain catches up with the truth of matters.

I know all this. I know all of this and I also know that I have no idea what the dreams that night are going to be like, and the silent, slow fog of apprehension creeps in and hovers around my bedside in a thick miasma of unpleasant uncertainty.

If I think about it while it's happening, I become frightened while I fall asleep. Fortunately, I've schooled myself not to think about it very often.