When I was young – four, perhaps younger, I used to have this absolutely horrifying dream when I was feverish.
The dream would start out innocuously enough, I would just be – without shape or essence, like a mind in a white space devoid of form or surface. Which in itself is kind of cool and unthreatening. Most important and slightly unnerving, I was completely alone in this my personal universe. Shortly after I’d sense a flat plane beneath me, that perhaps I was a sphere or ball rolling along this surface. All good so far and kind of interesting even, but spooky with impending dread.
I’d recognize I was travelling at an incredible, impossible speed, unable to change direction or stop – panic would set in. I knew trouble was coming up… fast. The formerly smooth plane I was rolling along was beginning to oscillate, vibrate, get rougher – portents of nastier things ahead. Instantly, I’d be in it – extremely sharp, randomly large surfaces.
It was a nameless silent horror – which sounds minor as I write it here but in the moment, colliding with these very sharp surfaces at horrific speed, meant I was done for in a spectacularly painful way. I’d start awake sobbing unable to articulate just how truly frightened I was.
This still freaks me out – my heart is racing with a little adrenaline just imagining this clearly to describe it. Interestingly this scary dream diminished as I got older and now rarely occurs.
Thinking about the pleasant beginning of the dream though – fast, unencumbered movement – perhaps this fostered my photographic preoccupation with motion.