The world was made of water.

No up, no down. There was mud churning all around and I could barely see my arms flailing in front of me. I tried to keep still, allow my body to float towards the surface for a moment, give me an idea which way to move, but I stayed suspended. It was quiet apart from a thrumming in my head. Blood pumping. I needed to breathe. I was desperate to breathe, so I kicked and thrashed and hoped that I was moving towards the surface, towards air, before my lungs overruled my brain and inhaled death. They say drowning is a peaceful process. It isn’t. It’s coloured, saturated with fear, nerves screaming, the body operating by itself, straining, clawing, fighting against oblivion, fighting for life, clinging to a possibility when all possibility seems lost. Kicking, but not screaming. Not screaming. Not yet.

It ended as it always ended. Bolt upright in bed, like a jack-in-the-box, drawing shuddering breaths and then retching, retching as if to get rid of water in my lungs, water that wasn’t there. I stayed still for a while until my breathing calmed and the barrage of firing neurons slowed.

I used to scream when I had this nightmare, but I don’t anymore. Mum would come running. Now she doesn’t. She thinks I’ve grown out of them. I haven’t.

I don’t know when I will have the next one. Could be tomorrow night. Could be a month. But it will come again. It always does. Maybe one night I will reach the surface in my dream, take lungfuls of clean air.

Maybe.