Scholars of the Global North sometimes shelter themselves in neo-colonial positions when confronted with revolutionary praxis.   

“Something in a fragile state always seems more beautiful because you realise that they might not be there tomorrow.”

“I was falling endlessly…when I landed in a jumping castle…Liam Gallagher was there and he told me to take my shoes off…but I wasn’t wearing any shoes…”

“Communicating with ghosts is a display of radical empathy, a oneness with everything.”

Dear [REDACTED], 

I want to apologise for the scene that I made at The Rose last Friday.   

I am writing this letter at the recommendation of Dr Celine Bertuch (my Freudian psychoanalyst).  

For the past week, I’ve had a recurring dream where I find you alone in the Quad General Lecture Theatre (K2.05). Only, when I sit beside you, the scenery changes – the wooden pews turn into the firm, purple leather seats of a V Set Intercity Train. You turn to speak, but when you do, your voice is Dr Bertuch’s (she finds this detail quite fascinating).

“In dreams, memories rarely return in their original form—they dissolve, blur, skip frames,

and reassemble.”

“I stumbled out of bed too quickly, one morning, and fell onto my Lego sets, sending shockwaves through Heartlake City.”

“There, staring out at me, was Magritte’s Les Mémoires d’un Saint (1960). In the centre of an intangible space, a ring of rich red curtains stood upright, drawn at the middle to reveal the sky.”

“If AI can mimic our mind, the thing that sets humanity apart is the body. We must affirm the biological, the physical, the muddy and the messy.”

Nothing is more boring than other people’s dreams. Except when they’re mine. Since starting Fluoxetine, my dreams have been crazy. Before I started medication, I asked everyone I knew who had taken SSRIs about their experiences with side-effects. Nobody mentioned dreams.