RP: And after this incident – it happened other times? What can you tell us about those first instances?

CA: Well, I’ve always been a lucid dreamer, but after the drug or infection – I’m calling it an infection because I got sick, you understand – after that, I started wandering into other people’s dreams on the regular. It mostly seems to happen if I’m physically close to the person, but I did test it once with Shandy when we had half of London between us and I was able to find her dream in the end. It just took longer.

DC: You got sick. What were the symptoms?

CA: Falling asleep everywhere. By which I mean every. Where. When it first started, I was visiting my mum but she ended up bringing me back to London and paying for a private doctor. I tried several drugs, nothing worked. I couldn’t keep taking her money.

RP: And the people who were running the AR study – you talked to them about your problem?

CA: [snorts] They were all, ‘Nope, not us, our thing couldn’t have caused it plus you signed this thingie exemplifying us—

DC: Indemnifying?

CA: Yeah, exempt, condemned, that. Where they wash their hands of you. This is one reason I felt so sympathetic to Mel when she came to me . . . we are still talking about Mel, right?

DC: You lost your job in July?

CA: Yeah, they couldn’t sack me right away, but I was fairly useless. So, like, I thought we were talking about Melodie. Am I under investigation here?

RP: Never mind my colleague. We’re just trying to establish the facts.

CA: I didn’t go to work because I couldn’t wake up. I slept for four days solid.

DC: Four days solid? Were you in a coma? What about your . . . er . . . biological needs?

CA: I woke just to go to the toilet, take a drink of water. Then back to sleep. My room-mates couldn’t get me up.

DC: Just to clarify. Where was O at this point?

CA: I’ve no idea. I didn’t meet her until after I got evicted from the cupboard under the stairs. New definition of low point, that.

DC: You didn’t know O before?

CA: Not in person. She was one of my ASMR subscribers, but we’d never met. Who is this about? Mel? Or me? Or O?

RP: We don’t know yet. So you’re saying you didn’t meet O through a service? Like Granny Flat or something?

CA: She hates Granny Flat. Says she’s not a granny.

RP: But she does take in younger women as housemates? You’re not the first?

CA: She’s had a few over the years. She uses a wheelchair off and on since the cancer. To be honest, she could afford to hire people to help her so it’s not like I’m her carer. I think she enjoys the company. And she said having cancer made her want to give back.