I swallow, giving him a few moments to gather his thoughts before continuing, but he doesn’t. He’s still frowning. Joe’s job requires him to see a psychologist once a fortnight. He’s a moderator for the photo-sharing social media platform Rad, which to me sounds exactly like hell. Whenever an image or video is flagged as inappropriate by users, someone like Joe must view the image and decide if it complies with Rad’s terms and conditions. Joe routinely sees things like hate speech, violent attacks, and graphic pornography. Sometimes even child pornography, murder scenes, decapitations, torture scenes. Things deliberately posted to shock or scare users. One image might be innocuous and the next might be of a man being set alight. For years Joe has been viewing material that would likely cause a stress disorder in most people after just a few days. Each time a human views extreme violence, they become more desensitised to it. Think of abattoir workers, entirely comfortable torturing helpless animals. Think of the mass murderer who started out by slicing open the neighbourhood cats. Desensitisation kills empathy.

The interesting thing about Joe is that until he mentioned the nightmares he had seemed largely unfazed by his work.

‘What’s happening in the nightmares, Joe?’

‘I’m angry, and I’m fighting someone.’

‘Who are you fighting?’ I ask.

‘Well,’ he says. ‘That’s the strange thing. I always wake before I find out. Or maybe I forget.’

‘Are they hurting you?’ I ask. ‘Is that how the fighting starts?’

‘Yeah, but then I win. I end up beating them.’

Interesting. I wonder if he’s playing violent games at night? ‘Is there anything you do before bed that might be bringing on these nightmares?’

‘Not that I can think of. It’s always the same. Someone grabs me and holds me down, their hands are around my neck, then I reach for a weapon and always seem to find something. A bat, or bottle.’

‘Then what happens?’

‘Then I hit them. Their grip loosens, I roll on top of them and I’m beating them. I just see dark hair and a broken shape beneath me.’

I find my eyes narrowing. I nod to let him know I’m listening, but he’s looking at his hand.

‘Last night I was using a fire extinguisher to beat them.’

Fire extinguisher, I jot down in my pad. ‘Where are you?’

‘Different places. Sometimes at home. Sometimes at work. Sometimes I’m even here in this room.’

The air cools a few degrees between us. His grey eyes look up from his hands, meeting mine now.

‘Right. You’re hurting someone in this room?’

‘It changes every time, but yeah, I’ve been in this room in the dream.’

It becomes awkward for a moment, almost tense. I clear my throat. ‘And is there any other pattern? Does it happen after a stressful day or an argument with your wife?’