Best of all, I can make happen exactly what I want to make happen. I am in charge of the whole dream world. Whatever I want to do, I can do. It’s like being prime minister, president AND king all rolled into one!

So far, there’s pretty much nothing that I haven’t been able to do. It’s just like that thing that Mrs Farroukh said on the first day of term:

Dream your greatest dreams, children, and you can make them come true!

Only, instead of it being a thing that teachers say, it is real.

Really real. Over the course of the next few nights, Seb and I discover what works and what doesn’t.

For example, Seb can share my dream, but I can’t share his. I don’t know why this is: it just is. If Seb comes along into my dream and doesn’t want to share it, that’s okay. He just wanders off into his own dream.

We find that reading books about stuff, or watching TV the evening before, can help create the dream we want. Seb always wants to dream about Kobi the Cave Boy, because it’s his favourite book.

One night, Mam was watching the news on TV when I was going to bed and I watched some of it with her. My dream that night took place in a war somewhere, and even though I tried changing stuff it wasn’t fun so I woke myself up. I soon fell asleep again.

Most importantly – it doesn’t always work. The power to change stuff, to control stuff, seems to wear off the more it is used. Then we end up in just a normal dream.

So it’s not like unexpected dream-stuff doesn’t happen: it does, all the time.

Got a minute? Let me tell you some of our dreams.

Chapter 23

Ladies and gentlemen, boy and girls, I present to you …

Malcolm and Sebastian Bell’s Top
Shared Waking Dreams

This will take about a minute – I have discovered that’s about anyone’s limit on listening to other people’s dreams.

1. Kobi the Cave Boy