Lilac, A Lighter Shade Of Purple

There are essentially, two kinds of nightmares one may have.

The first is the kind that we all grow up with. Giant spiders, masked murderers, rampaging dinosaurs, your mum singing "Hit Me Baby One More Time" while dressed like Britney.

These are the Law of Nature Nightmares, where essentially you dream of life but with some fundamental rule of nature warped beyond comprehension. Normally we take these simple rules for granted, but when they are bent the dreams get real scary.

You have the staircases that lead on to infinity. You have little children who move faster than you, but who always wait for you to turn around to spot them. You have the various creepy animals who grow to Gargantuan Post-Army sizes. You have clothes that inexplicably dissolve, leaving you naked in the middle of Orchard Road (and if you're lucky, to rapturous applause).

And everyone's susceptible, no matter your age, build, education, race. But these nightmares are kiddy stuff in the end. Even if you wake up bathed in acrid cold sweat, you smile at the pure foolishness of your nightmare, and dreamless slumber finds you again soon after.

Not so the other kind, the Morality Nightmares.

Here, your subconcious dregs up every past indiscretion or folly your pride suppresses and your honour denies, but which your conscience is very well acquainted with. You relive past mistakes, you are allowed little trips down What-Might-Have-Been, and long-lost friends and loved ones come back to let you hurt them all over again.

When the nightmare manages to fester viciously in your consciousness even after you awaken, and haunts you throughout the entire day, that's when you know you've had a real kicker of a Morality Nightmare.

Oh, toilsome is the journey of the man who has yet to make peace.