Drifting off to sleep with the usual cooing and giggling that normally happens when Layla and Maggie are playing, I felt a strange sense of dread, and then came sleep.

I’d never had a lucid dream before, but apparently I was due one because it was that night, of all nights, that I found myself in a dream that seemed so real it was indistinguishable from waking reality.

I was holding Layla’s hand. She was about nine years old and we were in a strange land. We were walking on a beach, and there was no one there. The sun was setting and the stars were coming out and moons—yes, moons—there were more than one. Suddenly I realized we were not on Earth but somewhere else.

At the end of the beach I saw some movement and as we continued walking I picked up Layla and she wrapped her arms around my neck and said, “Look, Daddy!”

As we drew closer to the figure in the distance, I saw that the shape was luminous and changing form. It had no real definable shape, but it was moving towards us as we were moving towards it.