Am I Really Here?

It's a strange question to ask yourself.

Not because you've forgotten where you are, or because you're confused. You know exactly where you are. You recognise the room, the streets and the people around you.

And yet, every so often, a thought quietly appears.

Am I really here?

For years I assumed everyone experienced moments like this. They weren't dramatic enough to talk about, and they were almost impossible to explain. They never lasted long, and they never stopped me getting on with life. They simply left me with a feeling that the world wasn't quite connecting with me in the way it usually did.

The best way I can describe it is this.

Everything seems perfect.

Just not right.

Sometimes it happens when I wake up. I open my eyes and instantly recognise my bedroom. I know it's mine. Nothing is unfamiliar. Yet for a few seconds it feels as though I'm waking inside an incredibly vivid dream rather than my own home. The feeling fades almost as quickly as a dream itself fades after waking, leaving behind only the memory that something felt different.

Other times it's the world outside.

Where I live is a beautiful place, surrounded by countryside, coast and open landscapes. Logically, I know there's a whole world beyond it. Towns, cities, millions of people all getting on with their lives.

But emotionally, it can sometimes feel as though none of it exists.

It's as if my world has quietly shrunk to whatever I can see around me. Places only a few miles away feel less like real places and more like ideas. Of course they exist. I know they do. But until I actually go there, they don't feel part of my reality.

It's an odd contradiction.

The feeling is comforting because it's familiar. There's a sense of safety in it.

But there's also something quietly unsettling.

The closest comparison I can think of is a zoo animal. Safe, well looked after, everything it needs is there, yet separated from the wider world by something invisible.

Every now and then, even somewhere I've visited countless times can feel different. Not unfamiliar, but disconnected. Almost as though I'm walking through somebody else's television production. Everyone else appears completely comfortable, while I feel like an observer who has somehow wandered onto the set.

I've never found those moments frightening.

They've made me curious.

For a long time I had no words for them. Then, quite by chance, I came across the term derealisation. I'm not claiming that's what I've experienced, and I'm certainly not trying to diagnose myself or anyone else. But reading about it was oddly reassuring. For the first time I realised that other people had described feelings remarkably similar to my own.

Finding a word didn't suddenly explain everything.

It simply reminded me that unusual experiences don't necessarily mean something is wrong.

Looking back, I also wonder how much these experiences have quietly shaped the creative work I do.

When I first wrote Dreams Don't Always End, I believed it was inspired almost entirely by dreams. Now I'm not so sure. Perhaps those moments when reality itself felt slightly out of reach found their way into the story without me ever realising it.

Photography has become another way of exploring those feelings.

People often think photography is about recording what a place looked like.

For me, it's rarely been about that.

A photograph can never capture exactly how a place feels, but it can remind me of the emotions I experienced while standing there. When I look back at certain images, I don't simply remember the landscape. I remember the stillness. The curiosity. The strange feeling that I was connected to the place, yet somehow slightly detached from it at the same time.

I've also wondered whether these feelings have become stronger because I don't always make the most of where I live. Surrounded by beautiful places, I sometimes feel guilty that I don't explore them as often as I should. I don't know whether that's connected or whether it's simply another thought looking for an explanation. The truth is, I don't know.

And perhaps that's alright.

Not every experience needs a neat answer.

I still have mornings when reality takes a few seconds to settle into place.

I still occasionally find myself wondering why somewhere familiar suddenly feels slightly unreal.

But those moments no longer worry me.

Instead, they remind me that the way we experience the world is often far more complicated than the world itself.

Maybe that's why I started to write.

Maybe that's why I make photographs.

Not to prove where I've been, but to understand how it felt to be there.

Because sometimes everything seems perfect.

Just not quite right.