To know fear is to wake up in the middle of the night with a bright, white light shining in your face and a silhouette of a head looking over you. 

“What? What’s going on? Wh..Why is it so bright?” I stammered.

Fear and confusion had me gripped. I turned my head away from the light and slowly my wife’s face came into focus. She was also confused as she woke just before the light started beaming into my eyes. 

“It’s okay, don’t worry. Just turn off the light.”

It took my foggy brain a while to connect the dots. A challenge to solve a puzzle under the spotlight, I might add.

We have adjustable reading lights with white LED bulbs clipped onto our bed frame. The light was still dangling over my head from earlier reading and during my sleep I must have stretched my body out and inadvertently switched the light on with the top of my head.

I turned the light off, closed my eyes and tried to sleep. White shapes appeared and disappeared in the darkness and my heart rate returned to normal.

I was relieved to still be in my bed.