My name's Damien. Um, nothing special about me. Just kinda here. I've been hanging out at Moss Park ever since they opened.

My sleep is sporadic. It depends if I'm using or not. If I'm using, it's more of a deep sleep, or a knockout sleep, I guess you'd call it. I don't really remember much. There’s not really any REM stuff, unless I'm not using. I find generally after a couple days of sobriety, [the dreams] are a lot more clear. They're different. I've been pretty good lately with not using.

I have an apartment through CAMH [Centre for Addiction and Mental Health]. They actually got me an apartment prior to drug treatment court. I stuck to the program, and they got me subsidized housing.

My dream life is confusing, I guess. I find as I get older, dreams are kind of different. A lot of looking back on my past. I don't know if it's guiding me in the future or not, but I seem to have some dreams that, like, end up happening. It's just kind of weird. Almost prophetic. Nothing world ending or anything like that, but just situations that arise. I don't know if maybe my dreams guide me in that direction, or how it works.

It used to be more surreal, more like imaginative, movie-style dreams. More cartoony, silly things happening. Stuff that just wouldn't be real. But I find they're more related to life now. I wouldn't call it nightmares because it's really not. I guess everybody has them sometimes, but it is mostly stuff that I've experienced.

With the using, that stopped. Or it didn't stop, but [the dreams] kind of steered away from the childish versions. I guess that's how you put it. I always kind of wondered what they mean. I know there's a lot of literature and stuff like that on what they could potentially mean, but I think it's more suited towards the person. ‘Cause everybody's different. I find they're very, very hard to decipher.

I was raised better than a lot of people. We had a lot growing up. Pretty much everything we wanted and I just kind of steered away from [sharing my dreams]. My dad's very… he's a realist for sure. My, my mom's kind of silly, but, uh, my dad's totally a realist,

I have a couple recurring dreams, like falling dreams, which I find are weird. I never hit the bottom. We visited the Grand Canyon a lot [growing up], and I have this dream all the time that I fall in and I'm falling and falling and falling. It's like an endless fall, but I never hit the bottom. I don't know, there's something, some sort of attachment I have to that place. I was 14 the first time we went, and it's the most breathtaking thing I've ever seen. I've seen the pyramids in Egypt, and that's nothing compared to this hole in the ground[laughs]. It's literally a giant hole in the ground, but it's awe inspiring. I still dream about it today. If there's anywhere I'd want to live, it'd be there.

You walk through these pine trees, and it's just there. It's just a hole in the ground, but it, it's something else. We went probably five or six times. Pretty much every summer we’d do a cross-US tour. And then we did Europe a couple times. And the Middle East. We traveled a lot. I am obsessed with archeology and Egypt mostly. But the Grand Canyon. I don't know what it is. There's something drawing me there. Probably aliens [laughs]. I feel like there's something, there’s something more. That's probably why my dream keeps going back to that place. I think there's something just about it.

There's one [dream] where we're on donkeys and we're going down the side, which we actually did [in waking life]. But there's the other one where I fall off and I can't figure that one out. It's weird. It's like I'm falling and spinning at the same time, and I generally wake up like grabbing on to something. Like, in like, a panic-stricken mode. The thing is, when I was there, I was never scared of anything. But I don't know, maybe I think that place, like I'm tied to that somehow.

For sure, it could be dangerous. But it's more beautiful than anything. I get the same feeling as after I go to church and sit through a [service]. Kind of like when you leave, it's total peace, an overwhelming feeling of joy. I can't quite figure that one out either. But it’s almost the opposite of the feeling of the dream. It's like a super calm place, but at the same time it can be quite terrifying.

[The recurring dream] is kind of timeless. It comes and it goes, like, it's not any set schedule or anything like that, which is kind of weird. At least once a month I have it. It's quite common. It's been years, years and years. I'm trying to figure it out, but I have no idea.

All my recurring dreams go back to the falling thing. I don't know why. Falling from high places. I'm not scared of heights in any way, but I don't know what it is. It's like, everything's normal and then it's not. I think I might attribute it to life where, because I'm in this pattern of just going downhill in a way. Two steps forward, three steps back kind of thing. That's, that's how I feel. If I could figure it out, I think it might kind of guide me where I need to go, because I know where I need to go, but I just don't know how to get there.

I dream a lot about past holidays and stuff like that. When we were younger, my family used to be a lot closer together. We've all kind of grown and gone in our own direction now. I think the dreams are a way to come back together in a way. It's good stuff, nice, pretty calming about past situations that have all been basically good. They were good times.

I love [Moss Park]. It's like home. I know all the staff. They are very… well, they generally make you feel totally at home. And if we lose this place, people are just gonna die. Like, it's already started happening. Just in the last month alone, the amount of overdoses shot through the roof. I actually went to Street Health this morning—I stop in there sometimes—and they were closed. I guess their hours are reduced or whatever now, and things are changing. I love Moss Park. I was always so scared of the area growing up, and then I started hanging out here and it's been a good 10 or 15 years now. There used to be a trailer in the middle of the park. It was so freezing cold in the middle of wintertime. And now, to this [site]. I just hope there's someone in the government who gives a crap enough to keep it going. Just having a place like this… it's definitely saving lives.