The Compass
What becomes possible from here?
The Dream State Compass grew from my efforts to understand voices, psychosis and the life I was building through and beyond those experiences. Writing, painting and poetry gave me ways to explore what frightened me, what moved me, and what I hoped life could become.
Those beginnings still shape the work. Its questions extend into love, belief, belonging, power and responsibility: how we understand ourselves, how we treat one another, and what helps us live more freely.
I want to take unusual experiences seriously while keeping their explanations open to question. I care about support that respects a person’s dignity and strengthens their ability to choose. I am also interested in what grows through living: confidence, understanding, connection, and the capacity to contribute something of our own.
Art and poetry have their own place here. They can hold beauty, anger, humour, contradiction and things I cannot yet explain. A work may mean something different to you from what it meant to me.
Through these books, paintings, poems and reflections, I hope to make room for honest conversation and unexpected recognition. You are welcome to explore, question, disagree, or simply spend time with something that speaks to you.
An ordinary example
When a message goes unanswered
A friend has not replied. “They are busy” is one possibility. “They have had enough of me” is another. If the second explanation starts to feel certain, it may decide what happens next: withdrawing, sending an angry message, or ending the friendship.
A pause, a conversation or a piece of new information can reopen the situation. The feeling is real; there may still be more to learn before acting on it.
This small example shows the movement. The consequences can be much greater when unusual experiences or other people’s authority begin to govern a life.
Three questions to return to
What is guiding me?
A feeling, belief, voice, relationship, rule or practical need may be shaping the next step.
What could still change my mind?
Time, evidence, another person’s perspective and the effects of an action can keep an interpretation open.
What would make another response possible?
Rest, safety, money, housing, support or a different conversation may matter more than another explanation.
How the inquiry moves
01Experience02Meaning03Authority04Agency05Responsibility06Possibility
Experiences take on meaning. Meaning can acquire authority and shape which actions feel available. Our responses then affect other people and the conditions of future choices. The movement can circle back, change direction and begin again.
From a life into a wider inquiry
The memoir provides the lived ground. The other books develop the philosophy, a model for investigation, an ethics of support and an account of human possibility.
What keeps it grounded
The work returns to relationships, evidence, the body, time, dignity and real circumstances. Interpretations should remain open to correction. Help should answer to the person living its effects.
Learning how to carry meaning without being carried away by it.