I had a dream last night that, when I was five, my parents took me and my sister on a cruise. On the cruise, we had a big shipwreck. The ship sank. My sister very nearly died, but they found her and brought her onto our lifeboat.

Over the next few years of my life, a few things didn’t make much sense. My sister, who I was once close to, was much more distant. Furthermore, I found it strange that she used to be older than me and was now younger than me. Also, I seemed to remember a few times when people told me that she had died on the boat.

And finally, when I was sixteen, I pieced it all together. She had died on the boat. I had become so delusional in my insistence that this had not happened that my parents found it easier to simply have another child and tell me that this was my sister.