When I was in my early teens, I had a sleep paralysis ghost. I named him Vance. At first he was just an occurrence at night, but as my depression worsened, he became something that followed me everywhere. As I got older and got medical help, Vance visited me less, and I was fine with that.
When I learned of Carl Jung's theory that every woman has a subconscious male counterpart, the Animus, and that those who see ghosts are not mentally ill, but have a closer connection with the other side, I was taken aback. Maybe Vance wasn't a thing to get rid of, but rather, a part of me the whole time. Vance and I are working things out now.
I made this piece in Adobe Photoshop, digitally rendering a pencil sketch I had made onto a photo I had taken of myself. This piece is a reference to Henry Fuseli’s painting, The Nightmare. Using blending modes, I added highlights onto myself and the bedsheets with Vance’s glowing eyes as the light source. After that, I added the text and rasterized it so I could erase parts of it at a low opacity to give it a ghostly look.
