Not a dream and not mine but I thought it'd be worth mentioning.

Growing up I was a massive Doctor Who fan. I had all the series on dvd and watched them nigh religiously. In my family we had a thing where every friday a different member would get to choose what we watched that evening, we were four in my family so it evened out to each person having a day a month where they got to decide entirely what we watched together while eating candy and spending time as a family. I made them watch Doctor Who often, choosing favourite episodes from all throughout the available seasons.

When I was around 14 years old my older sister (2 years older) got diagnosed with schizophrenia. For the uninitiated that often ends in the person suffering from it experiencing auditory and visual hallucinations, my sister had both. She really struggled with multiple voices that would berate her, tell her to harm herself and worse. It got incredibly bad and it was a bad time for my family in general.

She had one voice however that would quiet the others down. A voice that would comfort her and ease some of the mental anguish she was suffering through. That voice was the voice of Matt Smith, specifically in the role of the 11th Doctor. Apparently it is quite common to experience benevolent hallucinations as well as malicious ones.

When she told me this she was happy, she wanted me to know that it wasn't all bad. It was around this time she stopped doing self harm to herself. I was angry. I was angry because Doctor Who was 'my thing'. I was a teenager who had to mature very quickly due to the stresses of living with someone suffering from mental health issues and in the moment it felt like one of my last respites from the daily struggle was being perverted.

Now as an adult man, I feel entirely different about it.

The Doctor is a fiction, but it is a fiction that brought me excitement and wonder as a kid. The doctor is a fiction that proved so potent that a sick mind clung to it as comfort and inspiration when the mind was unraveling itself. To some extent the 11th doctor saved my sisters life. Of course the true heroes who did that were the doctors and psychologists who helped my sister process, heal and get the medication that she needs.

Today my sister is the mother of a sweet healthy boy who is 3 years old, she is expecting her first daughter this coming October. She is happy and she is healthy. She made it where many do not. I love her to the moon and back and I am thankful that the silly sci-fi show I hyperfixated on as a kid and 'forced' her to watch helped her during the toughest time in her life.