I dreamed I was an FBI agent infiltrating a cult. The cult leader was the head of an adopted family of over 50 adults and children, and ran the whole thing with an iron fist – or with many leather implements, anyway.

My role was to join the happy cult family, and do whatever was required of me as I gathered evidence for a prosecution. Having recently joined, I was on the bottom rung of the family hierarchy, treated essentially as a maid, threatened with punishment at every turn.

I woke up just as the family assembled for a Saturday review of everybody’s behaviour, where I knew I would be held on the back on one of my “brothers” and whipped with a wide leather strap. In the dream, this fate was terrifying, but I was rather disappointed, upon waking, to have missed it.