Sleep paralysis is a condition that happens when we are about to enter rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. In it, our bodies paralyze themselves to stop us from acting out our dreams, but Bruno’s mind is awake and experiencing horrific hallucinations. This forced him into insomnia and depression: “I thought I was possessed by demons,” he said.

Everything changed when one high school teacher suggested he should document these terrors. He has been battling his fears with photography ever since. “This project has gifted me a sense of who I am,” he said. “It gave me the strength to persevere in life, to create art and speak to people. It gifted me art, and I don’t know where I would be without it.”