Faced with the prospect of cancer surgery, I thought that while awash in pain killers I might at least experience some interesting dreams. Instead I found that the medications did exactly the opposite, completely deadening any creative sense I had. My net sum of interesting creative ideas while in the hospital was zero! It taught me a valuable lesson: creativity is linked to my reasoning and thought; interrupt the flow of thought artificially and the creative forces are negated altogether.

Some time afterwards I did experience some particularly compelling waking dreams. I didn't know what they were about, but I felt that I had to paint them. EBB and FLOOD were done on faith-it didn't matter if anyone—even myself—understood what they were about, they had to be made real.