I’ve been having some anxiety dreams that are absurd in their construct, yet feel very real. The other night I dreamt I was driving along a motorway which took a sharp turn, my car turned on its side and slid across the intersection into oncoming traffic. As I sat in the driver’s seat waiting to die, I woke up.

In another, a pizza oven burst into flames while I was in the shower. This being a dream, I couldn’t find any clothes so the house burnt down while I ran around in a frenzy looking for my trousers. 

On each occasion I woke up in a heightened state and had to reconstruct my reality and assure my brain that I was safe and clothed.

Oddly, I’m not particularly stressed right now, work and home are fine and my general mental health is steady. The only trauma is from football, although I can’t tell if it’s stress or just the slow re-alignment of my perceptions with our increasingly obvious reality.

On Tuesday night, Leicester, West Brom and Blackburn all took the lead before being pegged back. At one point there was an unbridgeable eight point gap to safety. The apparent sweet release of our imminent relegation was oddly soothing. When that gap eventually closed back down to six points, it felt bridgeable again; all we needed to do was beat Stoke and West Brom. 

In fact, our next five games offered an opportunity to spark the impetus we need. If we can get on a run, then we can pull ourselves to safety. As we fantasised, we suppressed reality; Schroedinger’s football – we need to put a run together because we can’t put a run together.

Against Stoke, it was all dalliance and deception again. There’s no lack of effort in these performances, we’ve lost our way a few times this season, but the application has never been lacking. For the first half-an-hour we matched them without creating a chance of note. Equally, despite the Sky commentary believing they’re still looking for a top six finish, Stoke didn’t look capable of capitalising on any advantage.

Nothing seemed to connect; crosses flashed across the box while our strikers watched on from their midfield no mans land, when they did arrive, we dallied. The midfield ground out the battle without ever being in control. Each individual part was OK, but none of it joined together. 

After a tight half-an-hour, we blew the doors off; from a looping Will Vaulks throw they intercepted and broke clear in a Keystone Cops style race up field. Lamine Cisse slipped the ball past Jamie Cumming and the spell that had been cast over our perceptions was broken. 

Now we needed to score, something we haven’t done for weeks. It was like trying to construct a car from its individual parts; it was all there, but putting it together felt impossible. Then, just before half-time, everything connected, an elaborate five man set-piece volleyed home by Ciaron Brown. Even the players seemed shocked it worked.

The goal was like emptying the spice rack and stumbling across a delicious blend for a curry. Ask to repeat it and nobody will remember what they did to make it happen. Having elevated briefly, gradually we regressed back to what we’d been.

Then like unlocking a great vault containing the secrets of the future there was a loud clunk, Cameron Brannagan’s whipped free kick swung in a cross, Will Lanshear flicked out a boot, the ball cannoned off the bar and ricocheted off the back of Sorba Thomas. It should have been a corner, the referee pointed for a goal kick. Another bleak injustice.

Then seconds later, another clank from the vault’s door; Thomas’ deep cross dropped beyond Brown and Currie and Rak-Sakyi nodded back across goal and into the net. If scoring two goals felt impossible, scoring three was like trying to describe what life is like in an inverted parallel quantum universe.

Inevitability unlocked? Or just another opportunity missed? By 5pm on Saturday we might be three points adrift and back in it. Or we might not be. I don’t know which is the better prospect.

We can’t continue like this; the club has become incrusted in its own paroxysms. Listen quietly like aid workers searching through the rubble after an earthquake, and you might hear the hollow cries of a club as it once was. But, after all the defeats and false starts, the scrambling short-termism, shifting tactics and stockpiling of signings, everything feels increasingly exhausted.

Who to blame? The established players who have served us well but come up short? The new ones who have come in blinking with bewilderment? The managers who have tried to squeeze clarity out of the giant amorphous blob of talent we’ve accumulated. The fans who expect more than the club will ever deliver? Or the management who have spent money like a lottery winner without the wit or wisdom to know what to do with their riches? 

All of these? None of these? Everyone’s responsible, no one’s accountable, everyone holds a piece of the puzzle, but nobody can piece together the picture, a toxic brew of shared culpability.

Whatever happens now, we need some time to reflect and review, nothing and no one should be beyond its reach. Without it, the ballast we’ve accumulated through months of toil could drag us down further.