Fiends forever

Dear Mother and Father,

I have a few urgent questions, and I really wish I knew where to send these letters so that you could answer them. I've passed the post office many times, each time growing more frustrated at being so close to communicating with you and yet unable to do so, until I stopped going down that street.
My dreams have been marginally stranger than usual lately. I'm not sure what to make of the sudden change. People speak in non-sequiturs and ask ask me for incomprehensible favors. Whippoorwills are everywhere, talking to me and rhyming at me in foreign languages. Funny shapes that must mean something but that I have no meaning for show up on the scenery. Sometimes I hear music that makes me sick to my stomach. (Why would music do that?)
I tried to draw some of the symbols and work out the notes to some of the songs, and I tried to remember the strange words I heard, but when I did, Mr. Shadow showed up and interrupted me. I told him that I thought that mirages like him could only be seen when a person was awake for many days at a time, but he said that he can be seen by people who are sleepy OR utterly mad. I know that sometimes I remember things that never happened, like when you didn't spank me but I thought you did, and sometimes I don't remember things that did happen, like some of the parties I've been to, but I don't think I'm utterly mad, do you? It would be so dreadfully inconvenient if I were! If I were utterly mad, I would never be able to find out what was real and what was imaginary!
I asked Mr. Shadow if he would please go away, but he wouldn't. It's so peculiar to see him side-by-side with an undistorted world. Nothing is inexplicably melting or floating or shifting or breathing, and yet here he is! He says he wants to be my friend--and maybe even marry me when I grow up. He says he really, really needs to be somebody's typist and if I could get the scary cape lady to go away, he and I could help each other. He says his last avatar isn't living in the Steamlands anymore, so without me he's just a disembodied bit of ectoplasm. He also still thinks you two are dead. He says that his last avatar was my godfather and the same Sparkperson we often visited for your (Father's) studies, and so he also says that he inherited guardianship of my person. I don't remember ever hearing that that man was my godfather. Is that true? I'm can't imagine how my subconscious comes up with all of this madness.
But if you ever, ever, ever get any communication from me, please answer and straighten everything out!
I love you and I miss your insight.

Love,
Your Shaqad