Sean Langan

And I would sit there as the routine and I would escape.

Every day I escaped into reverie and drift, let my mind drift off, escape from that confines of that cell

Back to childhood memories, you know, I was blessed with lovely summer holidays as a child in Portugal and I would drift, let my mind drift off to a happy place.

This is my safe place and I think this is what the brain was doing, giving you total recall.

It's to kind of comfort you with childhood memories, if you're lucky enough to have good childhood memories and love, and to find ways of surviving.

But I would spend the morning thinking of my childhood summer holidays in Portugal.

And that gave me the strength to come back into the room and deal with whatever was happening.

You know, even at one point, someone was filming me and I thought, fuck it, they're filming me for one of those jihadi videos before.

But you're now capable of dealing with anything

because you've got this strength you're drawing on.

Then with my loved ones cut off, I've never felt such a strong connection.

I could feel them, see what they were doing, and a lot of it's based on you've got no outside stimulus, so there's no social media.

You're in darkness, and I was never bored, ironically.

I get bored quickly in London.

No television, no books, not bored.

And you're having this meditative, deep state, intense.

Now, knowing that you could be beheaded, having the sword of Damocles hanging over your head at any moment you die, focuses the mind and the emotions.

So it was intense spiritual connection to family, loved ones, friends, and then through them all through to life.

Knowing life could end gives you an incredibly exquisite,

acute sensitivity to the pleasures of life.