A maniac is on the loose in the city, killing children. Psychologist Abigail, who suffers from narcolepsy, is helping the police with the investigation, but reality is becoming increasingly intertwined with her dreams. Abigail can no longer tell what is really happening. She starts pricking herself with a needle because pain is the only thing that keeps her grounded in reality. But how can she catch the killer if she doesn’t know what’s a dream and what’s reality? Franck Thilliez’s novel, Dreaming, is a thriller about the fragile line between the day and night worlds that relates to sleep paralysis, when the mind wakes up but the body remains asleep.
The protagonist unsuccessfully tries to control what’s happening, and her “dream” becomes increasingly terrifying. She wants to wake up, but she can’t. She experiences memory lapses and a blurring of reality as she lives through a kind of lucid nightmare where she understands things aren’t real, but fear still paralyzes her. This is not a light bedtime read. It’s a journey into the depths of the subconscious, where inner demons come to life. Thilliez doesn’t give easy answers; he forces the reader to become part of this insane dream, to analyze it and search for a way out.
The book is written in the first person, so you have to immerse yourself in this nightmare along with the protagonist. You start frantically searching for an anchor in reality, grasping at any clue, but everything around you seems ghostly and unreliable. Abigail’s consciousness is a labyrinth of fears and suspicions, and the author constantly throws in new puzzles. The ending of the novel is unpredictable, and even when it’s all over, you’re left with the feeling that you’re still not awake.
Have you read the book? Does it resemble a phase state?
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