Summary

A collection of short stories based entirely on dreams the author recorded in his journal. Over a period of almost three months he used techniques learned from various sources (Castaneda, Thelema, Occultism) to record his dreams. The author goes into detail about this process in the Introduction. Mixing fiction with the journal entries, intent on entertaining the reader as well as heightening awareness of the role of dreams in our lives, here is Dreams, Fiction and Me. A paranormal fiction suitable for all ages.

Review

This was the hardest thing I ever had to read and not because it was challenging, but because I knew at the end I would want to critique it than review it. Now to some, there is no difference but the two are not as interchangeable as you might think. A critique is where I would analyze the piece of work and say what areas could stand improvement and what things worked well. Whereas a review, in terms of what I do, is when I describe the essence of the literary work while trying to convince you why the book is worth reading. Well, I think you can guess how this review is going to go.

Dreams, Fiction and Me, while a literary work is by no means a book in my opinion. This novel is actually the author’s dream journal published for one to read. The problem with this is that there is no story to follow, no reality for the reader to become grounded in between the dreams. From what I have learned, readers don’t like dreams because they cannot distinguish what is real and what isn’t.

However, I will say that Dreams, Fiction and Me does help you better understand the functionality of dreams. That dreams can reveal things about ourselves that we would have never figured out awake. This book also teaches us that dreams are the subconscious at play and this is when our imagination is at its finest and most free. We can think of the most wonderful things and some of the darkest things as well. Dreams are a playground where impossible is possible.

Dreams, Fiction and Me also made me want to do a better job organizing my dream journal. The book begins with the narrator, who I am assuming to be the author, is in a coffee shop when he runs into a friend that isn’t really his friend anymore; and he doesn’t wish to speak with him. Well apparently this friend does not care because he becomes confrontational with the narrator and an altercation almost ensues. But at the end he is talking to some girls. The following dream is still on the friend and he has agreed to go somewhere with the friend but he didn’t really want to go. After that though, there is a different dream of where he wakes up in darkness with strangers and he has to perform physical activities like a training course or something. And the dreams continue from there, one random even after another.

Now I know how dreams work, that one doesn’t necessary have to have anything to do with another. However, this novel just reads like a broken stream of consciousness; where the reader is ping-ponged all over the place. There was just no fluidity.

Okay, so there is the part where I critiqued it but I would have to say, in my opinion, Dreams, Fiction and Me is not a novel. It is just a series of dreams the author had written down in a journal. However, this novel does help one understand dreams and helped me see how not to write a dream journal. Or maybe know how I would better organize one. But Dreams, Fiction and Me did have some interesting insights into the author and if you like dreams and knowing the author, this book is for you.

Reviewed by Camia Rhodes