Dreamnesia: Retrospect

‘Well they obviously want us to know they exist,’ Wil accepted, ‘are allowing us to know, but what do they expect us to do with this knowledge?’ He watched her pump the soap and wash her hands. ‘I mean, why are we even pretending they’re not there? I couldn’t find a thing on the internet about them this morning, so why isn’t anyone blogging them, telling others—why aren’t we pooling experiences?’ Sadie grabbed a hand towel and kneaded it. ‘Because a realistic response to their presence might fast-track us to the psych ward,’ she warned heavily. ‘That’s why.’

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Dreamnesia: Retrospect is an original story that blurs the line between reality and fiction, making you wonder why we do the things we do, no matter how trivial. The novel has been described as a cross between Inception and The Hunger Games, using dreams as the battleground to overcome the antagonist’s grip, which reaches far beyond dreams and into the everyday life of all human beings.

The story is set in a fictitious, small village on the south side of Taunton and features locations such as the shopping lane Bath Place and the town centre for some of the characters' dream adventure sequences. It is the middle novel in a trilogy, purposely written first.

(The next novel will be the first, chronologically speaking in the story's timeline, illuminating the gaps characters in the middle book have been unable to fill because of their dreamnesia.)

Books are available from Amazon January 31st 2018.

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‘The way they influence us is ingenious, Wil. Dreams are the perfect shadow to hide in if you want to announce yourself but are afraid what kind of reception you’ll get.’ She hooked her hair behind her ear. ‘I mean, think of those alien invasion movies, where two worlds collide with all guns blazing. The Tret and Tare are nothing like that. We’re not even half as intelligent and we’ve at least figured out that to manipulate and understand something outside us, we have to think like it in some way. Mimic it. Track its development, catalogue how it communicates with its environment and learn how the thing works first, undisturbed. Like a bacterium for instance.’ Here, Wil took a recoiling blink, for the word bent awkwardly in his ear. Bacterium. ‘We watch it do its thing,’ Sadie went on. ‘We see what it does in certain situations, and then we use that information to anticipate its behaviour. And if we want to change it, we try to become like it—without it even knowing. Binding receptors… using molecules like words. Communicating chemically. Now, we’re obviously not bacteria, but if we manipulate them enough, mimic them enough… understand them enough… we’ll eventually get the results we want. None of this annihilation rubbish. Because we already know how that ends. They just come back stronger, adapt, and the battle carries on. The key is to be like them. So they don’t see a need to adapt.’