To Build a Dream

 

Author Greg Hickey sent an email asking if I would read his newest book for an honest review. I said yes and took it with me while my husband and I went away for a few days. Little did I know, weeks later, I’d still be thinking of this story. I even sent him an email telling him I can’t seem to get it out of my head. And for me, that’s the sign of a good story. One that you think of when you’re not reading it and for long after.

I believe in dreams. I use them to my advantage. Not interpreting why the bear is chasing me down the street, but I use them to think out a problem, run ideas through my brain, and to find things. I’ve heard that if there’s something you’re struggling with, make it be the very last thing you think of as you fall asleep and the answer will come in a dream. Even if you don’t know you dreamt it. And I also heard that you can’t die in your dreams. You will always wake up before the parachute doesn’t open or you hit the rocks. Always. Because if you died in your dream it would kill you.  Dreams, are very real.

Timothy Smit is a guy who lived a quiet life while working what he thought would be a temporary job while he explored his options. It is now many, many years later, still in that job and suddenly his life does change. He’s lying in a hospital bed consumed with a very rare (only 12 known cases) lung cancer and it’s literally devouring him. I think because it’s so rare the medical team is not writing him off, sending him home to make his preparations. They are fighting this disease as hard as Tim wants to fight it. But it turns out he isn’t fighting alone.

While he is unconscious from his treatments Tim is experiencing intense dreams. Dreams that take on a life of their own. The dreams are keeping Tim alive along with the medication that’s almost killing him.

It feels like a battle between the disease and the dream. You feel like you are watching the gladiator take on the lion with his bare hands. You know one of them has to lose. But the dream isn’t trying to kill Tim, it’s trying to save him. CAN our dreams guide and take over our physical bodies? There is research that says they can and do. Tim comes to the realization in his dream that he can consciously let his unconscious take over. Let it do what it has to do. Tim will fight on the outside, the dream can fight from the in side.

I really don’t like to hear reviewers say a book would be great for a book club, I really don’t. I think it diminishes the book but boy, if you want a thinker and a talker, this is the one. I kept marveling at the idea of our dreams taking over our life when we are not in control (I don’t like to lose control of me) but I also have it on personal authority that dreams are real. And so is our waking life.