The Lathe of Heaven
Chapter 1
The novel starts, oddly enough, with a jellyfish. The jellyfish is in the sea, doing jellyfish things. You know, like you would expect it to do. But then everything changes. Land shoots out of the water, creating continents. The scene changes again, and we meet a guy who has had his eyelids burned off. He's in the middle of a post-apocalyptic environment, and he's talking about radiation sickness… but at the same time, he's also inside in a room with a door that leads to a linoleum corridor. Turns out that this guy's been taking drugs illegally, so the medics who come to treat him write him up and send him into voluntary therapy. A guy called Mannie takes the blame for George's (that's the guy) drug use, and keeps him out of even worse trouble. Then he talks about people suffering from diseases because they aren't getting enough food.
Chapter 2
Now we're in Dr. William Haber's office. Haber's staring at a giant photograph of Mt. Hood. Haber is distracted from the painting when George Orr walks into his office. George is thin, has fair hair and eyes, and seems like the most ordinary guy you could ever meet. Haber is a sleep doctor, and he guesses that George has been trying to stop his dreams. Well, it turns out that's a pretty dangerous thing. Something that could even be deadly. It takes a while, but George finally tells Dr. Haber why he's been avoiding dreaming: his dreams change things. The dreams don't just come true, and they're not just prophetic—they actually change reality. George tells the story of the first time he was sure he changed reality. He was 17, and he had an aunt who kept trying to have sex with him. One night, he had a dream in which she was killed in a car crash, and when he woke up, his aunt was gone. It's not that she left: the past was actually totally different. She was killed in a car crash, so she was never there with George at all. Haber puts George under hypnosis and tells him to dream about a horse. George actually changes reality, remember that picture of Mt. Hood? Well, now it's a picture of a horse. Dr. Haber doesn't even seem to notice. In his mind, it's always been a picture of a horse, and George is just insane. The chapter ends with Dr. Haber ordering George to come see him after work every day.
Chapter 3
George leaves work at 3:30 and heads home. On the way, we learn a lot about George's world. It's overcrowded, there are tons of subways, war is happening in the Middle East, and global warming has finally screwed up the environment beyond repair. It’s time for another round of hypnosis. Haber tells George to dream about horses again, and he does. Only this time, the horse takes a giant poop in the shape of Mount Hood. Yeah, you read that right. And guess what? When George wakes up, the mountain is on the mural again. Okay, time for a new dream. George dreams of John F. Kennedy bumping into Dr. Haber, and then he dreams about the rain stopping. And guess what? It does. After all this, George feels tired and goes home. On his subway ride, he thinks about the absurdity of his life. Soon, George starts thinking about his therapy sessions with Dr. Haber. He wonders why he can't remember anything, and then he starts thinking that Dr. Haber must be instructing him to dream about specific things. Which means that Dr. Haber somehow knows the truth. George is so excited that even the people next to him can feel his happiness. George heads home, full of this brand-new news. But once he gets to his apartment, he has second thoughts. If Dr. Haber knows, why hasn't he said anything? What will he do now that he knows?
Chapter 4
So it turns out that people in this reality aren't really big on cars anymore. As the population grew, people started having giant automatic parking garages—you know, like the ones we have now—but then the car went the way of horse-drawn buggy. Now those old garages are converted office buildings. And that's where Heather Lelache works. Heather Lelache is a lawyer who seems as tough as nails, and George has come to her for help. It turns out that George thinks Dr. Haber is ordering him to dream specific dreams. The problem is, there's nothing technically illegal about this. George tries to explain the whole thing to Heather, but she is not getting it at all. Frankly, she thinks that he's totally nuts… but at least she won't say it to his face. It looks like George and Heather are going nowhere, but then George mentions that Dr. Haber's machine is experimental. Heather's found her angle: if Dr. Haber's machine hasn't been approved, then she can get the therapy sessions to stop. Heather and George make a plan for her to attend one of George's therapy sessions without Dr. Haber.
Chapter 5
Dr. Haber strides into the Oregon Oneirological Institute. It's fancy, elegant, and high class and perhaps most important, it's not the office that he used to have. Suddenly Dr. Haber is a big shot. He even has a huge office and a giant window view of Portland. Dr. Haber has an appointment with George, but before that, he meets with Heather Lelache. He explains how his machine works while he records it, going on for paragraphs about tiny scientific details. According to Dr. Haber, what he's doing is teaching George how to dream without being afraid. After George comes in, Dr. Haber hypnotizes him. Instead of directly telling him what to dream (you know, since Heather is watching), he gives a kind of vague and general topic. This time it's overpopulation. Dr. Haber and Heather watch as George falls asleep, keeping track of all the recordings on Haber's instruments. But then something much more interesting happens outside the window: the buildings start to disappear. Portland changes from a city of millions into a city of a few hundred thousand. Understandably, Heather is a bit freaked out. When Dr. Haber realizes that Heather has witnessed the transformation of the city, he starts to freak out. For a moment, it really seems like he's going to kill her. But when Heather doesn't seem to remember anything, the doctor calms down. But there's another problem. When George wakes up, he says that he dreamed about the Plague, which of course was not happening anywhere before he started dreaming. Dr. Haber shoos George out and tries to convince Heather that poor George is just crazy. When she leaves, it seems like his plan has worked. So Dr. Haber sits down to congratulate himself with a bottle of bourbon, toasting to the deaths of tons of people. Looks like we have our novel's villain.
Chapter 6
George goes back to his apartment after the appointment with Dr. Haber, he goes to his new apartment, which is suddenly bigger and fancier than the old one. George starts freaking out. He just killed six billion people with his dream, and he sees no way to get out of Dr. Haber's clutches. Then Heather Lelache calls. George is happy to hear from her and they make a date to meet each other for lunch on Monday. Even though he was happy at first, by the end of the conversation George is not too happy, because it seems like Heather can't remember anything that happened. It's time to go to George's daily appointment with Dr. Haber. On the way there, he thinks about the new world he lives in. Dr. Haber wants to change things, but George thinks that things should be left alone. The argument doesn't change anything, and George ends up dreaming Haber's dreams anyway. Dr. Haber tries to get George to dream about peace. George dreams about a goose. Then about stars. Then about a giant star that gets bigger and bigger and finally explodes. George wakes up screaming, sweaty and scared. If that's how he dreams about peace, we don't want to see him dream about war. Turns out that the way he changed reality this time was by imagining hostile aliens taking control of the moon and threatening the safety of earth. At least human aren’t going to kill other humans anymore. Despite George's protests, Haber carries on: he's drunk with power.
Chapter 7
Remember that date? Well, George has missed it, and Heather is not happy. No one makes her look stupid. Heather heads to George's work. Not there. She goes to his house. Not there. Finally, she goes to his little cottage in the woods. There he is. Turns out that George has been holed up in his cabin, trying not to sleep, since Saturday. It's Tuesday. Something about seeing George like this, sleep deprived, frazzled, and half-insane, makes Heather realize that she has a bit of a crush on him. Heather and George talk. It turns out that Heather had a husband who died in the war, and that's when she remembers that aliens didn't exist before last Friday. Somewhere in this conversation, Heather launches into a long explanation of her past. She says that her dad was black and her mom was white, but she doesn't know what she is. George tells her she's brown, the color of the earth. Heather and George realize that they aren't skinny anymore, since so many people died and there is abundant food. Then George asks Heather if she remembers April 1998. She doesn't remember anything in particular, and that's when he drops the bomb: that's when the world ended. After telling that story, George is so tired that he falls asleep—but not before Heather somehow hypnotizes him. She tells him to dream that Dr. Haber doesn't suck and that there are no aliens on the moon. In the morning they figure out that the aliens have landed on earth. George did exactly as she asked: The aliens aren’t on the moon anymore.
Chapter 8
Dr. Haber is not having a good day. Portland is on fire, nobody's in the Institute Building, he's all alone, and he doesn't know what to do. He's been trying to find George all day. After a while, George comes to Dr. Haber. George is bloody, limping, and carrying an almost unconscious woman. George is there to fix this mess, and Dr. Haber couldn't be happier. He's cracked the code to George's dreams, and he plans on fixing the whole alien invasion. The entire town is falling down in flames around them and it’s not exactly the best time to be dreaming. An alien ship crashes into Dr. Haber's office right in the middle of George's dream. Dr. Haber covers his machine with his own body, trying to protect it while he faces death. One of the aliens comes inside his office to tell Mr. Haber that this is a peaceful landing and that they are not violent. The explosions stop and George wakes up. Looks like he's responsible for ending the attacks. George tells Haber to call the president and let them know that the aliens are totally peaceful. It takes a little convincing, but Haber eventually does it.
Chapter 9
Instead of being a draftsman, George has become a bureaucrat. Portland has become the capital of the planet, in some kind of global U.N.-like organization, and Heather Lelache doesn't even exist. That's because everyone is gray now, and as George so helpfully pointed out earlier, Heather is brown. It's time for George's appointment, so he walks to the HURAD Tower, which is bigger than anything in the whole area. It's Dr. Haber's new office, which is basically luxurious now. Dr. Haber also reveals that he has a new plan for today's appointment. Instead of sleeping, George will be hooked up to the Augmentor while he's awake. Haber wants to record George's brainwaves so that he can figure out how they work. But George is anxious. What will Dr. Haber do with that information? The two have a long argument, with both sides trying to argue why they should and shouldn't change the world—but of course Dr. Haber wins. Something weird happens when Dr. Haber uses the Augmentor this time. Instead of having a dream, George visualizes one of the aliens. The magical dream alien tells George to use the phrase er' perrehnne in order to get help with his dreaming. The phrase works: George's well-being is restored. George decides that he's not going to let Haber use him anymore. Dr. Haber says that he's on the verge of a breakthrough, and soon he'll be able to use the Augmentor to make anyone dream effective dreams.
Chapter 10
George is not down with this new reality: Dr. Haber has gone too far this time, and the new world just isn't right. So George heads downtown into an antiques shop run by one of the aliens. It's full of 1950s memorabilia and knickknacks. When George asks the alien the meaning of iahklu, the alien gives him a Beatles record as a gift. George takes the record, goes off to his friend's place, and listens to the record on repeat until he falls asleep. That's when George dreams the best dream he's had so far: he dreams Heather back into existence. Of course, in her mind, she just fell asleep, but we totally missed her. George also dreamed that Heather was his wife. So now she is. George and Heather head over to Dr. Haber's huge office. In the time since we've seen him, Haber has become gigantic with power. Heather, on the other hand, is more cowardly than before, and she's afraid of him. This is supposed to be George's last appointment, so Dr. Haber tells George to dream that he will be completely normal. To test it, Dr. Haber makes George dream of changing the picture of Mt. Hood. But something goes wrong: George wakes up before Haber wanted him to. That's never happened before. Haber brushes it off. George tries to warn the doctor about the dangers of effective dreaming, but of course it doesn't work. George and Heather head out. They are on their way to dinner when stuff starts going a little weird. They feel uneasy and then all hell breaks loose. Again. Haber has started dreaming. Here's where things start to go really sci-fi. Imagine a giant black whirlpool… but it's not really a whirlpool—it's actually the absence of matter. Well, George jumps in it and uses it as a way to teleport over to Haber's office. (How did he know he could do that?) At the same time, the whirlpool destroys everything around it and even swallows up Heather. Haber's office looks like a Salvador Dalì painting, and George has to think about all of his friends in order to even move forward. Finally, he finds Dr. Haber and rips the Augmentor off of him. The nightmare's over, but it doesn't seem like Dr. Haber is waking up. Later, George walks through the city, looking at the wreckage. His wife is gone, and a whole world of people has disappeared.
Chapter 11: An alien finds George wandering through the rubble of the world. The alien takes him into his apartment and tells him to go to sleep. George sleeps, then dreams—and the world doesn't end. A few months later, it seems like things have settled down. The trees are in bloom, and people have regained their mental health. Well, except for Dr. Haber: he's still so crazy that even the other patients are afraid of him. These days, George is working for one of the aliens. After the Break, the government had been so messed up that many small businesses sprang up to meet the demands of people. The aliens own many of them, and they had to hire humans in order to get anything done. One day at work, George hears a very familiar voice. It's Heather. She's not a lawyer, and she's not gray, and she doesn't remember much about the past, but the fact that she exists is enough for George. George invites Heather out for a tea that they have missed for several realities, and his boss gives him the evening off. Looks like they'll finally be able to have that date, after all.