Dreamscape Conspiracy
Author and Story Setting:
This story began as a short story and blossomed along with my Muse’s demands to return to work. Once again, this story came from a short story called Dreamweaver.
Dreamscape as a project name and, ultimately, as a fictitious technology emerges from an obscure sleep study and dream research effort. Obscurity was obliterated by a research accident that came into the story with incredible potential. That potential had to remain limited knowledge, or unlimited chaos would take over. And it did.
It became real in March 2023 when Dreamscape Conspiracy went live on Amazon.
Our protagonist is Dr. Cara Williams, a 32-year-old Clinical Psychologist with a dark secret she fights to repress. Being the lead researcher on a controversial Dream Therapy project called Dream Weaver, she finds satisfaction in her work until an accident in the lab rewrites the rules of Dream Therapy.
Further complications surface when the core technology known as Dreamscape can capture dreams for analysis and transmit previously captured dreams to other research participants. That’s an unexpected problem, and it almost causes suicide. But some benefits could relieve recurring nightmares. One such participant was Russell Carter, a fifth-year senior who entered college after six years in the Marines as a Force Recon Scout Sniper. Russ has a dark secret, too, haunting his dreams relentlessly.
Because of his past, his self-esteem has taken a significant hit, and his actions while in Afghanistan have made him consider himself unredeemable. Dream Therapy may be a source of relief for him, but he may never get the chance to find out.
Devious and deceptive undercurrents are at work to exploit the Dreamscape technology driven by greed and personal gain. Others want to destroy Dreamscape and anyone attached to the research to protect big-money investments in the pharmaceutical industry threatened by Cara’s breakthrough discovery.
The relationship between Cara and Russ has something the other needs, but they only realize how much once realities violently rewrite their dreams.
Dreamscape Conspiracy was a blast to write, getting to know these two characters. From that I discovered there would be another book to continue where their story led me. And it did—three more times, actually.