Alex Gardner is a self-serving psychic who has always used his gifts to chase gambling winnings and a string of romantic conquests. When he was nineteen, he was the brightest subject of a government-backed psychic study, but he vanished in the middle of the experiment, leaving questions about how far his abilities could go.
After clashing with a local extortionist named Snead, Alex is captured by two men who claim to represent an academic institution. At the institution, he reconnects with his former mentor, Dr. Paul Novotny, who now works on a government-funded project that pushes psychic power toward new frontiers. Novotny is joined by Dr. Jane DeVries, and together they have developed a daring technique that allows psychics to voluntarily link with others by projecting themselves into the subconscious while the sleeper rides the REM cycle. The project is framed as a clinical tool to diagnose and treat nightmares, inspired by the idea that the dream world can feel almost as real as waking life, a concept that echoes the Senoi beliefs of Malaysia. Yet the project has been hijacked by Bob Blair, a powerful government agent who sees a different use for the dream-linking technology.
Reluctantly, Alex agrees to join the program to uncover Blair’s true objectives. He begins to learn by helping people with personal fears—first assisting a man worried about his wife’s infidelity, then working with a boy named Buddy tormented by nightmares so severe that a prior psychic nearly lost his sanity trying to help. Buddy’s most haunting vision features a large, sinister “snake-man.”
As Alex and Jane grow closer, their relationship deepens into a dangerous attraction. He even slips into Jane’s dream without the help of technology to consummate their bond, an act she protests when she wakes. Beyond personal entanglements, the investigation is aided by novelist Charlie Prince, who has been quietly researching Blair’s scheme for a book. From what he uncovers, Blair intends to weaponize the dream-linking ability by using it to assassinate people—because those who die in dreams can die in real life as well.
Blair takes steps to silence anyone who might expose him, killing Prince and Novotny to keep the operation secret. The President of the United States himself becomes a patient when recurring nightmares threaten to destabilize national security, particularly through visions of nuclear catastrophe. Blair assigns Tommy Ray Glatman, a troubled psychic who has already murdered his own father, to enter the President’s nightmare and carry out the assassination. Blair views the President’s dream of nuclear war as a political liability in the looming nuclear disarmament negotiations.
Alex narrowly escapes Blair’s clutches and slips away to a racetrack run by Snead’s men. In a tense bargain, he offers to call five winners in exchange for their helping to distract Blair’s agents so he can slip back to the institution. There, he discovers Novotny’s corpse and learns more about Blair’s plan to kill the President. Desperate to protect the President, Alex projects himself into the President’s dream—a bleak post‑nuclear wasteland—and fights to shield him. In the dream, Glatman becomes a dangerous foe, briefly roaring through a vision of violence as a train conductor’s heart is ripped out by a brutal entity. The battle culminates with Alex adopting the murdered father figure’s appearance to distract Glatman long enough for the President to strike, and the crisis ends with the President grateful but wary of Blair’s power. In the real world, Alex infiltrates Blair’s dream and ends the threat by killing Blair before Blair can strike back.
With Blair out of the picture, Jane and Alex embark on a new mission and board a train to Louisville, Kentucky, determined to turn their shared dream encounter into reality. They even encounter the train’s ticket collector from Jane’s vision, but choose to press on, letting the mystery linger as they ride toward an uncertain future.
