The Lathe of Heaven
by Ursula K. Le Guin
Essay by Ted Gioia
The dream sequences in novels or movies or TV shows
usually put me to sleep, perchance to dream. They are
typically little more than a clumsy way of attaching symbolic
resonance to the story, but without advancing plot, character
development—an awkward Freudian intrusion
into the narrative.
The dream sequences in myths and folktales
are something altogether different. Here
dreams are constitutive. They might predict
the future or offer sage advice; they may even
create the surrounding reality. Recall that in
Australian Aboriginal culture, the time of
creation is known as “Dreamtime,” and a
whole host of beliefs and institutions, both
spiritual and practical, are included under the rubric of “The
Dreaming.”
A few writers of conceptual fiction have tried to bridge this
gap, imagining a return from our degraded psychoanalytical
concept of the dream to the creative, constitutive dreaming of
traditional societies. For example, in Jonathan Lethem’s
Amnesia Moon, discontinuities in the characters’ construction
of reality are linked to dreams—a blurring of the borderline
between physical and imaginative states very much in keep
with the work (especially the later books) of Philip K. Dick,
whose influence on Lethem is clearly marked in this novel.
Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Lathe of Heaven, a 1971 book that
was nominated for both the Hugo and Nebula awards, stands
out as an extreme novelistic treatment of dreaming as a world-
altering activity. The "effective dreams" of her hero George
Orr not only change the future . . . they also change the
past. And it is not just his personal past that is altered; the
collective past of the planet—and, as it turns out, even the
universe—shifts in response to his REM-musings.
Orr first discovered this terrible talent in his teens. At age
seventeen he had a dream that his Aunt Ethel had been killed
in a car crash in Los Angeles. When he awoke, he learned
that not only was his Aunt dead, but that the crash had taken
place six weeks before he had the dream! Not every dream is
translated so vividly into reality, but his “effective dreams”
happen often enough to make Orr wary of the calamities that
any given night might leave in its wake.
Orr begins to take prohibited drugs to limit his dreaming or
stop it altogether—a rare instance of narcotic abuse to
prevent mind-altering states—but this leads to legal problems
and his assignment to a government-mandated medical
treatment regimen. His doctor, William Haber, is an expert in
sleep disorders who has been tinkering with a machine that
can influence patients’ dream states. Haber is fascinated with
his peculiar patient, but rather than attempt to cure him, the
doctor aims to manipulate Orr’s dream power for his own
agendas.
Haber’s goals are a mixture of a narcissistic will to power and
a zeal for benevolent social engineering. Yet his ability to
control the effects of Orr’s dreams is limited at best. The
mixed results of his various experiments are sobering lessons
in the law of unintended consequences. When Haber tries to
use “effective dreams” to create peace on earth, he ends up
causing tremendous warfare in outer space. When he
attempts to end racial hatred, he also eradicates racial
diversity—everybody ends up with gray-colored skin. Le Guin
is ingenious in her plot construction in this unfolding series of
dreams gone bad. Seldom has any writer done a better job of
proving the old adage: “Be careful what you wish for—it might
come true.”
Yet Haber is not discouraged by the disastrous side effects of
his experiments, and decides that he needs to push ahead to
even more ambitious goals—only now he hopes to train his
own brain to do the magical dreaming (with a little help from
his dream machine). His efforts not only fail, but even
threaten to tear apart the physical continuity of experienced
reality, and thrust society into a chaotic, nightmarish existence.
Le Guin has added a plausible veneer of science to her story,
with various factoids drawn from sleep and dream research
brought in to enhance the verisimilitude of what is, by any
measure, a book that renounces almost every tenet of
realism. Yet the excitement of sci-fi, as I have argued
elsewhere, is not derived from its science—which rarely
stands up to scrutiny—but rather from its imaginative
reconstructions of our perceived reality. And it is here that Le
Guin really shines. The premise of this novel, with its soft
boundary between dreaming and waking life, allows its author
to reach for the most extreme effects. Few writers could
handle this freedom as effectively as Le Guin. Yet there is
some heavy irony here: since this book is all about the
dangers of giving free rein to the constructs of our imagination.


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Conceptual Fiction: A Reading List (with links to essays on each work)
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Abbott, Edwin A. Flatland
Adams, Douglas The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Aldiss, Brian Barefoot in the Head
Aldiss, Brian Hothouse
Aldiss, Brian Report on Probability A
Allende, Isabel The House of the Spirits
Amado, Jorge Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands
Amis, Martin Time's Arrow
Apuleius The Golden Ass
Asimov, Isaac The Foundation Trilogy
Asimov, Isaac I, Robot
Atwood, Margaret The Handmaid's Tale
Banks, Iain M. The State of the Art
Ballard, J.G. The Atrocity Exhibition
Ballard, J.G. Crash
Ballard, J.G. The Crystal World
Ballard, J.G. The Drowned World
Barth, John Giles Goat-Boy
Bester, Alfred The Demolished Man
Blish, James A Case of Conscience
Borges, Jorge Luis Ficciones
Bradbury, Ray Dandelion Wine
Bradbury, Ray Fahrenheit 451
Bradbury, Ray The Illustrated Man
Bradbury, Ray The Martian Chronicles
Bradbury, Ray Something Wicked This Way Comes
Brockmeier, Kevin The View from the Seventh Layer
Bulgakov, Mikhail The Master and Margarita
Bunch, David R. Moderan
Burgess, Anthony A Clockwork Orange
Card, Orson Scott Ender's Game
Carpentier, Alejo The Kingdom of This World
Carroll, Lewis Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Chabon, Michael The Yiddish Policemen's Union
Chiang, Ted Stories of Your Life and Others
Clarke, Arthur C. Childhood's End
Clarke, Arthur C. A Fall of Moondust
Clarke, Arthur C. 2001: A Space Odyssey
Clarke, Susanna Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Crowley, John Little, Big
Danielewski, Mark Z. The Fifty Year Sword
Danielewski, Mark Z. House of Leaves
Davies, Robertson Fifth Business
Delany, Samuel R. Babel-17
Delany, Samuel R. Dhalgren
Delany, Samuel R. The Einstein Intersection
Delany, Samuel R. Nova
Dick, Philip K. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Dick, Philip K. Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said
Dick, Philip K. The Man in the High Castle
Dick, Philip K. Ubik
Dick, Philip K. VALIS
Disch, Thomas M. Camp Concentration
Disch, Thomas M. The Genocides
Doctorow, Cory Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom
Donoso, José The Obscene Bird of Night
Ellison, Harlan (editor) Dangerous Visions
Ellison, Harlan I Have No Mouth & I Must Scream
Esquivel, Laura Like Water for Chocolate
Farmer, Philip José To Your Scattered Bodies Go
Fuentes, Carlos Aura
Gaiman, Neil American Gods
Gaiman, Neil Neverwhere
Gibson, William Burning Chrome
Gibson, William Neuromancer
Grass, Günter The Tin Drum
Greene, Graham The End of the Affair
Grossman, Lev The Magicians
Haldeman, Joe The Forever War
Hall, Steven The Raw Shark Texts
Harrison, M. John The Centauri Device
Harrison, M. John Light
Heinlein, Robert The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
Heinlein, Robert: Stranger in a Strange Land
Heinlein, Robert Time Enough for Love
Helprin, Mark Winter's Tale
Herbert, Frank Dune
Hoffman, Alice Practical Magic
Huxley, Aldous Brave New World
Keret, Etgar Suddenly, A Knock at the Door
Keyes, Daniel Flowers for Algernon
Kundera, Milan The Book of Laughter and Forgetting
Kunzru, Hari Gods Without Men
Lafferty, R.A. Nine Hundred Grandmothers
Le Guin, Ursula K. The Dispossessed
Le Guin, Ursula K. The Lathe of Heaven
Le Guin, Ursula K. The Left Hand of Darkness
Leiber, Fritz The Big Time
Leiber, Fritz Conjure Wife
Leiber, Fritz Swords & Deviltry
Leiber, Fritz The Wanderer
Lem, Stanislaw His Master's Voice
Lem, Stanislaw Solaris
Lethem, Jonathan The Fortress of Solitude
Lewis, C. S. The Chronicles of Narnia
Link, Kelly Magic for Beginners
Malzberg, Barry N. Herovit's World
Mann, Thomas Doctor Faustus
Márquez, Gabriel García 100 Years of Solitude
Markson, David Wittgenstein's Mistress
Matheson, Richard Hell House
Matheson, Richard What Dreams May Come
McCarthy, Cormac The Road
Miéville, China Perdido Street Station
Miller, Jr., Walter M. A Canticle for Leibowitz
Millhauser, Steven Dangerous Laughter
Mitchell, David Cloud Atlas
Moorcock, Michael Behold the Man
Moorcock, Michael The Final Programme
Morrison, Toni Beloved
Murakami, Haruki 1Q84
Murakami, Haruki Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
Nabokov, Vladimir Ada, or Ardor
Niffenegger, Audrey The Time Traveler's Wife
Niven, Larry Ringworld
Noon, Jeff Vurt
Obreht, Téa The Tiger's Wife
O'Brien, Flann At Swim-Two-Birds
Okri, Ben The Famished Road
Percy, Walker Love in the Ruins
Pohl, Frederik Gateway
Pratchett, Terry The Color of Magic
Pynchon, Thomas Gravity's Rainbow
Rabelais, François Gargantua and Pantagruel
Robinson, Kim Stanley Red Mars
Rowling, J.K. Harry Potter & the Sorcerer's Stone
Rushdie, Salman Midnight's Children
Russ, Joanna The Female Man
Saramago, José Blindness
Sheckley, Robert Dimension of Miracles
Sheckley, Robert Mindswap
Sheckley, Robert Store of the Worlds
Shelley, Mary Frankenstein
Silverberg, Robert Dying Inside
Silverberg, Robert Nightwings
Silverberg, Robert The World Inside
Simak, Clifford City
Simak, Clifford The Trouble with Tycho
Smith, Cordwainer Norstrilia
Smith, Cordwainer The Rediscovery of Man
Stephenson, Neal Snow Crash
Spinrad, Norman Bug Jack Barron
Stross, Charles Glasshouse
Sturgeon, Theodore More Than Human
Sturgeon, Theodore Some of Your Blood
Swift, Jonathan Gulliver's Travels
Thomas, D.M. The White Hotel
Tiptree, Jr., James Warm Worlds and Otherwise
Tolkien, J.R.R. The Hobbit
Updike, John The Witches of Eastwick
Van Vogt, A.E. The Mixed Men
Van Vogt, A.E. Slan
Van Vogt, A.E. The Voyage of the Space Beagle
Van Vogt, A.E. The World of Null A
Vance, Jack Emphyrio
Verne, Jules Around the Moon
Verne, Jules From the Earth to the Moon
Verne, Jules: Journey to the Center of the Earth
Vonnegut, Kurt Cat's Cradle
Vonnegut, Kurt The Sirens of Titan
Vonnegut, Kurt Slaughterhouse-Five
Wallace, David Foster Infinite Jest
Walpole, Horace Hieroglyphic Tales
Wells, H.G. The First Men in the Moon
Wells, H.G. The Island of Dr. Moreau
Wells, H.G. The Time Machine
Wilson, Robert Anton & Robert Shea The Illuminatus! Trilogy
Winton, Tim Cloudstreet
Woolf, Virginia Orlando
Zabor, Rafi The Bear Comes Home
Zelazny, Roger Lord of Light
Zelazny, Roger This Immortal
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