Entering the World of Dreams

photo: penguinrandomhouse.com

As an avid dream-journaler and interpreter, I'll wake up in the middle of the night and jot down notes on my phone before falling back asleep. When I wake, these messages to myself are riddled with typos and incoherent sentences, but they're enough to remind me of my dream and why I thought it was important.

I've always wanted to lucid dream, too, but haven't yet had real success. But what if I could control my dreams, change the scenery and people in them? What if I could even access other people's dreams simply by wearing a small device on my head?

The novel Paprika by Yasutaka Tsutsui examines this world of technology and dreams, and the thin line that separates waking from sleeping.

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The stunningly beautiful Atsuko Chiba is a brilliant, renowned psychiatrist. She, along with other scientists at her Institute, have developed technology that allows her to access her patients dreams. In doing so, she can perform a kind of psychoanalysis and help her patients understand their mental illness.

But such a profession and skill poses high risk. If Chiba falls into too deep of a sleep while in another's dream, she could be lost in their unconsciousness forever. And if she spends too much time in the dream of, say, a person who has schizophrenia, she might "catch" the illness and herself become affected.

At night, she goes by the name Paprika and works as a dream detective, helping wealthy, high-standing citizens through discreet therapy sessions.

When several assistants at the Institute begin acting strangely, Atsuko suspects that a battle is underway for control of the Institute and the technology that allows the therapists to access dreams. And she is the main target.

Her fellow therapists Morio Osanai & Seijiro Inui want the technology for themselves, believing that mental health isn't something that can be solved with technology that hasn't even been fully tested. But for their ideals, they're willing to do anything, including torture and kill.

Helped by her former patients Tatsuo Noda and police chief Toshimi Konakawa, Chiba/Paprika moves through dreams and reality, battling Osanai and Inui and gigantic dolls, sometimes unable to distinguish waking from sleeping.

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Although Inui is the main "villain," I found myself agreeing with some of his arguments about using technology to treat mental illness and the rapid development of technology that can easily be used for evil. A sign of a good antagonist: He made me question which side I would take. Ultimately, though, Inui's fierce spiritual beliefs and jealousy of Atsuko drive him to use the devices in "evil" ways that show his hypocrisy.

Love and sex also had strange roles in this novel, as sex was the only way for Atsuko and the others to wake up. The portrayal of mental health as something that can be erased or eliminated just through Freudian-esque psychoanalysis also didn't sit quite right with me. Despite this, the novel has a fast-paced plot and fantastic surreal images and landscapes. It's just fun.

The ending is an eye-rollingly common trope (one that I won't mention here, as it would be a true spoiler), but it doesn't feel as cliche due to the book's subject matter. Of course, I think it would be stronger without it, if literally just the last 3 paragraphs were deleted.

There's a popular anime adaptation by the same name, but like all book supremacists, I tend to believe that the books are always better.

8/10 📕