Ashdown, a beautiful but bleak manor on the English coast, is the main setting of this story. Initially, a group of university students including Sarah Tudor, Gregory Dudden, Robert, and Terry reside at Ashdown. Some of these same students return there years later as either patients or staff when the building is converted into the Dudden Clinic where individuals with all sorts of sleep disorders are treated.
Sarah is a disturbed young woman suffering from narcolepsy. She is sometimes unable to differentiate her dreams from the experiences of real life. Robert is infatuated with her and will do literally anything to please her. Gregory is Sarah’s first lover, later a psychiatrist in charge of the sleep clinic, and finally a man gone mad who decides to self-experiment. Dr. Cleo Madison is a sleep psychologist whose true identity is a surprise. In this novel, reality appears more surrealistic than most dreams.
