A surreal and intimate novel about a disillusioned artist who, plagued by mysterious visions, must navigate a series of personal and existential crises that upend their way of life, by the award-winning author of Brown Girls

“As heartfelt as it is audacious, Lucid Dreams poses profound questions about love, ambition, and selfhood, challenging us all to look beneath the surface of our own desires.”—Nadia Owusu, Whiting Award–winning author of Aftershocks: A Memoir

Fresh off the success of their first novel, a writer—intense, ambitious, and embittered by the purpose of art—struggles with feelings of despair. Despite achieving a long-held dream, they find themself doubtful and despondent in a post-pandemic world that feels violent and unstable.

Amidst this turmoil, and a looming deadline for their next book, the writer tries and fails to create. Instead, they begin to experience strange hallucinatory visions. Enigmatic letters and sketches appear, written in handwriting that isn’t their own, followed by sightings of a mysterious figure, which blur the line between the narrator’s fiction and lived reality.

These challenges—psychological, artistic, spiritual—and the secrets the writer harbors, alienate them from their loved ones, their art, and themself. Despite forays into learning a heritage language, Tagalog, traveling abroad, and changing their look, the visions persist—until one fateful event, which draws the writer and the mysterious figure together.

With her signature daring approach and evocative prose, Daphne Palasi Andreades explores immigration, modern womanhood, and the tension between art and commerce, in this wholly original novel. Lucid Dreams examines how we find purpose, the nature of change, and the courage it takes to be fully alive today.