The Dream Master

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The Dream Master (1966) is a science fiction novel by American writer Roger Zelazny, based on the novella He Who Shapes. Zelazny's original title was The Ides of Octember. He Who Shapes won the 1965 Nebula Award for Best Novella (which it shared with The Saliva Tree by Brian W. Aldiss in a tie). In the future, overpopulation and technological advances have created a world where humanity suffocates psychologically beneath its own mass while abiding in relative physical comfort. This is a world ripe for psychotherapeutic innovations, such as the "neuroparticipant therapy" in which the protagonist, Charles Render, is considered foremost in the field. Patients connect to a virtual reality-style simulation controlled directly by the analyst's mind; the analyst then works with the patient to construct dreams, nightmares which afford insight into the underlying neuroses of the patient, and in some cases the possibility of direct intervention. As an example, one man mentally immersed in a fantasy world sees it destroyed at Render's hands, and is thus cured of his obsession with it. Render takes on a patient with an unusual problem. Eileen Shallot aspires to become a neuroparticipant therapist herself, but is hampered by congenital blindness. She would be unable to convincingly construct visual dreams for them; indeed, in a case of eye-envy, her own neurotic desire to see through the eyes of her patients might prevent her from treating them effectively.