I hardly ever remember my dreams, and when I do, it’s never much more than a simple image or an impression of some weird random moment. Endless questions follow. Where did the rest of the dream go, if it ever was? Where do I go? What does it mean that I never dream vividly? And of course, what could our dreams possibly mean? If I, like Orr, dreamt effectively, would reality become a haze of confusion and unfinished sentences?
George is like the jellyfish we see in the beginning, completely at the will of the forces of the sea. His dreams are out of control, his psychiatrist is using his power, and he is too weak to do anything. He is beached on unfamiliar realities and weighed down by memories of past lives. The same voice that tells him to leave the world alone, that we lack the will, the vision, the goodness of god, keeps him enslaved to a man who is himself a slave to power and his utopian ideals. As George continues to dream, the world becomes increasingly unfamiliar, and he loses all connection.
The book is at times like a dream itself, and its message as confusing. I’m writing this with more questions in my head than answers. We too live in a world that is constantly changing, both because of and in spite of our actions. George becomes a ghost in his world because he allows himself to be smashed repeatedly against the rocks by the waves of change. We will too if we allow ourselves to become alienated and isolated by rejecting change. It is connection in the end that allows George his escape. The stable voice, at times the memory, of Heather gives George the strength to confront dream and reality. The aliens too, who recognize him and his gift. Connection, perhaps love, is the most stable thing we have.
The Lathe of Heaven is a beautiful and thought-provoking book. It offers few answers to its many questions of power, change, dream and reality. Wonderfully written, a pleasure to read, could it be anyone but Le Guin?