The Dreamers

The Dreamers (2019), a science fiction novel by American author Karen Thompson Walker, follows a group of college students and families in the fictional town of Santa Lora, California, where a mysterious virus causes extended periods of sleep and intense dreams. The Dreamers was a New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice, as well as a best book of the year selection by Glamour, Real Simple, and Good Housekeeping.

After a night out with friends, Santa Lora College student Kara Sanders arrives back at the dorms, suddenly exhausted. The next day, she falls asleep, and no one can wake her. She continues to breathe but refuses to open her eyes or respond to anything in the world around her. Her roommate, Mei, feels helpless, which is only compounded when Kara eventually dies. Soon, others on the same dorm floor fall asleep and refuse to wake. The school puts the floor under quarantine. Catherine, a psychiatrist from Los Angeles, arrives to evaluate the afflicted students' mental health and notes that they all seem to be in the REM stage of sleep. Meanwhile, two students from the floor, Caleb and Rebecca, sneak out, attend a party, and sleep together; the next morning, Rebecca also does not wake.

Two young sisters from town, Sara and Libby, watch the alarming chain of events unfold. Their father, Thomas, works as a janitor at the college, and he must go in and clean Kara's room after she dies. Ultimately, the school closes down until they can figure out what's going on.



Rebecca, who doctors learn is in the early stages of pregnancy, remains asleep in the hospital, while back at the quarantined dorms, Mei meets another student, known as Weird Matthew, with whom she embarks on the first tentative stages of a new relationship—albeit under strange conditions.

As more and more college students fall asleep, Thomas pulls Sara and Libby out of school, scared they will also come down with the virus. Then, one of the virus-infected boys wakes up. Catherine tries to help him, but lost and confused after his ordeal, he commits suicide.

Ben, Annie, and their newborn daughter, Grace are a young family living in Santa Lora. Grace drinks donated breast milk after Annie stops producing it. The family learns that the donated milk may carry the virus, so Ben and Annie keep a close watch over Grace.



Back at the college, Mei and the others move into the gym, where the authorities lock them in. Caleb soon falls asleep too and goes to the hospital.

Outside of Santa Lora, a forest fire erupts. Sara and Libby cannot wake their father up, so the paramedics rush him to the hospital. Mei and Weird Matthew, along with the other gym-bound students, break out when they find out about the fire. Mei takes Weird Matthew to a house to hide.

In the meantime, Ben and Annie want to escape before the virus reaches their home—and their daughter. They try to flee, but the town has put up barricades. Authorities check their lists and see that Grace is one of those potentially exposed to the virus, so the family cannot leave.



The college biology professor, Nathaniel, looks on, heartbroken, as his husband, Henry contracts the virus. But before long, Nathaniel gets it as well. Around this same time, Annie falls asleep and Ben rushes her to the hospital.

They are just three more names on an ever-growing list. The hospital can no longer accommodate all the sleeping patients, so they erect tents around the main building. The National Guard comes to hand out essential supplies, but they're also there to keep the town's residents in place so the virus can't spread.

The patient count continues to rise as Sara and Libby, on their own, remain hidden in their home. The scene throughout town is nothing short of chaos, with outsiders trying to get through the barricades to see about loved ones and residents falling asleep left and right. One night, shortly after Grace contracts the virus, Sara and Libby find Ben sleepwalking through their house; he has also contracted it. The next day, Libby falls asleep. Mei and Matthew help her get to the hospital, where sleeping people are now spilling out from the building and tents, onto the lawn and into the college library. With the pressure reaching a fever pitch, Mei and Matthew get into a heated argument; the next morning, Mei won't wake.



Then, Thomas wakes up, only the second person to regain consciousness. He starts warning people about the college library catching fire, and, the next day, the library erupts into flames. A handful of the patients housed there wake up in time to escape but most perish—including Mei. The fire wakes Ben and Annie. Weird Matthew braves the flames to save Grace.

Three weeks pass, and Nathaniel and Libby wake. Rebecca sleeps through the remainder of her pregnancy, but she has her baby—also infected—via cesarean section. The virus starts to wane, claiming the lives of 10 percent of all those infected.

Lost without Henry, Nathaniel locates a doctor who can artificially create the virus. Nathaniel lets the doctor re-infect him so he can go to sleep with Henry.



Those who survive the Santa Lora Virus struggle to tell the difference between what it is real and what is a dream, what is past and what is future. In the end, the dreamers did indeed dream about the past, present, and future, but they also dreamed of their own alternate lives—lives they never lived.