THE LATHE OF HEAVEN by Ursula K. Le Guin

Finished Fr 12/22/17

A Science Fiction Classic- This is one of my ancient paperbacks that I bought at the West Branch on Sa 2/7/04, and finished a few days later. In May of 2008 I carried in my work bag to read on 'the dispatcher's desk'.

From the blurb at Amazon-

"A classic science fiction novel by Ursula K. Le Guin, one of the greatest writers of the genre, set in a future world where one man’s dreams control the fate of humanity.

In a future world racked by violence and environmental catastrophes, George Orr wakes up one day to discover that his dreams have the ability to alter reality. He seeks help from Dr. William Haber, a psychiatrist who immediately grasps the power George wields. Soon George must preserve reality itself as Dr. Haber becomes adept at manipulating George’s dreams for his own purposes.

The Lathe of Heaven is an eerily prescient novel from award-winning author Ursula K. Le Guin that masterfully addresses the dangers of power and humanity’s self-destructiveness, questioning the nature of reality itself. It is a classic of the science fiction genre."

Her writing style and subject matter is very close to PK Dick. THE LEFT HAND OF DARKNESS is one of her novels that I want to read again.

From wikipedia-

"Oneirology- is the scientific study of dreams. Current research seeks correlations between dreaming and current knowledge about the functions of the brain, as well as understanding of how the brain works during dreaming as pertains to memory formation and mental disorders. The study of oneirology can be distinguished from dream interpretation in that the aim is to quantitatively study the process of dreams instead of analyzing the meaning behind them."

George Orr- tries to stop dreaming

Dr. William Haber- tries to control George's dreams to shape the present and future.

The Augmentor- the machine (similar to a lie detector/EKG machine for the brain) that Dr. Haber builds to shape and control George's dreaming.

Heather LeLache- she's George's girlfriend/ legal rep/ wife. Her mother was white and her father was a Black Panther.

The Aldabaranians- The Aliens that George facilitates to stop humans from fighting each other.

The plot from wikipedia-

"The book is set in Portland, Oregon, in the year 2002. Portland has three million inhabitants and continuous rain. It is deprived enough for the poorer inhabitants to have kwashiorkor, or protein deprivation. The culture is much the same as the 1970s in the United States, though impoverished. There is also a massive war in the Middle East, with Egypt and Israel allied against Iran. Global warming has wrought havoc upon the quality of life everywhere.

George Orr, a draftsman, has long been abusing drugs to prevent himself from having "effective" dreams, which change reality. After having one of these dreams, the new reality is the only reality for everyone else, but George retains memory of the previous reality. Under threat of being placed in an asylum, Orr is forced to undergo "voluntary" psychiatric care for his drug abuse.

George begins attending therapy sessions with an ambitious psychiatrist and sleep researcher named William Haber. Orr claims that he has the power to dream "effectively" and Haber, gradually coming to believe it, seeks to use George's power to change the world. His experiments with a biofeedback/EEG machine, nicknamed the Augmentor, enhance Orr's abilities and produce a series of increasingly intolerable alternative worlds, based on an assortment of utopian (and dystopian) premises:

When Haber directs George to dream a world without racism, the skin of everyone on the planet becomes a uniform light gray.
An attempt to solve the problem of overpopulation proves disastrous when George dreams a devastating plague which wipes out much of humanity and gives the current world a population of one billion rather than seven billion.
George attempts to dream into existence "peace on Earth" – resulting in an alien invasion of the Moon which unites all the nations of Earth against the threat.
Each effective dream gives Haber more wealth and status, until he is effectively ruler of the world. Orr's economic status also improves, but he is unhappy with Haber's meddling and just wants to let things be. Increasingly frightened by Haber's lust for power and delusions of Godhood, Orr seeks out a lawyer named Heather Lelache to represent him against Haber. Heather is present at one therapeutic session, and comes to understand George's situation. He falls in love with Heather, and even marries her in one reality; however, he is unsuccessful in getting out of therapy.

George tells Heather that the "real world" had been destroyed in a nuclear war in April 1998. George dreamed it back into existence as he lay dying in the ruins. He doubts the reality of what now exists, hence his fear of Haber's efforts to improve it.


Portland and Mount Hood play a central role in the setting of the novel
Heather has seen one change of reality and has a multiple memory – remembering that her pilot husband either died early in the Middle East War or else died just before the truce that ended the war in the face of the alien threat. She tries to help George but also tries to improve the world, saying that the aliens should no longer be on the Moon. George dreams this, but the result is that they have invaded the Earth instead. In the resultant fighting, Mount Hood is bombed and the dormant volcano starts to erupt again.

They go back to Haber, who has George dream another dream in which the aliens are actually peaceful. For a time there is stability, but Haber goes on changing things. His suggestion that George dream away racism results in everyone becoming gray; Heather, whose parents were of different races, never existed in this new reality. George manages to dream up a gray version of her, married to him and with a less prickly personality. Mount Hood continues to erupt and he fears the world is losing coherence.

Orr has a conversation with one of the aliens, suddenly comes to understand his situation, and thereby gains the courage to stand up to Haber. Haber, frustrated with Orr's resistance, uses what he has learned from studying George's brain during his sessions of hypnosis and controlled dreaming, and decides to take on effective dreaming himself. Haber's first effective dream represents a significant break with the realities created by Orr, and threatens to destroy reality altogether. Orr is able to shut off the Augmentor – even as coherent existence is dissolving into undifferentiated chaos – reaching the "off" switch through pure force of will. The world is saved, but random bits of the various recent realities are now jumbled together. Haber's mind is left broken. Heather, presumably her original self, exists, though with only a slight memory of George."