Man wakes as asylum inmate, then wakes in normal life, then back

[KungFuNav]

Hi,

Read this book at school and lent it to a girl I barely knew, and she never gave it back! I would love to read it again if I could only figure out who wrote it...

From what I remember the guy is an artist, and meets a girl in a gallery, things are going well when he wakes in a lunatic asylum, turns out his other life is a fabrication. He's just coming to terms with the fact that he might be mad when he wakes again outside of the asylum living a normal life. He has to come to terms with the fact that the asylum may have been a dream, though obviously now worries he's mad.

I think years pass, and he continues to see this girl. He's just forgotten about the asylum when obviously, bam, he's awake in the asylum. He's a little frantic by now and from memory I think the girl is somehow in his asylum delusion and he's trying to convince her that he isn't mad. She reacts strangely or something, giving him a clue as to what's going on.

**Spoiler alert**

I remember the ending being something to do with the girl's evil father, who has some kind of control over dreams, the father has decided the guy shouldn't be part of the girl's life so has manipulated his dreams to make him think he's mad, and is doing the same to his daughter. There is a showdown of sorts where the guy manages somehow to figure this out and helps the daughter fight back, using her own powers over dreams against her father.

It was a weird book, but I remember at the time how much I recommended it to this girl at school, so I must have been passionate about it!

Thank you if anybody recognises it and lets me know!

Nav

 

[tinkerdan]

This is almost but not quite like the Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K Guin


http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00JTZ95I0/?tag=brite-21

Spoiler

In the Lathe his dreams become reality and the therapist is using him to manipulate reality.

If you haven't read the Lathe of Heaven you should.
FYI
[]< spoiler in these brackets at beginning and /spoiler >[] in brackets at the end

Spoiler

I just discovered this myself just now

 

[KungFuNav]

Hi, thanks for the quick reply,

Hmm... I actually have that book but never got round to reading it (I liked her Earthsea trilogy). I might dust it off!

 

[tinkerdan]

Kurt Vonnegut has some strange stuff in his Slaughterhouse Five.[but Billy Pilgrim is unstuck in time]

Philip K. Dick could easily have written this.

Alfred Bester had one short called Disappearing Act but I think that was patients traveling through time.

Haruki Murakami has some stuff like this the one I read posited two different realities and people that could travel between them.

L.P. Davies wrote a few mind bending thrillers.

 

[KungFuNav]

I'm pretty sure the first four are not the authors, but L.P. Davies actually sounds familiar... I've had a quick look through his list of books and you're right, he does seem to be a contender for the story I mentioned, but I don't recognise the titles. I'll have to spend some time finding descriptions of his books and let you know.

Thanks again for the suggestions!

 

[KungFuNav]

Just noticed I wrote 'leant it to a girl' instead of 'lent it to a girl' in my first post... I can't edit it dammit! This is going to really bother me.

 

[tinkerdan]

No sweat maybe an admin will help.

There are some people here who do get upset[reads righteous]about that type of thing[I won't name names].

There are usually 15 min at least before the comment closes to editing.[There may be more than that but probably not more than an hour.]
I try to post and reread immediately to eliminate those kind of problems. But I also hire editors to edit my professional work because I can read over the same error every time.

I'm not sure any of those 'mentions' will give you the answer to your query, but if I think of more I'll leave them.

I think there are several worthwhile objectives to closing posts after a period of time and if you look around and read the stickies you might get a notion about what those are. Also consider that most anything you leave here after it is locked is stuck here unless the admin has a good reason to remove it[a good thing to keep in mind before you leave a post.]

Oh and welcome to Chronicles; there are a lot more things to Chronicles than this search post so enjoy.

 

[The Judge]

I can't help you with the book, but I can prevent your blood-pressure rising further -- I've amended "leant" to "lent" in your opening post. Not something we'd usually do, but it's sunny here at the moment, and I'm spreading sunshine around...

I hope you find the book you're looking for. I also hope you have a good look around the site and perhaps join in with threads about books in General Book Discussions and elsewhere. (And for future reference, you do have an hour to make edits to a post. But don't worry about the odd typo; we all make them. And even with my god-like moddy powers I don't always bother correcting my own, and certainly not anyone else's!)

 

[chrispenycate]

A

Just noticed I wrote 'leant it to a girl' instead of 'lent it to a girl' in my first post... I can't edit it dammit! This is going to really bother me.

Ah. Another with the proper pedantic reflexes. There, edited.

Just unfortunate that I have no idea what the book is, I'm afraid. Lots of stories set in insane asylums - do you think it says something about SF writers?

 

[tinkerdan]

Always write what you know...

A

Ah. Another with the proper pedantic reflexes. There, edited.

Just unfortunate that I have no idea what the book is, I'm afraid. Lots of stories set in insane asylums - do you think it says something about SF writers?