Behind the Dream: The Story That Became Dreams Don’t Always End
Not every book begins with a plot or a plan. Some begin with something stranger. A moment. A feeling. Or, in my case, a dream.
Before Dreams Don’t Always End became a novella, it lived inside me as a recurring, surreal fragment—half-dream, half-memory, and oddly persistent. A Luton van. A motorway. A crash. The scene played out over and over again in my sleep, but it didn’t feel like just a dream. It felt like something I was supposed to pay attention to. Something trying to get through.
I didn’t write this book as a form of therapy. It wasn’t a conscious attempt to process trauma or turn pain into art. The writing came slowly, almost subconsciously, over years. At times, it felt guided—though I couldn’t tell you by what. A voice? A part of myself? A version of me from some parallel place? Whatever it was, it seemed to know the way when I didn’t.
The Dream That Stayed
The dream that inspired the book came to me decades ago, and it never quite let go. In it, I’m driving down the M4. There’s a Luton panel van, a sickly haze, and an unbearable sense that time is about to collapse. The moment of the crash isn’t graphic or loud. It’s slow, drawn out—like reality itself is unravelling.
Over the years, that dream resurfaced in different forms. Each time, it left behind a residue. I started to notice patterns in the world around me. Strange moments in the mirror. Familiar places that didn’t feel real. Time that bent or looped. It wasn’t a breakdown—it was more like a glitch in the narrative.
This recurring dream became the spine of Dreams Don’t Always End. But rather than write it out directly, I let it filter into the story like a quiet pulse—never fully explained, but always present.
Writing Without a Map
When people ask why I wrote this book, the honest answer is: I didn’t realise I was writing a book at all, at first. It was more like I was following a thread. Certain scenes came out of nowhere—a corridor that curved endlessly, a waiting room that didn’t belong to any known building, a note handed to me by someone who might be me but wasn’t.
These weren’t planned chapters. They were fragments that arrived unexpectedly. I’d scribble them down, forget about them, then return months later to find they fit together in ways I hadn’t intended.
There was no grand outline. Just an instinct to keep going. A feeling that the story already existed somewhere and I was simply uncovering it, slowly and quietly.
Life in the Background
While this story was taking shape creatively, my real life was going through quieter, more difficult changes. For a long time, I was caught in a pattern of binge drinking—nights that blurred into each other, a growing numbness that felt easier than facing what lay underneath. I wouldn’t say I was fully alcohol dependent, but I was on the edge. Too many nights I couldn’t remember. Too many mornings that started with regret.
It was a grey period—emotionally and mentally. Time lost its shape. I didn’t feel present in my own life.
Then something shifted. I met Karen. Her presence was calm, grounding, and unexpected. Through her, I met her children. Slowly, quietly, life began to feel real again. I can’t claim an overnight transformation, but that new sense of meaning crept into the writing. Not directly, but in tone. In the shift from detachment to quiet connection. In the difference between drifting through life and choosing to stay.
Photography, Memory, and Place
Alongside writing, photography became a way of looking more closely at the world—and myself. I’ve always been drawn to liminal spaces: old corridors, abandoned rooms, places that feel like they’re waiting for something to happen. They exist in a kind of stillness, between presence and absence.
Many of the book’s most surreal or symbolic settings are rooted in real places I’ve photographed. The waiting room, for example, came from a photo I took of a crumbling, sterile interior that once served as a hospital wing. The flat in the book—empty, tired, but somehow still full of story—was loosely based on a place I lived in for years and later renovated. Even the curved corridor that shows up more than once in the story is taken from somewhere I once walked through in real life, although I couldn’t tell you exactly where anymore.
Photography trained me to notice things. Writing helped me begin to understand what I was noticing.
The Book as a Threshold
When I finally realised I had a complete story—not just scattered pages or dream notes—I hesitated to call it a novel. It doesn’t follow a typical structure. It loops, reflects, jumps in time. It’s more like a threshold—a space between one version of reality and another. A narrative, yes, but also a meditation. A confrontation. A mirror.
The characters are echoes. The places are memories, refracted through a dream. The story is what happens when you try to follow yourself into a place you’re not sure you recognise.
I called it Dreams Don’t Always End because that’s how it felt. The dream that sparked it didn’t stop when I woke up. It stayed with me for years. It changed shape, whispered through scenes, anchored certain choices. And even now, with the book complete, I’m not convinced the dream is over.
Maybe it never will be.
Why I’m Telling You This
This is my first book. I’m not a full-time author or a literary figure. I’m just someone who had a story that wouldn’t leave them alone—and finally found a way to share it.
I’m writing this blog because I want to open the door a little wider. I believe stories like this matter—not polished ones, not perfect ones, but honest ones. Strange, quiet, unsettling ones. The kind that echo after the last page is turned.
If you’ve ever had a dream you couldn’t forget…
If you’ve ever felt like time bent around a moment…
If you’ve ever looked at yourself and wondered which version of you was real…
Then maybe you’ll find something in Dreams Don’t Always End worth holding onto.
Closing Thoughts
This book isn’t about closure—it’s about recognition. About meeting the parts of yourself that don’t always speak the loudest. About choosing not to turn away.
If you’d like to step into that world, you can find the book [insert your link here].
And if you’re interested in the process behind it—dreams, reflections, images, and moments—I’ll be sharing more of that here on the blog.
Thank you for reading.
—Paul M. Newbery