What Dreams May Come

By: Richard Matheson

Narrated by: Robertson Dean

Length: 8 hrs and 32 mins

Publisher's summary

What happens to us after we die? Chris Nielsen had no idea, until an unexpected accident cut his life short, separating him from his beloved wife, Annie. Now Chris must discover the true nature of life after death.

But even Heaven is not complete without Annie, and the divided soul mates will do anything to reach each other across the boundaries between life and death. When tragedy threatens to divide them forever, Chris risks his very soul to save Annie from an eternity of despair.

©1978 Richard Matheson (P)2009 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

"One of the most important writers of the 20th century." (Ray Bradbury)
"Matheson is one of the great names in American terror fiction." ( Philadelphia Inquirer)

Life changing

Drawn initially by the Robbin Williams theatrical edition as a child, I embarked on this novel. The book at close drew together an incredible amount of synchronizing with the works of metaphysics. In the likeness of wayne dyer, deepak Chopra and Bruce Lee. Through this novel, the ever wondrous unknown has been found clearer. An inspired work wearing the mantle of visionary fiction. Masterful

Everyone should have a chance to hear this story.

Much more than an epic love story, Matheson's masterpiece is a distillation of the world's greatest wisdom traditions. I'll be purchasing the hard copy if only for the list of his sources but this audiobook was impeccably performed by Robertson Dean. Truly a precious jewel for anyone ready to receive it.

excellent!

I was always a big fan of the movie. I am happy to have experienced both now. They are different, but not entirely, and I enjoyed both thoroughly.

Some Christians may find offensive

It's an odd story told in an odd way. I feel compelled to note that it seemed to go out of it's way to talk about "the church" in a somewhat negative tone but not other religions. It seems to embrace Hindi, and Buddism, which is fine but there isn't much of a balanced approached in my view. All in all it was okay. Vivid depiction of the story as it's told. I only listened at bed time. I must say I had weird/interesting dreams that week.

Beautiful

So much better than the movie. I hung on every word. I stayed in my car longer to listen.

Fantastic!

One of my top favorite books of all time. I liked the movie but the book puts the movie to shame! I will be listening to this many times! Fantastic book!

This book has given me strengths i never knew!

I can walk away grom this experience feeling empowered and capable of facing my life journey. I am pleasantly surprised and honered that my adventure has brought me here. Such a profound and compelling read; I am forever changed.

A Love Story of Life and Love after mortal death

I don’t know when I first became aware of Matheson as an author and playwright, but it’s been many years now, and I’m still amazed at his body of work. And how many of his stories have been translated into notable movies. I loved Somewhere in Time, but this one is on my list of top 5 most romantic movies ever.
The book is amazing in itself; and much more intellectual in its explanations of death, life after death, energy, reincarnation, and many other challenging topics. It’s one of those books you end up reading many times to get most of what the author tries to communicate. I’m guessing this book hasn’t received more mainstream recognition because of the density of the story; and the thought and heart required to “get it”. Amazing.
Dean does a good job of narration.

Genuinely thought provoking

I love this book so much and there were moments that had me crying. I would definitely recommend it if you are open to consider an afterlife

Too Much Philosophy; Not Enough Story

If you scroll through the negative reviews of this book (as I did), you will see it mentioned a plethora of times that the thing that held the reader from thoroughly enjoying this book was how it focused on the philosophical message it wanted to get across rather than the actual story. I planned to listened to it on Audible, so I figured it wouldn't be as exhausting for me. The segments where philosophy was the focus would breeze by since I'm listening to it and not actually reading the words.

Boy, was I wrong.

The thing that irked me the most about this book was that the actual story (minus the philosophical rambling) was engaging, original and very romantic. *** Spoiler Alert*** Man dies in car crash. Goes to the heaven. Wife kills herself out of grieve of losing him. She goes to hell. He goes to hell to find her and decides being in hell with her is far better than being in heaven without her. ***End Spoiler***

The issue is as brilliant the writer was in concocting that premise, the way he droned on about philosophy and making us understand how heaven worked was tiring.

There's about 10 or so chapters CONTINUOUS where the plot isn't moved along much at all and we have to sit through one character telling another character how heaven worked. I read via Audible and one day I read for 3 hrs and the plot stayed stagnant while we were tought how the author's belief of heaven worked. I listened to the book and it became tasking, I can only imagine how it must've felt for those that traditionally read it.

This book to me would've been so much better as a short story where the author didn't feel it necessary to meet a page quota. But short stories don't sell as well as novels, so here we are.

I struggled mightily with whether to give it a 3 star rating or an abysmal 2 star rating. I decided begrudgingly on 3 stars because when the actual story was really great. At one point I felt myself tearing up. The philosophical ramblings and exposition weighed this book down tremendously.