The psychological thriller, Beautiful Dreams, by Salman Alhamadi, is a brilliant and disturbing exploration of the human soul. The novel is not just a suspenseful novel; it is a remarkable study of the fine balance between passionate and fierce, and protective love, and what society tends to consider as madness. The book prompts readers to consider a challenging question: when pushed to the very extreme, where does one begin, and where does the other end? The book makes the readers think so due to the harrowing journey of its protagonist, Anna.
The main plot of the story is shaped by her overwhelming love for her son, Victor, without a doubt. She is living in the post-Soviet Russia of the 1990s, and her maternal love is not simply a feeling, but a survival instinct. Her main motivation for all her decisions is this, and she is striving to find him a better and safer life. This is her anchor, which leads to her love; however, this is also the source of her highest weakness as the plot progresses.
The catalyst that initiates the blurring of boundaries is Dmitri, the sadistic host of the children’s television show Beautiful Dreams. He is a kind of external power that skillfully controls Anna’s most personal feelings. He uses Anna’s love and desperation by offering her an opportunity through his show, Victor. His psychological games drive Anna into a certain state of extreme fear and paranoia so that her actions, which were motivated by the pure desire to save her son, become more and more strange and unpredictable to the external world.
Moreover, the trauma of her former life that Anna is still struggling with is the fact that her brother Misha disappeared and was not found. This history instills in her the terror that history could repeat itself with Victor. Her struggle against Dmitri is hence not only a struggle in the now but also a struggle against her past haunting ghosts. It is here, in this crucible of historical trauma and current threat, that her love begins to become an obsession that separates her, rendering both the characters in the book and the reader to wonder about her sanity.
To sum up, Beautiful Dreams is not an easy way out. Rather, it is an excellent demonstration of the fact that the lines between love and insanity are never set in stone but are perilously permeable. It is a powerful, thought-provoking study of the subject of a mother on trial, and her love is examined under all conceivable circumstances, leaving us wondering at the amazing, and sometimes terrifying, extremes that the human spirit can reach to protect the people they love.