Review: Five Souls in a Dream by Elias Aractingi

An old man has a dream, meeting beautiful souls who impart lessons about life in Five Souls in a Dream, an original work of fantasy by author Elias Aractingi, with illustrations by Christiane Walegren.

Sam describes himself as a simple guy who has been mysteriously endowed with the mental capacity to convey this lengthy mystical dream. Each dream segment begins as he is lost on a deserted pathway. In the first segment he is a young boy greeted by the gliding figure of Mentora, who kindly guides him and educates him, nourishing him physically and mentally. One day he asks why the two are always alone. She says, “You grew up,” and introduces him new people. Sam, now a man, becomes Mentora’s lover. But learning from others creates dissatisfaction. Mentora indicates he must leave her to fulfill new aspects of himself, though she will always be with him.

Sam then goes on to meet a kind of “Ghosts of Christmas Past” in the form of women who represent different types of relationships. With Familia, he experiences the delights of family life and fathers two children, until the differences between Sam and Familia begin to wear down the relationship. With Partnera, he starts a dynamic business. On the pathway again, he meets Safety, who will never leave him, she vows, and that comforts him for a time. But when such loyalty begins to cloy, he returns to his lonely place and finds Dream, who promises that he will “meet who you need to meet,” and he finally wakes up.

This visionary novel is a finely honed exploration of male-female relationships, in which most readers will see themselves in some part, which is a testament to the quality of Aractingi’s prose. On first glance, the novel may seem to be a purely esoteric exploration of life’s challenges, but the book is surprisingly down to earth, and so it has more universal appeal. Some of the names of the dream characters are a little hokey and on-the-nose, but the lessons Sam learns on his path are always recognizable.

The author, an international banker who has written a self-help book previously, is now concentrating his efforts on the ups and downs of relationships, and he cleverly uses fantasy settings here in a way that no self-help manual could. He allows his “everyman” Sam to have been mystically imbued with the ability to write about his dream, a neat device by which the reader can continue to think of Sam as an ordinary guy when he returns to his regular life at the end of the story. Aractingi has an extensive vocabulary and a comfort zone with slang and buzzwords, as well as with classic literature, which elevates and informs his storyline. For example, he rather amusingly uses the Robert Frost poem “Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening” as a metaphor for what is happening to Sam.

Accompanied by etheric watercolor drawings at the beginning of each chapter, the novel is a multi-layered experience for the reader. The well-conceived combination of prose and pictures, dream-like sequences and realistic relationships, is both enjoyable and educational, working both as a work of self-help and a work of fiction.