Safe-X is legally obligated to accommodate the religious needs of retainees, which it does by giving them access to a windowless storage room and an old-generation NuSpirit. It sits on a desk pushed against the wall, waiting to beam sermons in any faith or language that matches the face and file on record. It’s a temperamental device, though, and today it emits no sound, no matter how often Sara presents her face to it.
She wasn’t a prayerful person, in her life before, but as her detention dragged from days to months, she began to hunger for the numinous. In a place where everything she does is quantified and fed to an algorithm, where else could she find solace but in the words that are now bursting forth from her mouth in whispers? After the Fātiha, she recites Surat al-Falaq, and then al- Ikhlas, her enunciation slow and clear. Always, she fixes her mind on the language, its rhythmic syllables brimming with poetry and mystery.
And oneiromancy, too, she thinks. After all, Abraham had a vision that God commanded him to sacrifice his firstborn son; he might have done it, too, had the angel not appeared with a ram. Joseph dreamed that the sun, the moon, and eleven stars bowed down to him; years later, his father, mother, and brothers were on their knees in Pharaoh’s court. Muhammad saw himself enter Mecca as a pilgrim, predicting his own triumphant return from the hegira. Entire belief systems drew moral instruction from these dreams, using them to teach the believers about the nature of faith or the promise of redemption.
Time and again, dreams have changed the world.
So who is she to say that her dreams have no meaning? If her dreams about Elias raised concerns with the RAA, then perhaps she ought to look for the reason within herself, and stop blaming the algorithm for her own impulses. She must admit—to herself, at least, since she would never admit it to others—that she’s resented Elias in the past, for his impatience to start a family, his freedom from the burden of carrying twins, and even his talent at taking care of them. “You’re such a good dad,” his mother would say every time she visited, every single time, the unspoken part loud enough for Sara to hear.
Part of the reason Sara got herself a Dreamsaver was to be a better mother, to keep up with Elias. So yes, she resents him. And in the world of dreams, where her soul roams free, she must have done something terrible.
But surely, a voice inside her says, premonition has value only because it is so rare. Every night people dream multiple dreams, most of which have no meaning. They’re little more than electrical activity in the brain, evidence that the sleeping self is alive, and at play. How many dreams did Joseph have apart from the one that predicted his rise to power in Egypt? Imagine if the sages had built religions around those, too. She can’t resist a smile at this thought, and her eyes fling open. The cameras whir to adjust to her movement, and she quickly composes herself.
(Excerpted with permission from The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami, published by Bloomsbury; 2025)
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