King and the Dragonflies

Dreaming is a recurring element throughout the novel. Dreams serve as both a medium for Khalid to share secrets of the universe with King and as a doorway to the spirit world. Several chapters start with King recalling times when Khalid talked in his sleep while dreaming and shared his insights. For example, at the beginning of Chapter 9, Khalid is asleep and dreaming when he tells King, “We’re all one soul. The stars are in us” (115). King knows Khalid is dreaming when he says these things because his “eyes flutter beneath his eyelids” (115). In addition, after his death, Khalid visits King in his dreams several times. When this first happens, King is unsure what to make of it: “He’ll come to me in my sleep sometimes. [...] But I never know if it’s really him, or if I’m just dreaming of him” (162). However, a little later in the story, he seems more certain about the visit: “I dreamed of Khalid again. This time, I know I wasn’t just dreaming about him. I know he came to visit me. I know this, because I saw him standing across the street, watching me, and then he walked up to me and took my hand, and next thing I knew, we were walking on the bottom of the seafloor [...]” (175). At the end of the novel, Khalid visits King again in a dream, and the visit symbolizes King’s newfound mature attitude about the world: “I sleep, and I dream. Khalid is walking beside me. He points up with his smile. I look, and wow—I mean, wow, that sky. It has all the colors of the world” (248).

King’s Auntie Idris provides adult credibility to the idea that the souls of the dead visit people in their dreams when she tells King about visits from her deceased father: “Yes, yes, yes. My father, he comes to visit me in my dreams when he can. Most times he doesn’t say a word. Just watches me with a smile. Other times, he’ll talk to me all night. Some of the things I can’t remember. It’ll be about memories, too” (228).