PROJECTS
A story about lucid dreaming, consciousness, and awakening.
WHAT IS LUCID?
LUCID is a narrative built around a simple question: What if consciousness isn’t a byproduct of reality, but its source?At its core, LUCID is a novel, supported by an original soundtrack, that explores the space between dreaming and waking, between perception and truth. It follows a teenager whose dreams become so vivid, so precise, that it leads to affecting the world around him.This is not a story about escaping reality.
It’s about understanding it.As dreams grow sharper and awareness deepens, the boundaries we assume are fixed, mind and matter, self and system, begin to soften. Patterns repeat. Reality responds. And something unseen begins to take notice.LUCID is a coming-of-age story disguised as speculative fiction.
THE STORY
Cairo Herrera is seventeen years old and already feels out of place in his own life.He lives in Lincoln Park, Chicago, close enough to privilege to see it clearly, far enough from it to never fully belong. At school, he’s quiet, observant, and easy to overlook. At home, he carries the absence of his mother like a second spine, holding him upright even as it weighs him down.After her death, sleep becomes his refuge.In dreams, Cairo finds control where waking life offers none. He learns to recognize when he’s dreaming. Then to stay inside it. Then to shape it. Flying comes easily. Patterns emerge. The dream world begins to feel more coherent than the one he wakes up to.What starts as escape slowly becomes something else.Cairo notices things other people don’t, repetition where there should be randomness, attention where there should be indifference. Animals behave differently around him. Symbols from his dreams surface in places they shouldn’t exist. Reality feels less solid, less certain. And the more aware he becomes, the harder it is to pretend that the world around him is as stable as it appears.
THE SIGNAL
Something Is Responding.
At first, it doesn’t announce itself.
There is no voice. No message. No explanation.
There are only corrections.Moments that should continue suddenly stop. Events reset in subtle ways. The world behaves as if certain outcomes are unacceptable and must be adjusted before they spread. The more Cairo pushes against the boundaries of his own reality, the more resistance he encounters.Whatever is responding does not act with emotion or malice. It does not punish. It stabilizes. Its presence is felt only through behavior, not intention. A system designed to preserve order, even if the cost of that order is silence, confusion, or loss.Cairo does not know what it is.
He only knows that it reacts to him.
And that every step forward draws its attention more clearly into focus.
THE SOUNDTRACK
The story of LUCID is not told through words alone.Each chapter is paired with music that functions as an emotional and thematic extension of the narrative. These songs are not background ambience. They are signals, reflections, and pressure points that mirror Cairo’s internal state as the story progresses.Some tracks exist inside the world of the story.
Others operate alongside it, shaping tone, pacing, and meaning.The soundtrack moves with the arc of the narrative. Early tracks reflect disorientation, grief, and detachment. As awareness expands, the music grows heavier, more urgent, and more confrontational. By the final chapters, it becomes collective, expansive, and irreversible.Several songs are original compositions created specifically for LUCID. Others are carefully selected pieces that align with specific moments of realization, collapse, and transformation.The result is a story that can be read, heard, and felt in parallel.
THE QUESTION
Consciousness is the one thing you never observe from the outside.Every thought, sensation, and memory you have is filtered through it, yet it remains impossible to locate, measure, or fully explain. Science can describe behavior and brain activity, but it cannot account for experience itself. The feeling of being you.LUCID is built around that gap.If subjective experience cannot be reduced to physical processes, what does that imply about the nature of reality?Is consciousness produced by the world, or is the world produced by consciousness?If two people can occupy the same moment and experience entirely different realities, which one is real?And if awareness can change without the world visibly changing, where does causality actually begin?These are not questions the story resolves cleanly.
They are questions it refuses to look away from.
STATUS & ACCESS
LUCID is an active, expanding project.The novel is currently in development, with chapters, music, and visual elements being built in parallel rather than in isolation. The story is designed to unfold deliberately, with each layer informing the next.The soundtrack is being composed alongside the narrative, allowing music to evolve with the story rather than being added after the fact. Certain pieces are already complete. Others are still forming, shaped by where the story leads rather than where it began.If you want to follow its progression, you can follow LUCID on social media and:Read excerpts as they are released.
Listen to music connected to the story.
Track the project as it evolves across formats.
SOCIAL MEDIA