The Censorship of Dreams

by Nora Sørena Casey

The world has been Restarted, and no one knows why. One day, people just woke up without their memories. They found themselves sharing houses with strangers—people who must have been their husbands and wives, parents and children, but they weren’t sure. All they knew was what the officials told them: the Restart was for the best, and that they would make new memories soon enough.

The Man and the Woman are one...

The world has been Restarted, and no one knows why. One day, people just woke up without their memories. They found themselves sharing houses with strangers—people who must have been their husbands and wives, parents and children, but they weren’t sure. All they knew was what the officials told them: the Restart was for the best, and that they would make new memories soon enough.

The Man and the Woman are one such couple. She’d like to think their marriage was a happy one, but he’s not convinced. He’s having trouble adjusting, refuses to sign up for a job, and he won’t let either of them sell their dreams. The officials will give good money to anyone who has their dreams extracted, but the Man believes that they are the only record of what society was like before the Restart.

As the Woman gets more invested in her new job cataloguing dreams for the officials, the Man teams up with a group of rebels, trying to rediscover lost words that might give him access to the past. His actions place them both under suspicion. No one knows what the officials would do to them, but it can’t be good… right?

The Censorship of Dreams is a story of love and ambition in a surveillance state, exploring the relationships between technology and poetry, individualist resistance and societal responsibility.

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The Censorship of Dreams

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  • Playwrights Foundation: The Censorship of Dreams

    The community of National Committee readers for the 46th Bay Area Playwrights Festival advanced THE CENSORSHIP OF DREAMS as a Semi-Finalist at Playwrights Foundation. We highly enjoyed the world-building in this narrative where the world has been "Restarted". This play raises great questions about the desire to be a unique individual in a highly controlled society. We were engaged by the way language is used to communicate what memories of the prior world the characters have lost. We hope this play is considered for further development and investigation, and finds dedicated collaborators in...

    The community of National Committee readers for the 46th Bay Area Playwrights Festival advanced THE CENSORSHIP OF DREAMS as a Semi-Finalist at Playwrights Foundation. We highly enjoyed the world-building in this narrative where the world has been "Restarted". This play raises great questions about the desire to be a unique individual in a highly controlled society. We were engaged by the way language is used to communicate what memories of the prior world the characters have lost. We hope this play is considered for further development and investigation, and finds dedicated collaborators in this play’s journey towards production. #BAPF46