A traveller comes to Japan and is immediately absorbed into a complex and unnerving interplay of reality, representation, substitution, the virtual, the artificial, the counterfeit and the unreal.

In form, Japan Dreams is loosely modelled on Pillow Book written by Sei Shonagon and As I crossed a bridge of dreams written by Lady Sarashina, both c. 1000 AD; generally short sections alternate between narrative, meditation, exploration of ideas, discourse on various subjects, reports of dreams, lists, and self-examination. What starts as straightforward documentary metamorphoses into almost surreal introspection. Fact and fiction become harder to separate as the story unfolds, and the reader is left examining the very same question examined by the narrator: is this real?