Richard Sparke has no trouble sleeping. It's what he does after he falls asleep that gets him into trouble. There's the nightmares, his dead mother coming to visit, and then the return of his daughter, who was only an infant when she died. Among all of this, the man in black tries to murder him in his sleep. Soon the waking world falls prey to nightmares, and the two worlds become very difficult to tell apart for a man who simply wants to live an ordinary life . . . if anyone will let him.