In a small college town in Southern California, a first-year student falls asleep and never wakes up, leaving her roommate Mei, then paramedics, then perplexed doctors at the hospital at a loss. Then, Mei notices others falling asleep, and she and an eccentric classmate are thrust together in the midst of the panic taking hold of their college and town--then, doctors inform them that those afflicted by this mysterious illness show higher levels of brain activity than ever before recorded. They all of them are dreaming of something, and what they are dreaming may hold the key to the cure.