Can you tell us a little about yourself? Are you a full-time author?
I’m Theresa Cheung a leading dream decoder and personal and spiritual growth author, and now, fiction writer. I’ve spent most of my career studying the mysterious bridge between the seen and unseen worlds writing bestselling non fiction books about dreams, the afterlife, and intuition. My fascination has always been with what happens when science, psychology, and spirituality collide.
And yes, I’m a full-time author and have been for decades but Nightborn marks a thrilling new chapter for me. It’s the first time I’ve used story and suspense to share the deeper truths I’ve spent my life researching.
Can you tell us about your new paranormal thriller, Nightborn?
Nightborn is a psychological and spiritual thriller designed to mess with your mind in the best possible way. It’s a page-turner that pulls you deep into the mystery of dreams, reality, and what it truly means to wake up.
Readers have said the book feels like being inside a lucid dream — disorienting, beautiful, and utterly addictive. The story weaves thriller pacing with dream decoding secrets, so by the end, you don’t just finish the book… you experience it. Many readers have told me the cover alone, or even reading a few pages, triggered vivid dreams and memories. That makes me smile because that’s exactly what I hoped it would do.
Can you tell us a little about the characters?
At the heart of Nightborn is Dr Alice Sinclair a psychological professor who specialises in Jungian dream analysis. She’s intelligent, skeptical, and deeply human trying to use science and psychology to explain away the unexplainable until she wakes up one day to find people are dreaming about her — and not just people who know her people who don’t know her. This prompts her to investigate what is going on and she soon discovers that the truth is far more personal and terrifying than she ever imagined.
Surrounding her are characters who each represent aspects of our inner world rationality, intuition, fear, faith. Together, they form a mirror for the reader’s own subconscious. You might think you’re reading about them, but by the end, you realise you’ve been decoding yourself.
Where is this book set and why did you choose that location?
The story unfolds between the expansiveness of Florida USA and the shadowy cramped streets of London’s Covent Garden. I chose London because it’s such a potent blend of ancient and modern energy a city built on layers of history, secrets, and dreams. I chose Florida because of its beautiful beaches — the liminal place between land and water, known and unknown and where dreams and waking life can blend — and because it is the home of Disney’s ‘land of dreams.’
How can people benefit from reading Nightborn?
Beyond being a gripping read, Nightborn is designed to awaken your own dreaming mind. It’s a crash course in dream decoding but one you take with your eyes wide open.
Readers often tell me they start remembering their dreams again after reading it, or that the story sparks insights about their subconscious fears and desires. Not everyone is drawn to non fiction. I believe stories can heal, and Nightborn is my attempt to make that healing both thrilling and accessible.
If you’ve ever wondered why you dream, or if your dreams mean something more, Nightborn is my answer wrapped up in a pulse-racing mystery.
Is Nightborn your only book?
Not at all! I’ve been writing about dreams, spirituality, and intuition for over two decades. My non-fiction titles including The Dream Dictionary from A to Z and The Element Encyclopedia of Birthdays have been international bestsellers and my Angel titles have been Sunday Times bestselling. But Nightborn is my first step into fiction, and it’s been incredibly rewarding to translate everything I know about the unseen world into story form.
It’s not replacing my dream and spiritual writing it’s expanding it. I see Nightborn as the start of a new way to reach readers: through imagination, emotion, and the magic of narrative.
Thank you so much for this interview, Theresa. What’s next for you?
Thank you! I’m currently working on another novel but also have many non fiction titles in the pipeline. There’s so much more to explore about dreams, consciousness, and what happens when we truly wake up.
I’m also continuing my TV appearances dream decoding on ITV: This Morning here in the UK and my White Shores podcast and weekly UK Health radio show: The Healing Power of Your dreams which dives deep into dream research and spiritual science with fascinating guests. My mission remains the same: to make the invisible visible and to remind people that their dreams, both night and day, are always trying to tell them something extraordinary.
Title: NightBorn
Author: Theresa Cheung
Publisher: Collective Ink
Publication Date: October 7,
2025
Pages: 220
Genre: Paranormal Thriller
Formats: Paperback, Kindle
What if the line between your waking life and your darkest
dreams disappeared forever?
Alice Sinclair, a driven psychology professor, is about to find
out. When thousands of people begin experiencing terrifying, vivid nightmares
... all centered around her, Alice’s quiet academic life is shattered. Haunted
by the question of why she’s become the subject of these shared dreams, Alice
embarks on a desperate search for answers, uncovering a chilling secret:
someone - or something - hungry for global power has discovered a way to
manipulate consciousness itself. The world is fast becoming a playground for
those in control of the dreaming mind.
In a heart-stopping race against time, Alice must navigate a treacherous
web of deception, where nothing - and no one - can be trusted, not even
herself.
Read a sample.
NightBorn is available at Amazon US
and Amazon UK.
BOOK EXCERPT
Florida,
USA—Sometime soon
Alice saw the
wave. It was a beast.
It rose slowly
at first, the way a predator prepares to strike—silent, inevitable. It quickly
gained speed, swelling into a towering monster, a force of nature, as if the
ocean itself had decided to swallow her whole. The wave surged, easily 30 feet
high, dark and roaring with a ferocity she could feel in her bones. It moved
toward her with the relentlessness of fate.
She turned,
panic seizing her as she raced up the beach, her bare feet slipping in the wet
sand. The ocean was closing in—the world was closing in on her. Her breath came
in jagged gasps, but the wave, too quick, slammed into her, yanking her under.
Her body
twisted through the water, eyes stinging, lungs burning, desperate for air,
clawing at the debris swirling around her—plastic, broken wood, seaweed, dead
fish—but there was no solid ground to cling to. The current pulled her deeper,
its
grip tightening
like cold fingers around her throat.
She gasped for
air, choking on the water, the world a dark, crushing void. She couldn’t see.
Every nerve in her body screamed for release, but the ocean kept pulling,
tumbling her in every direction, turning her body like a puppet with broken
strings. She was drowning. No—she was going to die.
Something in
her snapped.
Her feet hit
something solid. Hard. Stone? She couldn’t tell.
All she knew
was that she had to rise. She shoved upward, throwing her weight toward the
surface with every ounce of strength she had left. Her body screamed, but she
pushed
harder, until
her head broke through to air. For one split second, she inhaled—but the water
dragged her down again, relentless, hungry for her life. She fought the
instinct to panic.
She couldn’t
let it win. Not today.
Just breathe.
Just breathe, Alice. Instinctively she let herself float, stilling her body,
letting the sea carry her, accepting the weight of the water around her. She
couldn’t fight it anymore—but maybe she didn’t have to.
Her feet found
solid ground again. She shoved upward, defiant, gasping as she broke through.
Sunlight blinded her.
Alice jerked
awake, the sharp taste of salt lingering on her tongue, her body tangled in the
sheets. The echo of the wave still thundered in her ears. The sunlight slanted
through the bedroom window, blinding. Her pulse thrummed in her neck as if the
sea still had its grip on her.
“You’re okay.
You’re okay. It was a dream. Just a nightmare.”
What if it
wasn’t just a nightmare?
Swinging her
legs over the edge of the bed, Alice’s feet hit the cold floor. Had Swiss
psychiatrist and dream analysis pioneer, Carl Jung ever felt this unsettled
after one of his dreams? Had his own night visions ever made him question his
grasp on reality?
Her eyes
flickered to the bedside table and her Red Book: the dream journal she’d named
after Jung’s own. Ever since she was young, she’d written down her dreams. But
this one felt radically different from the rest.
It was too
real, though it clearly wasn’t literal. She lived more than an hour from the
nearest beach and had never been to it. Was the dream a symbolic glimpse into
her own future? A warning? Or something darker, deeper?
It was just a
dream. Maybe it was just all the energy she’d poured into teaching Jungian
dream analysis spilling out cathartically in a nightmare.
The feeling of
drowning clung to her.
She grabbed her
journal and scribbled out every detail of the dream. The ocean. The wave. The
suffocating terror. Jung had called the act of recording dreams an act of
self-analysis—so why did this one feel more like a clear and present danger
than an analysis? Was it the forbidden mystery Jung had hinted at in his Red
Book—that thin line between genius and insanity where revelation could be
found?
Was her
obsession with dreams driving her mad?
It was her
calling, her passion. Perhaps, as director of the new program in Jungian
Studies at the University of Central Florida, she could teach her students what
she had dreamt and encourage them to analyze it; maybe it would be cathartic
for
them and for
her.
What if her
students were the key to unlocking the deeper meanings of her own dream? She
could see herself standing before the class, scrawling on the blackboard, her
voice filled with energy as she taught them about using their dreams to peer
into possible futures, even to shape reality. Inception—she would reference
that for sure, the perfect movie fix to illustrate how the subconscious could
manipulate perception and even reality.
What better way
to introduce her students to the power of their own dreaming minds?
Alice pushed
herself out of bed as the sinking feeling of the dream still clung tight.
Blinking rapidly in front of her bedroom mirror, she forced herself to take
deep breaths. Her long dark hair framing the mismatched eyes staring right back
at her: one
blue, one
brown. She had always hated this difference. Always hidden it behind a pair of
blue lenses.
A perfect
illusion of normalcy, her blue lenses. They always worked—ever since she was
14, when her mother had taken her to the ophthalmologist to prevent the cruel
teasing at school.
Alice slipped
them on, as though the simple act could shield her from her nightmare.
The rhythm of
her repeated blinking to help the lenses settle helped bring a semblance of
calm.
Something was
coming, though; she could feel it. Something was drawing her, pulling her into
the unknown. Could she rise above and survive it?
Alice dressed
the part for her day ahead and stepped out into the bright light of the day.
Was the
drowning nightmare a message? A warning? And if so, a warning about what?
– Excerpted from NightBorn by Theresa
Cheung, Collective Ink, 2025. Reprinted with permission.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Theresa is regularly featured in national
newspapers and magazines, and she is a frequent radio, podcast and television
guest and ITV: This Morning's regular dream decoding expert. She hosts her own
popular spiritual podcast called White Shores and weekly live UK
Health Radio Show: The Healing Power of Your Dreams.
Her latest book is the paranormal thriller,
NightBorn, available at Amazon US
and Amazon UK.
You can visit her website at www.theresacheung.com or connect with her on X, Facebook, Instagram
or Goodreads.
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