As a psychological thriller, Do Not Disturb emphasizes the thoughts and feelings of the characters, focusing more on their psyches than the events of the story. While the present narrative only covers a few days, McFadden uses a shifting first-person perspective to explore the histories of her characters. In particular, Quinn, Claudia, and Rosalie experience extreme trauma and/or abuse, then struggle throughout the text to grapple with its ongoing impact on their lives.

One way that the lasting effects of trauma appears is through the motif of dreams. Both Claudia and Quinn experience nightmares after Derek’s death, conveying how their psyches continue to struggle with it. For Claudia, she dreams of Quinn, repeatedly waking up after remembering their childhood. While this initially seems as though she is worried about her, the reality is that she is suffering from the loss of the man she loves and is haunted by the woman who killed him. For Quinn, she repeatedly dreams of her different dates with Derek, each time waking up when he begins to bleed from his chest. These moments convey the complexity of the abuse she suffers. Even after she kills him, he still haunts her, while she struggles with the guilt of what she did—even though it was in self-defense.