Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of child abuse and domestic violence.

Many of the characters, including the protagonist, are dream-givers. These imaginary entities’ entire purpose is to give humans good dreams because they believe “people could not exist without dreams” (98). This belief affirms the significance of Littlest One’s work and the hope and healing that she and her fellow dream-givers offer to humans. In the novel, dreams are inextricably tied to memory because memories are the raw material dream-givers use to construct dreams. Thus, dream-givers gather pieces of the past to provide comfort in the present and inspiration for the future. For example, Thin Elderly uses a memory from the elderly woman’s childhood to help her recover from the exhaustion of tending to John overnight: “I’m going to bestow a wonderful, restorative dream on her [...]. There was snow outside, and a new doll under the tree, and it was one of the happiest mornings of her life” (80). In addition to helping the woman mend from her weariness, the Christmas memory encourages her to see John as part of her family. Lowry establishes that happy memories of the past are a resource on which people can draw in the present to feel restored.