Tell Me Your Dreams

Tell Me Your Dreams is a 1998 murder mystery novel by American author Sidney Sheldon. It concerns three women, one of whom comes home to see “YOU WILL DIE” written in lipstick on a mirror. In its somewhat mixed review of Tell Me Your Dreams, Kirkus Reviews calls Sheldon “the poster boy for schlock.” Sheldon, who also wrote screenplays for films like Anything Goes and Annie Get Your Gun, penned 18 novels that have sold over 300 million copies.

Before getting into the murderous elements, Tell Me Your Dreams introduces its three main characters. First, there’s Ashley Patterson. Ashley is an introverted workaholic who focuses her energies on her career at a Silicon Valley tech firm. There’s also her coworker, Toni Prescott, a much more extroverted woman who moonlights as a singer and dancer. Finally, there’s a third coworker, Alette Peters, an artist whose introversion manifests more as shyness and less as ambition, like Ashley’s.

All three are motivated by memories of their mothers telling them they aren’t worth very much and that they wouldn’t make much of themselves as adults. Nevertheless, their varied personalities mean they rarely agree with one another. Though there is much clashing, the three also tend to balance each other out.



When the plot kicks into gear, Ashley begins to worry that somebody is stalking her. Her worries are confirmed when she comes home one day to find her house has been broken into, and her possessions strewn across the floor. Most alarmingly, there is a message written in lipstick on one of her mirrors that reads, “YOU WILL DIE.” Coming home to such a message is alarming enough, but Ashley is made even more afraid by two recent murders in the area, which were likely committed by the same person. Ashley and the police believe a woman is responsible because the victims were both men who were having sex shortly before they were killed, and both victims were castrated.

Because of the message, a police officer is assigned to watch over Ashley. This policeman is found dead in her home just a day after she finds the “YOU WILL DIE” message. When the police investigate this most recent murder at Ashley’s house, they find a gift to one of the murdered men from Toni Prescott. Toni is arrested. So is Ashley. And so is Alette. That’s because Ashley, Toni, and Alette are all the same person: they are all separate personalities of one woman supposedly suffering from multiple personality disorder.

After going on trial for murder, Ashley is eventually acquitted by reason of insanity when a defense attorney draws out the violent Toni and juxtaposes her with the much calmer Ashley and Alette. As a result of the verdict, Ashley is sent to an insane asylum, where she is treated by a man named Dr. Gilbert. Here, we learn Ashley’s history.



Ashley was sexually abused by her father, Steven. When the abuse first took place, the personality of Toni was created as a receptacle for all of Ashley’s burgeoning hatred toward her father and men in general. But when Ashley was abused again in her teens, the personality of Alette was created to deal with the shame. Dr. Gilbert believes he is breaking through to Ashley/Toni/Alette until he believes it’s OK to let them go. However, the whole plan was a ruse by Toni to get out of the insane asylum.

Even after everything, Ashley is willing to let sleeping dogs lie. That is, until she realizes that her father is about to marry a woman with a three-year-old daughter. Ashley and her alter egos refuse to allow their father the chance to sexually abuse another young girl. They find out that he’s staying at the Hamptons, and the book ends with Toni on her way to his location, singing happily because she is about to kill her father, finally, which in many ways is what her whole personality was created to do.