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Choose Your Own Adventure: Young Readers #9
Dream Trips
By making choices, readers can experience a variety of adventures and decide what will happen while they are dreaming
52 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 1983
1 person is currently reading
52 people want to read
About the author
Edward Packard
169 books125 followersEdward Packard attended and graduated from both Princeton University and Columbia Law School. He was one of the first authors to explore the idea of gamebooks, in which the reader is inserted as the main character and makes choices about the direction the story will go at designated places in the text.
The first such book that Edward Packard wrote in the Choose Your Own Adventure series was titled "Sugarcane Island", but it was not actually published as the first entry in the Choose Your Own Adventure Series. In 1979, the first book to be released in the series was "The Cave of Time", a fantasy time-travel story that remained in print for many years. Eventually, one hundred eighty-four Choose Your Own Adventure books would be published before production on new entries to the series ceased in 1998. Edward Packard was the author of many of these books, though a substantial number of other authors were included as well.
In 2005, Choose Your Own Adventure books once again began to be published, but none of Edward Packard's titles have yet been included among the newly-released books.
The first such book that Edward Packard wrote in the Choose Your Own Adventure series was titled "Sugarcane Island", but it was not actually published as the first entry in the Choose Your Own Adventure Series. In 1979, the first book to be released in the series was "The Cave of Time", a fantasy time-travel story that remained in print for many years. Eventually, one hundred eighty-four Choose Your Own Adventure books would be published before production on new entries to the series ceased in 1998. Edward Packard was the author of many of these books, though a substantial number of other authors were included as well.
In 2005, Choose Your Own Adventure books once again began to be published, but none of Edward Packard's titles have yet been included among the newly-released books.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
November 26, 2025
I'm not sure any gamebook concept was ever better suited to the format than Dream Trips by Edward Packard, which takes advantage of the elasticity of dreams to spin a story that otherwise wouldn't be possible. Warm at home in bed, you drift into a dream around midnight. As you lie on a fluffy cloud, a lion stalks toward you across a pathway of clouds. Panic floods your system, but wait...you're dreaming. Should you walk up and confront the king of beasts?
Running from the lion causes you to fall out of bed and awaken, but you return to sleep quickly. You're walking down a hallway in the next dream and come upon four doors. Enter the one with music coming from inside, and you find yourself in the school auditorium at a concert. Are you prepared to present a music act...even if you're wearing only pajamas? Maybe you'll run out to the playground to escape, or go with the flow and play the cello for an appreciative audience. Opening one of the other doors, which contains a ringing telephone, leads you to meet the dreamworld version of yourself. Try the door labeled Room 23 instead, and you'll be in a classroom with a grouchy teacher. Will you be courteous, or back-sass her because it's just a dream? Entering the door marked Entrance takes you back to your bedroom...but a man in suit and tie says you must clean your room before the dream can end. If you refuse, the story becomes a meta scene in which you are reading this very book. Do you trust the man when he says turning to page page fifty-one will wake you up? Hey, it's a dream...the text also offers opportunity to turn to any page in the book and resume reading there, or to close the book and end it now. Alternatively, you could run back into the hallway and take charge of your own dream narrative. In the Land of Nod, anything goes.
What if you didn't shy away from the lion at first? The lion cowers from you, demonstrating you had no reason to fear. He morphs into an old man and offers to create any fantasy you ask for in the brief time left to your dream. Do you wish for all the candy you can eat? The man guides you to Candy Land, where delectable chocolate bars grow on trees. When giant ants attack, can you divert them? Maybe you'd rather ride a horse than have candy; the old man conjures a chestnut colt to carry you galloping through the clouds until you peacefully awaken. Perhaps you prefer a hot air balloon ride over mountains, farmland, and anywhere you can imagine...until the dream fades into a blissful memory. Do you yearn for a more permanent experience? The old man offers three gifts you'll keep even after your eyes open. Tonight's dream won't likely disappear from your thoughts.
Dream Trips is purposely weird, but has lovely understanding of the dream world and what it can mean to an aspirational dreamer. If the reader gets scared, a chance to exit the fantasy is never far away, but probe further and you might discover subtle truths, or satisfy your appetite for adventure in a way you can't in the real world. Is it better in life to reject all nonsense, or be a good sport and learn from rubbing elbows with the absurd? Embracing the incongruities of human nature leads places you never expected you'd want to go. Despite occasional internal inconsistencies, I might rate Dream Trips two and a half stars; it's an engaging, surprising, evocative book, and Lorna Tomei's illustrations are wonderful. Check out the balloon ride over the quiet countryside on page fifteen, or the many charming depictions of your bedroom. For the first ten Bantam Skylark Choose Your Own Adventures, Edward Packard was the best contributor, and this book is a keeper.
Running from the lion causes you to fall out of bed and awaken, but you return to sleep quickly. You're walking down a hallway in the next dream and come upon four doors. Enter the one with music coming from inside, and you find yourself in the school auditorium at a concert. Are you prepared to present a music act...even if you're wearing only pajamas? Maybe you'll run out to the playground to escape, or go with the flow and play the cello for an appreciative audience. Opening one of the other doors, which contains a ringing telephone, leads you to meet the dreamworld version of yourself. Try the door labeled Room 23 instead, and you'll be in a classroom with a grouchy teacher. Will you be courteous, or back-sass her because it's just a dream? Entering the door marked Entrance takes you back to your bedroom...but a man in suit and tie says you must clean your room before the dream can end. If you refuse, the story becomes a meta scene in which you are reading this very book. Do you trust the man when he says turning to page page fifty-one will wake you up? Hey, it's a dream...the text also offers opportunity to turn to any page in the book and resume reading there, or to close the book and end it now. Alternatively, you could run back into the hallway and take charge of your own dream narrative. In the Land of Nod, anything goes.
What if you didn't shy away from the lion at first? The lion cowers from you, demonstrating you had no reason to fear. He morphs into an old man and offers to create any fantasy you ask for in the brief time left to your dream. Do you wish for all the candy you can eat? The man guides you to Candy Land, where delectable chocolate bars grow on trees. When giant ants attack, can you divert them? Maybe you'd rather ride a horse than have candy; the old man conjures a chestnut colt to carry you galloping through the clouds until you peacefully awaken. Perhaps you prefer a hot air balloon ride over mountains, farmland, and anywhere you can imagine...until the dream fades into a blissful memory. Do you yearn for a more permanent experience? The old man offers three gifts you'll keep even after your eyes open. Tonight's dream won't likely disappear from your thoughts.
Dream Trips is purposely weird, but has lovely understanding of the dream world and what it can mean to an aspirational dreamer. If the reader gets scared, a chance to exit the fantasy is never far away, but probe further and you might discover subtle truths, or satisfy your appetite for adventure in a way you can't in the real world. Is it better in life to reject all nonsense, or be a good sport and learn from rubbing elbows with the absurd? Embracing the incongruities of human nature leads places you never expected you'd want to go. Despite occasional internal inconsistencies, I might rate Dream Trips two and a half stars; it's an engaging, surprising, evocative book, and Lorna Tomei's illustrations are wonderful. Check out the balloon ride over the quiet countryside on page fifteen, or the many charming depictions of your bedroom. For the first ten Bantam Skylark Choose Your Own Adventures, Edward Packard was the best contributor, and this book is a keeper.
April 27, 2020
A magnificent book you can read in about fifteen minutes but with structural concepts that would power hours and days of lesser novels.
A 'book within the book', diagetic advice which tells the reader it is their option to scramble the text in order to 'escape' unwanted concepts and scenes. Optional loops. Free endings. The very idea that the experience of the book is intended to be looped, like falling asleep each night - we treat cyoa books this way regardless but here that assumption is incorporated into the structure of the adventure.
Such an elegant elegant book.
A 'book within the book', diagetic advice which tells the reader it is their option to scramble the text in order to 'escape' unwanted concepts and scenes. Optional loops. Free endings. The very idea that the experience of the book is intended to be looped, like falling asleep each night - we treat cyoa books this way regardless but here that assumption is incorporated into the structure of the adventure.
Such an elegant elegant book.
May 22, 2024
Nota: Ésta reseña pretende analizar las serie de aventuras contenida en el presente volumen mediante dos visiones: la del más pequeño y la del adulto, para así poder servir de ayuda en una futura recomendación de lectura y compra. Por lo cual, puede contener ciertos Spoilers
Estás en tu habitación, la luz de la luna atraviesa la cortina; todo es silencio y confort. Empiezas a dormir y a soñar.
Así de directa comienza la presente aventura; pues no hay que darle rodeos para entrar a la acción de los sueños. Packard otorga lo que promete el volumen; viajes mientras sueñas: desde ir en globo, o caballos, encontrarte con béstias feroces, paraísos llenos de chuches sin fin o actuaciones virtuosas. Debemos pensar que es un libro infantil dentro de la serie, y por lo tanto, las aventuras no pueden extenderse ni complicarse. Pero a buen seguro saciarán al lector más pequeño.
Lo notable aquí es el fondo del contenido, visto desde los ojos adultos. Packard introduce de raíz el concepto de sueño lúcido, pues la protagonista es en todo momento conocedora que sueña (al principio o mitad de éste), y experimentada en ello. Hay elementos oníricos muy sugerentes, y otros conceptos relativos como la mezcla de lo cotidiano con los fantástico, o lo cotidiano con lo deseable, el sueño que deriva en pesadilla, el despertar repentino y el lento despertar a través del sueño (con escenas muy bien plasmadas), y la confusión de si estás despierto o soñando al final del viaje onírico. El autor también introduce el tema del astral y el cuerpo físico, y cómo la protagonista interactúa con ellos, así como el del sueño colectivo, plasmado a través de un viaje en ruta dónde se van dejando a los demás soñadores al final de la aventura nocturna. La verdad es que todo ello me ha maravillado.
Así pues, “viajes de ensueño” cumplirá con las expectativas del más pequeño, y es posible que éste se embarque en querer saber más acerca del tema, y lo rememore y disfrute durante unos días. Y el adulto, como yo, ve que es un libro que tiene conceptos muy interesantes y que bien podría haberse realizado dentro de la serie juvenil, profundizando en los sueños y su tratado. Lectura altamente sugerente.
Estás en tu habitación, la luz de la luna atraviesa la cortina; todo es silencio y confort. Empiezas a dormir y a soñar.
Así de directa comienza la presente aventura; pues no hay que darle rodeos para entrar a la acción de los sueños. Packard otorga lo que promete el volumen; viajes mientras sueñas: desde ir en globo, o caballos, encontrarte con béstias feroces, paraísos llenos de chuches sin fin o actuaciones virtuosas. Debemos pensar que es un libro infantil dentro de la serie, y por lo tanto, las aventuras no pueden extenderse ni complicarse. Pero a buen seguro saciarán al lector más pequeño.
Lo notable aquí es el fondo del contenido, visto desde los ojos adultos. Packard introduce de raíz el concepto de sueño lúcido, pues la protagonista es en todo momento conocedora que sueña (al principio o mitad de éste), y experimentada en ello. Hay elementos oníricos muy sugerentes, y otros conceptos relativos como la mezcla de lo cotidiano con los fantástico, o lo cotidiano con lo deseable, el sueño que deriva en pesadilla, el despertar repentino y el lento despertar a través del sueño (con escenas muy bien plasmadas), y la confusión de si estás despierto o soñando al final del viaje onírico. El autor también introduce el tema del astral y el cuerpo físico, y cómo la protagonista interactúa con ellos, así como el del sueño colectivo, plasmado a través de un viaje en ruta dónde se van dejando a los demás soñadores al final de la aventura nocturna. La verdad es que todo ello me ha maravillado.
Así pues, “viajes de ensueño” cumplirá con las expectativas del más pequeño, y es posible que éste se embarque en querer saber más acerca del tema, y lo rememore y disfrute durante unos días. Y el adulto, como yo, ve que es un libro que tiene conceptos muy interesantes y que bien podría haberse realizado dentro de la serie juvenil, profundizando en los sueños y su tratado. Lectura altamente sugerente.
August 10, 2019
This has a beautiful cover and a premise that seems meant for a CYOA book. Edward Packard makes relatively good use of the ‘dream trip’ premise, but the format is just too limited for a really good story.
July 9, 2013
the adventures that I went through when I was bored I just read these books over and over again you would never get to the end of the story.
January 28, 2017
My daughter's first choose your own adventure. I had to read it to her of course, but she really liked that she got to choose her own story path :)
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews