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The Mycelium Dream
Zen Buddhist fiction – fictitious scientific theory – relationships and breakups
A remote fishing village on the Lithuanian coast. Two women separated by a quarter of a century, united by a desire to find sense and meaning. Two men struggling with each other and themselves. A dark present troubled by war and a dystopian utopic future. All connected by the inescapable, unending cloud of the Mycelium Dream.
A dazzling meditation on human existence, where fungi, emotion, and history intertwine. With bold originality, Grusaite reshapes questions around identity and asks: what if your subconscious was never truly your own, but a mycelium dream?
- Brian Welsh, film director
In her third novel, Gabija Grušaitė develops a theory on the symbiosis between mammals and fungi to express the many tensions of her generation. Her speculative writing captures a restless capitalism that does not pretend to celebrate its own end but probes its mysterious origins instead. The Mycelium Dream is a story projected into the future yet oriented toward the past, where class struggle takes the form of a psychological conflict: between a daughter and her mother, biology and collective hallucination, alienation and self-assertion.
– Francesco Urbano Ragazzi, curatorial duo
A remote fishing village on the Lithuanian coast. Two women separated by a quarter of a century, united by a desire to find sense and meaning. Two men struggling with each other and themselves. A dark present troubled by war and a dystopian utopic future. All connected by the inescapable, unending cloud of the Mycelium Dream.
A dazzling meditation on human existence, where fungi, emotion, and history intertwine. With bold originality, Grusaite reshapes questions around identity and asks: what if your subconscious was never truly your own, but a mycelium dream?
- Brian Welsh, film director
In her third novel, Gabija Grušaitė develops a theory on the symbiosis between mammals and fungi to express the many tensions of her generation. Her speculative writing captures a restless capitalism that does not pretend to celebrate its own end but probes its mysterious origins instead. The Mycelium Dream is a story projected into the future yet oriented toward the past, where class struggle takes the form of a psychological conflict: between a daughter and her mother, biology and collective hallucination, alienation and self-assertion.
– Francesco Urbano Ragazzi, curatorial duo
416 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2023
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5 people want to read
About the author
Gabija Grušaitė
5 books78 followersGabija Grušaitė (gim. 1987 m.) - debiutuojanti jauna lietuvių rašytoja. Ji dvylika savo gyvenimo metų lavino ranką dailės klasėje Vilniaus M. K. Čiurlionio menų mokykloje, o vėliau išvyko studijuoti medijų ir antropologijos į šiandieninę lietuvių menininkų Meką - Londoną. Didžioji Gabijos aistra - keliauti ir pažinti.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
November 18, 2025
A profound trip through the past and future—and presence of the human mind, awakening. This is literary zen.
How to describe a novel that accomplishes so much, so dense yet sparse at the same time? People. A house. A decaying world. A Mycelium biome. Human Consciousness.
This novel breathes. In its inhale, you are pushed into introspection. What it exhales is a network of characters that make stories of their lives and the lives around them, and these stories go on to tell the story of the world. Mothers and daughters. Husbands and wives. Women finding themselves. Women finding women. All in a world we recognize: environmental collapse, wars and loneliness. There is also: love and pleasure. We are also offered a glimpse into the 2050s, a future that has pockets of hope, even if some progress exists only in pockets. You will feel, see, hear, touch, smell and taste (most of all taste fine cooking and wines!) the world of these characters. You will also inhabit intuition.
This is a novel for those who love to look deep within, which these characters will have you do along with them, some knowingly, some still stuck in the dream. A mindfulness in a chaotic stream. A breaking free. A surrender.
I set out to European Literature Night at the Ukrainian Institute of America last month not just to hear the lectures around themes that fill both my reader and writer heart: “The Past’s Presence, Authoritarianism/Writing War, and Ties That Bind (how love, desire and community shape books”. I went also because I knew I’d find books to buy. I’d find authors I never heard of and can only hear about at an event like this. I knew from the title this is why I was there. I felt it when I touched its cover, saw its design. Its colors. This book is not a fast read. You read each sentence mindfully.
I am grateful. This is the kind of book where, once you finish, you imagine yourself smoking a cigarette and staring into the sky for at least a week, just thinking about it before you are forced to move on. I often do this with books like this. I must give myself some space to breathe it, and finally, exhale.
How to describe a novel that accomplishes so much, so dense yet sparse at the same time? People. A house. A decaying world. A Mycelium biome. Human Consciousness.
This novel breathes. In its inhale, you are pushed into introspection. What it exhales is a network of characters that make stories of their lives and the lives around them, and these stories go on to tell the story of the world. Mothers and daughters. Husbands and wives. Women finding themselves. Women finding women. All in a world we recognize: environmental collapse, wars and loneliness. There is also: love and pleasure. We are also offered a glimpse into the 2050s, a future that has pockets of hope, even if some progress exists only in pockets. You will feel, see, hear, touch, smell and taste (most of all taste fine cooking and wines!) the world of these characters. You will also inhabit intuition.
This is a novel for those who love to look deep within, which these characters will have you do along with them, some knowingly, some still stuck in the dream. A mindfulness in a chaotic stream. A breaking free. A surrender.
I set out to European Literature Night at the Ukrainian Institute of America last month not just to hear the lectures around themes that fill both my reader and writer heart: “The Past’s Presence, Authoritarianism/Writing War, and Ties That Bind (how love, desire and community shape books”. I went also because I knew I’d find books to buy. I’d find authors I never heard of and can only hear about at an event like this. I knew from the title this is why I was there. I felt it when I touched its cover, saw its design. Its colors. This book is not a fast read. You read each sentence mindfully.
I am grateful. This is the kind of book where, once you finish, you imagine yourself smoking a cigarette and staring into the sky for at least a week, just thinking about it before you are forced to move on. I often do this with books like this. I must give myself some space to breathe it, and finally, exhale.
Displaying 1 of 1 review