Seventeen-year-old Janie Hannagan has a unique problem. She falls into other people’s dreams. Up until high school she was able to hide her ability, but now, with students falling asleep in class, Janie’s finding it difficult to keep her classmates from learning her secret.
Cabel Strumheller, another high school student, worries that Janie is having seizures, not knowing she is falling into other people’s dreams. She assures him that she’s fine. He tries to comfort her but his empathy turns to anger after he sees her in one of his dreams. Later, she explains that she has no control over her ability, and he forgives her. Cabel is the first person to learn of Janie’s gift.
As time goes on, Janie finds herself falling in love with Cabel, but she refuses to talk to him for several weeks after hearing rumors that he is actually a drug pusher and dating another girl. During that time, she takes on extra hours at her job at a nursing home. There, she finds herself being pulled into the residents’ dreams, too. When Janie enters the dream of one blind woman, Martha Stubin, she is surprised because the woman speaks to her in the dream. When Miss Stubin dies, she leaves Janie a little money for college and lets her know that she, too, was a “dream catcher.”
Janie begins to read all she can about dreams and how to change them. Slowly, she learns to affect the outcome of her own nightmares. Then one day in study hall, Cabel falls asleep near her, and she slips into his dream. During the dream, he writes Janie notes telling her that the rumors about him aren’t true and that he loves her. After school he takes her to the police station to meet his boss, Captain Fran Komisky. The captain explains that Cabel is working undercover at the school to try and break up a drug ring. While in the captain’s office, Janie falls into another officer’s dream. She uses her new knowledge to help the man alter his nightmare. Captain Fran is not surprised at Janie’s talent; she was acquainted with Miss Stubin, who had used her dream-catching talent to help the police on several difficult cases.
Late one night Janie’s best friend, Carrie, calls from jail. She needs someone to bail her out after the police raided a party. When Janie arrives at the precinct, she learns that as a minor she’s not allowed to post bail. When she goes back to the holding cell to tell her friend, she sees Cabel and several other students as well. Cabel points out a man in the cell who is about to fall asleep. Janie understands that this is the pusher the captain is hoping to get evidence on. Janie finds a bench around the corner to sit on so if he dreams, she’ll slip into it. Later, she is able to tell the captain that the man dreamed of trying to save a bunch of life jackets from his yacht during a storm. But instead of floating, the jackets dragged him underwater. The captain uses the information to find the drugs hidden on the pusher’s boat. The captain offers Janie a monetary reward, a job contract and a scholarship that will help her pay for college if she agrees to work on more cases with the police.
Janie doesn’t accept or refuse the job, but the reader infers that she has accepted the Captain’s offer to work with the police while finishing high school because the book ends at a farewell party for her at the nursing home.