Today we are interviewing Theresa Cheung, author of the paranormal thriller, NightBorn.
Theresa Cheung is an internationally bestselling author and public speaker. She has been writing about spirituality, dreams and the paranormal for the past 25 years, and was listed by Watkins Mind Body and Spirit magazine as one of the 100 most spiritually influential living people in 2023. She has a degree in Theology and English from Kings College, Cambridge University, frequently collaborating with leading scientists and neuroscientists researching consciousness.
Theresa is regularly featured in national newspapers and magazines, and she is a frequent radio, podcast and television guest and ITV: This Morning’s regular dream decoding expert. She hosts her own popular spiritual podcast called White Shores and weekly live UK Health Radio Show: The Healing Power of Your Dreams.
Her latest book is the paranormal thriller, NightBorn, available at Amazon US and Amazon UK.
You can visit her website at www.theresacheung.com or connect with her on X, Facebook, Instagram or Goodreads.
Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve been fascinated by dreams - those strange, cinematic experiences we all share but rarely talk about. I used to keep a dream journal under my pillow and was endlessly curious about what my night visions were trying to tell me. As a young child I was encouraged to share my dreams each morning as I grew up in a family of spiritualists.
That fascination never went away. I studied theology and english at university, and eventually began writing Sunday Times bestselling non fiction titles about dreams, intuition, and the science of spirituality. I wanted to bridge the gap between the mystical and the practical to show that understanding your inner world can transform your outer one.
Writing became my way of decoding the invisible. Every book I’ve written whether about dream interpretation, intuition, or the afterlife has been an exploration of how we can live from the inside out. So, becoming an author wasn’t so much a choice as it was an inevitable unfolding of who I’ve always been.
Your latest book, Nightborn, is about a dream psychologist who keeps appearing in other people’s nightmares. How did you come up with this very unique idea?
The seed for Nightborn came from a 2006 marketing hoax called thisman.org where a sketch appeared online asking have you dreamt of this man - thousands swiftly respond that they had because the sketch was so generic and everyone has had a dream about a stranger. It was exposed as a hoax but the fact that thousands of people believed it and dreamt it made me wonder: what if a dream expert, someone who understands the subconscious better than anyone, suddenly found herself inside other people’s dreams? What if the very thing she studied began to invade her waking life?
That question became Nightborn.
I wanted to write a thriller that not only keeps you turning the pages but also turns your awareness inward to make readers question what’s real, what’s imagined, and what their dreams might be trying to reveal. The book is a psychological and spiritual awakening disguised as a suspense novel and I love that readers are describing it as “a thriller that messes with your mind.” That’s exactly the point. It is a page turner but also a crash course in dream decoding when you are wide awake.
Can you tell us about the main character?
The protagonist, Professor Alice Sinclair, is a Jungian psychologist and dream researcher who believes the answers to life’s mysteries are found within the unconscious. She’s brilliant, analytical, and deeply curious but she’s also running from her own unresolved fears of not fitting in due to her different coloured eyes which she hides behind a pair of blue contact lenses.
When Alice begins appearing in other people’s nightmares, she’s forced to confront the very shadows she helps others decode. Her journey is both terrifying and transcendent a descent into the collective unconscious where she discovers that dreams are not mere illusions but portals to self-understanding and connection, not just personally but collectively.
Alice embodies what it means to be Nightborn - one of those rare souls who sees beyond the surface of things, who lives from intuition and inner vision rather than external noise.
Can you tell us about the other characters in the book?
The Nightborn themselves form a secretive network of intuitives, psychics, dream decoders, and visionaries each with their own unique gift. Some use their abilities for healing; others, for manipulation.
Among them is a psychologist who wants to harness dream energy for financial gain, a gifted intuitive who can sense ahead of time and a cast of characters who blur the boundaries between what is a dream and what is not. Together, they create a web of intrigue that challenges everything Alice and the reader thinks they know about consciousness.
Each character represents a different aspect of the human psyche: reason, intuition, shadow, and light. And as their paths intertwine, you start to realise that the real mystery isn’t about them at all - it’s about you and the contents of your own dreams.
What is the very first line of your book?
“Alice saw the wave. It was a beast.'
That opening line plunges you directly in the clear eye of the dream storm.
What is the main reason people should read your book?
Because Nightborn will wake up the dreamer inside you.
On the surface, it’s a fast-paced paranormal thriller set between Florida, home of Disney’s “land of dreams” and London’s Covent Garden, where illusion and artistry have always danced together. But beneath the suspense is a powerful message: that your dreams and intuition are your superpowers.
We live in a culture that teaches us to look outside for validation and answers. Nightborn is about reversing that embracing an inside-out approach to life. It’s an invitation to rediscover the wisdom you already carry within, and to remember that your dreams aren’t random they’re guidance. They also don't happen to you. They are created by you, for you and are all about you.
You are a person of enormous influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be?
I would love to see dream work taught in schools.
Imagine if children were encouraged to explore their dreams, to journal them, to understand their symbolism and emotions not as fantasy, but as an authentic reflection of their inner world. Dream education would give young people the greatest gift of all: self-knowledge. And self-knowledge is the beginning of all wisdom.
My wish is for the Nightborn philosophy living from the inside out to become the new norm. When we listen to our intuition and decode our dreams, we become more empathetic, creative, and conscious. We stop reacting and start awakening.
If Nightborn can spark even a few people to remember that their dreams matter that they are sacred maps to who they truly are then it will have done its job.
What if the line between your waking life and your darkest dreams disappeared forever?
Alice Sinclair, a driven psychology professor, is about to find out. When thousands of people begin experiencing terrifying, vivid nightmares … all centered around her, Alice’s quiet academic life is shattered. Haunted by the question of why she’s become the subject of these shared dreams, Alice embarks on a desperate search for answers, uncovering a chilling secret: someone – or something – hungry for global power has discovered a way to manipulate consciousness itself. The world is fast becoming a playground for those in control of the dreaming mind. In a heart-stopping race against time, Alice must navigate a treacherous web of deception, where nothing – and no one – can be trusted, not even herself.
Read a sample.
NightBorn is available at Amazon US and Amazon UK.
