Timelord Dreaming

You wake in the middle of the night with a terrible pain radiating from your lower side up to your chest. An ambulance is called, and you’re rationed ever increasing doses of morphine on your way to the hospital. In the EW, a heart attack is ruled out but the mystery intensifies. Until a CT scan reveals the truth...


“You”, in this case, was the author, who, with the kindness of a Dr Who understudy and other medical staff at the Mater Hospital, Brisbane, survived a urgent operation and had many medicated days to reflect on an often surreal experience.


Timelord Dreaming uses “tweetems”, microtexts with Internet call-outs, to recreate one man’s journey through the parallel universes of patient and personal identity. If you’ve ever been hospitalised, you’ll find much that is familiar – and not always comfortable – here.


Dr David P Reiter won the 2012 Western Australian Premier’s Award for My Planets Reunion Memoir. Timelord Dreaming continues his innovative work in the frontier between text and digital media.


Illness as altered reality isolates us from the world. Sharp as a scalpel, David Reiter beams trippy tweetems from his hospital bed, cracking sterile walls and piercing us with poignancy.

– Dr Leah Kaminsky, Deputy Editor, Poetry & Fiction, Medical Journal of Australia



In the half-life world of hospitals, pain and medication, Dr Reiter has taken us on his journey into and through his mind. Taking twists, turns and delightful detours, he has developed a new form of digital communication – tweetems. While some draw on visitations of Doctor Who, the tweetems also take us on a myriad of musical and educational voyages. Between sonic screwdrivers and white cell scouts, Timelord Dreaming ensures our normalacy bias will be prodded and deconstructed.

– Anna Maguire, Digireado