Fever Dream is essentially a novel about motherhood and the impossibility of protecting one’s child from every possible danger. Although they are opposites in many respects, Carla and Amanda find themselves in almost identical situations with identical outcomes. Both fail to protect their children in situations that seem innocuous, with no obvious danger. The novel addresses the difficulty of relying on maternal instincts in a modern world where threats are ever more abstract and nebulous.

Both Carla and Amanda express feelings of maternal anxiety, a worry that some harm will befall their child. Before David was born, for example, Carla was obsessed with the concern that her son would be missing fingers and toes. However, the most explicit and repeated image of maternal anxiety is Amanda’s idea of the “rescue distance,” an invisible thread that always connects her to her daughter. Depending on the safety or danger of a situation, the thread can be loose, allowing the two wander away from one another, or it might pull taut, bringing Amanda closer to Nina so that she can rescue her if necessary. Amanda inherited the idea of the rescue distance from her mother and grandmother, which underscores the universality of her maternal belief that “sooner or later something terrible will happen” (127).