In the novel, Dreamspeaker by Cam Hubert the main character, Peter Braxton experiences many changes, due to the presence or absence of love that a child needs in his life. During his childhood years, when Peter Braxton never really knew what it feels like to be loved he was incomplete, but when he finds love, his whole life turns around and changes for the better, until this love is taken away from him and Peter's whole world gets shattered into pieces. The presence of love that a child needs in his life, or in some cases lack of it drastically, affects the main character as the novel progresses.
As a young child Peter Braxton is scared, lonely and emotionless due to the fact that love does not exist in his life. Peter Braxton is extremely terrified because during his childhood, his mother never demonstrated her love towards him. Peter constantly has re-occurring nightmares from when he is younger, and they are all about his parents fighting, yelling and blaming him for their problems. After these nightmares Peter always wakes in a bad state of mind. The only reason these nightmares occur is because he does not have any happy memories of his childhood, since his mother never really cared for him like a mother should. In addition, without love Peter always feels lonely. Since the age of four Peter has been constantly switching foster homes, which never gave him a chance to make real friends, or get attached to anyone, and because of this Peter is lonesome. Furthermore, Peter has never had any real affection in his life from a parental figure or even from a friend, so for most of the time he does not show his emotions since he does not know how. When the psychiatrist was trying to help Peter out, Peter did not respond instead, "he let his eyes unfocus, hiding inside himself, his hands idle on his lap again, his face appearing empty" (Hubert, 7). This shows how Peter does not let his emotions show, he hides from the world, not knowing how to really express himself because no one ever expressed any affection towards him.