The Silent Empire Series by Steven Harper

It is through first contact with an alien species that humanity learns of the Dream. It is a plane of mental existence where people are able to communicate with one another by their thoughts alone — over distances of thousands of light-years. To ensure that future generations will have this ability, human genetic engineering produces newborns capable of finding and navigating the Dream.They became known as the Silent.Rust is just one planet among many in the Empire of Human Unity... moreIt is through first contact with an alien species that humanity learns of the Dream. It is a plane of mental existence where people are able to communicate with one another by their thoughts alone — over distances of thousands of light-years. To ensure that future generations will have this ability, human genetic engineering produces newborns capable of finding and navigating the Dream.They became known as the Silent.Rust is just one planet among many in the Empire of Human Unity. It’s nothing special, nothing unusual . . . except for the fact that it is home to an unknown boy who may be the most powerful Silent ever born — a Silent with the ability to possess the bodies of others against their will. This mysterious child may be causing tremors within the Dream itself.For now, only the Children of Irfan know about him. A monastic-like order of the Silent, the Children protect their members even as they barter their services with the governments and corporations that control known space. But power like that cannot be hidden, and soon every Silent in the universe will know about the boy — and every government will be willing to go to war to control him.And if the Children of Irfan cannot find him first, the Dream itself may be shattered ... less

Before Kendi learned to use his talent of navigating the plane of mental existence known as the Dream, he had to escape his physical existence as a slave.

The third novel in Steven Harper's critically-acclaimed science fiction saga continues... The telepathic communications net, known as "The Dream," has been shattered. And the majority of the Silent who used it are unable to reenter. But Kendi Weaver has more pressing concerns: finding the family that slavers tore from him more than a decade before...

The Dream was a telepathic place of existence where a psychic race known as the Silent could twist the laws of reality. But a madman's lust for power has torn the Dream asunder. Now, only a handful of the Silent can enter it. Kendi Weaver is one of them. And it is up to him to protect it as political and personal enemies line up against him.