 A psychologist still reeling from the death of his wife receives a cryptic message from a friend telling him to join him on the space station Solaris which is studying a spatial phenomena. Because of the phenomena, people from the Solaris  crew s memories begin appearing and interacting with them, including the psychologist s dead wife. The people appearing do not know they were created by the phenomena and think they are the "real" people interacting with the people they know on Solaris.