Header Art: The Great Beyond-A Guide to the Multiverse (2008) by Paizo Publishing

**A Guide to the Ethereal Plane,** 1998 WotC

This post aims to provide a deeper look at traveling Dream and the encounters you may come across on such a journey. Much of the information provided here is based on my own world’s lore and imagination of what could be found in a plane of dreams and nightmares. If you are interested in a post about specific locations and people of Dream, read - The Planes: Plane of Dreams which is based on resources and books by Wizards of the Coast.

The term dream realm, realm, and bubble are used interchangeably throughout. Typically, a bubble refers to the physical representation of a dream floating through the plane of dreams, while realm refers to the area within the bubble, the dream that a dreamer experiences.

Exploration

Simultaneously the hardest and easiest plane to enter, Dream is a dimension of the multiverse nested within the two-dimensional curtains of colors found in the Ethereal Plane. Dreamers visit this plane every night, their consciousness slipping from their mortal bodies and traveling along portals that only dreams can create. Upon arrival, their dreams create discrete new locations within the Dream, sectioning off a portion of the plane’s power to create a realm of delight, fantasy, and abstraction.

Those who wish to enter this realm consciously face a difficult problem ahead of them. They must find a way to cross the planes, enter the Ethereal, and then slip into the space that the color curtains occupy, where Dream exists. While many magic items exist that can assist in entering the Ethereal, the same can not be said for Dream. Esoteric knowledge of Dream is required to gain access to the plane, but even then, such knowledge is just as likely to lead you to the Nightmares of Leng as they are to send you to the happy Dreamscapes Core.

Dreamer’s Journey

When you fall asleep, your conscious is pulled along strands of magic, shifting through portals that only your conscious can move through. The exact path your consciousness might take to Dream is not well understood, and truthfully, it seems to change every night and for every dreamer. Some claim that they caught glimpses of satyrs in the Fey Plane while others may claim of nightmares chasing after them in the Plane of Shadows.

Regardless of where a consciousness slips through, it will eventually enter Dream. Once it arrives, it is randomly flung to a section of the plane and it creates a tiny bubble of influence. Depending on where this bubble appears in the plane, the dreamer might have wonderful dreams or horrible nightmares. If their bubble appears near the Dreamscapes Core, which is quite likely, they might have fantastical dreams and feel fulfilled after sleeping. If they end up on the underside of Dream, they might appear in the Nightmares of Leng, a strange plateau that has grown on the underside of the Dreamscapes Core where the dark terrors dwell. Though, even those in the Dreamscapes Core are not safe as tidal waves of terror can pulse across Dream if a particularly nasty nightmare takes over several bubbles and climbs out from the plateau.

Travel Through the Dreams

Those who have traveled to Dream, often called dreamwalkers, can see a sea of hazy white bubbles drifting in a large cluster that gives off an array of prismatic colors. Each bubble is a dreamer’s realm where they create a world of delight and wonder. Most dreams try to cluster close to the Dreamscapes Core, though plenty are flung to far-off locales within the plane. The further a dreamer’s bubble is from the Core, the sadder or lonelier the dreamer feels when they wake up.

There is also a second side to Dream that few ever wish to travel to. By traveling to the underside of the Core, a task that is more about willing oneself to reach the other side than physically moving there, a dreamwalker can find a rough jut of rock that seems to grow under the Dreamscapes Core as a barnacle grows on the underside of a ship. This plateau rises from the Core for dozens of miles, disappearing into a dark, ghastly fog. Within this realm are nightmares, foul dreams that infect dreamers with disturbing visions that curse their sleep. Those who travel here often have a goal they wish to accomplish, and then leave as soon as they can.

For a dreamwalker to visit a bubble and enter it, they must spend a minute concentrating on entering the bubble. The dreamwalker makes a Charisma check contested by the dreamer’s Charisma check. On a success, the dreamwalker can break into the bubble and take part in the dream. When the dreamer wakes up, they often have a hazy memory of the intruder, typically believing that the intruder was just a stubborn part of their dream that wouldn’t leave them alone. If the dreamer is suspicious about dreamwalkers intruding on their dreams, they could make a Wisdom (Insight) check contested by the dreamwalker’s Charisma (Deception) or Dexterity (Stealth) check, realizing the truth on a success.

If a dreamwalker wishes to leave a dream, they must spend a minute focusing near the edges of the bubble and make a successful Wisdom saving throw, breaking free from the bubble. The DC to escape is based on the Charisma score of the dreamer, with most dreamers only having a score and DC of 10. It is very hard for a dreamer to escape their own dream and requires them to be a lucid dreamer.

**The Great Beyond-A Guide to the Multiverse**, 2008 Paizo Publishing

Plane Shift

Many travelers have attempted to arrive in the plane via the spell plane shift, paying a weighty sum for a rod attuned to the energies of Dream. When the caster arrives, they are not placed in a dreamer’s bubble. Rather, they appear adrift in a sea of bubbles where they can look into the different realms of dreamers. While this view isn’t perfect, as it is like looking through a frosted window, many spies are said to trawl the sea of bubbles looking for specific dreams to gather information from.

Ritual Travel

While few can utilize powerful spells, like plane shift or etherealness, there are other options available. Sleeping, of course, but if one wishes to travel while conscious, they can instead utilize a ritual, though the specifics of said ritual might just be as rare as finding someone who can cast plane shift. When a creature wishes to travel to Dream, and they have access to the ritual, they can travel into the plane to a random location or a specific creature’s dream realm utilizing the spell below.

Dream Path
3rd-level conjuration (ritual)
Classes: Bard, Druid, Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard
Casting Time: 1 hour
Range: Touch
Components: V, S, M (rare oils and essence worth 300 gp, which the spell consumes)
Duration: up to 8 hours
You and up to four willing creatures perform an occult ritual where the rare oils and essence are burned, creating an intoxicated haze that causes each creature to fall into an unconscious state, similar to sleep. The group sends their consciousness out and travels into Dream as a group to a random location somewhere near the Dreamscapes Core, at the GM’s discretion (the spell fails and the casting is wasted if you are already on the plane).
Alternatively, you can cast this spell over a sleeping creature. Instead of arriving at a random location on Dream, you and your companions are instead brought straight to the sleeping creature’s dream realm. If you do so, you are tied to the dreamer’s sleep and the spell ends early if the sleeping creature wakes up, regardless of whether or not you are still in their dream when they awaken.
Your consciousness on Dream resembles your mortal form in almost every way, replicating your game statistics and possessions. Any items you might acquire or special abilities you gain while your consciousness is on Dream are not carried back with you to your physical body. For example, if you create a dream where you gain access to a vorpal sword, you would not be able to bring that back with you when this spell ends.
While your consciousness is adrift in Dream, your physical body remains where you left it, seemingly asleep. Any damage or other effects your consciousness on Dream might take have no effect on your physical body, nor do they persist when you return to it. Your physical body can still be affected as usual, and if your physical body dies, your consciousness instantly dies.
The spell ends for you and your companions when you use your action to dismiss it. When the spell ends, the affected creature returns to its physical body, and it awakens. The spell might also end early for you or one of your companions. A successful dispel magic spell used against a consciousness or physical body ends the spell for that creature. If a creature’s consciousness or physical body drops to 0 hit points, the spell ends for that creature.
If you are returned to your body prematurely, your companions remain in Dream and must find their own way back to their bodies, the spell’s duration ends, or they are reduced to 0 hit points.

Life in Dream

There are very few natives to Dream and the vast majority of the population are outsiders who have arrived within the plane and decided to not leave. Some remain because reality is too painful for them to face and they’d rather live out their lives in a dream of happiness. Others are spies sent by gods devoted to secrets where they search through the bubbles seeking secrets that slip out during a dreamer’s time in their realm.

The few natives of this realm are as strange as a dream itself. While many are unable to leave this realm, as their physical form seems to be inexplicably tied to Dream itself, many can but will most often choose not to. Dream is a realm of endless possibilities, possibilities that not even magic can always replicate, and if it can, only the most powerful of mages could hope to achieve.

In a dream, anything is possible if you just know how to influence it.

Lucid Dreamers

Some have mastered Dream, or at least, have mastered their dreams. They are known as lucid dreamers, those capable of controlling their dreams and influencing their shape. While they are only their consciousness in a dream, they can exit their dream realm and explore the plane to their heart’s content. Such dreamers capable of leaving their realm are rare though, most only learn to control the events of their dreams. Lucid dreamers that can enter the dreams of others are incredibly talented and often have a powerful force of personality, whether it be for good or evil.

Natives of Dream

The natives of Dream, the ones whose entire species originate from this plane, are as strange as the dreams that created them, as most were once the figments of dreams but given such permanency that they now can self-replicate. Such creatures typically feed on the psionic energies of others, but not enough to kill the dreamer. Instead, the dreamer just might wake up feeling a little tired or like they did not get enough sleep. Particularly vivid dreamers might attract more of these creatures, in which case a problem occurs where the dreamer may never find rest in their dreams and slowly perish after months or years of difficult sleep. Adventurers are sometimes called in, but most people ignore the problem until it is too late.

The biggest dangers are the dreamcatcher spiders who catch dream bubbles and carry these bubbles in a silken net. These dreamers’ realms are now captured by the dreamcatcher spider and they return night after night to the spider’s net where they spend every night sleeping just a little bit longer until they slip into a coma and can never escape.

There is also the Wayward, a loose collective of those who have died in their sleep but their consciousness remained in Dream for whatever reason. They move through the field of bubbles, looking for companionship and trying to enter the dreams of others. Some have made peace with their situation as they are now effectively immortal, but they have a certain restlessness that makes them yearn for a physical body, for a world to return to, and to escape this fantasy of dream.

Natives of Nightmare

On the underside of Dream is a plateau of black and gray rock with streaks of silver veins that appear like wisps. This is known as the Nightmares of Leng or simply the Nightmare Realm. Dreamers who appear in this location are influenced by dark energies and horrific monsters that delight in torture and pain. Night hags often make their home on this infinite plateau where they find endless delight in the suffering of others.

This realm is also the permanent home of dream realms for eldritch beings that slumber in the material plane, their bubbles blending in with the rock surface that unsuspecting travelers could fall into them. Aberrations and cruel monsters typically fling their consciousness into this realm, though in rare circumstances they might instead enter the Dreamscapes Core, where the vast majority of dreamers are, and have fitful sleep where happiness invades their dream and tortures them. Some believe that the Nightmare Realm is actually a single dream realm of some immense eldritch being, perhaps named Leng, whose dream realm is so massive that other dreams can exist within it. It would explain why this realm is a part of Dream and seems to be attached to the Dreamscapes Core in such a strong way.

Settlements in Dream

The lack of permanency in Dream makes it so that cities, villages, and settlements are hard to come by in Dream. Most structures are only temporary, fading away after a dreamer awakens in the morning. But, there are some permanent structures in the plane, those created by permanent sleepers who can, or will, never wake up. They remain here until their body dies, which for some could be never as those in magical stasis still dream. These permanent dream realms are places of great importance for dreamwalkers and the inhabitants, and many have broken down the walls between permanent bubbles, connecting the dreams, and creating a single, permanent settlement in the Dreamscapes Core known, tongue-in-cheek, as the Sandcastle and its residents as Sandmen.

The Sandcastle is a permanent settlement in Dream, but the parts that make up the whole are temporary. What this means is that buildings might disappear from day to day, streets may rearrange themselves as dreams unfold, the sky might shine like a brilliant rainbow while raining dream-gold, and the size of the city ebbs and flows as more dreamers come and go. Lucid dreamers are a sizable portion of the city, returning to Sandcastle every night, reuniting their bubble with the city, creating a new structure where they sell their dream-goods, trade knowledge, or simply pass the hours of sleep by playing games, chatting with friends from distant worlds, or creating a section of the city more to their liking.

Magic

The magic of Dream is that anyone can make anything possible by simply willing it. Of course, such created items are only a figment of imagination, powerful in the hands of one who believes, but unable to exist outside of Dream. Some sages have tried making their homes here, working on experiments within the realm, though most leave disheartened. Nothing within Dream is permanent. Dreams, and the plane of dreams itself, are ephemeral in existence, simply dissipating when faced with reality or a waking mind.

Influencing a Dream

Due to the possibilities of dreams, a dreamer, lucid dreamer, dreamwalker, or any creature can make the impossible, possible. By influencing dreams, a creature can cast magic they wouldn’t be able to cast, wield powerful magic weapons they had only ever heard of in stories, or create a new body for themselves that is as powerful as they are weak in their waking life.

As an action, a creature can make a Charisma check to do something that would only make sense in a dream. This could include being able to fly, shoot lightning bolts, have immense strength, or some other possibility. This ability typically only lasts until the end of their next turn but can be extended to a minute if the creature succeeds on their check by 5 or more, or 1 hour if the creature succeeds on their check by 10 or more. The DC is up to the GM, though a few examples are provided and the GM has final say in how the effects manifest in Dream and how long it would last. For example, if you succeed on a check to shoot a bolt of lightning by 10 (typically a DC 13), it will last 1 round (while ordinarily, a different effect with the same DC would last an hour) and you treat the effect as if you had cast the lightning bolt spell with a DC determined by your check.

You can make these checks a number of times equal to your Proficiency Bonus plus your Charisma modifier, regaining all spent uses the next time you dream. If you are physically traveling in Dream, such as a dreamwalker, you regain spent uses upon finishing a long rest.

DC / Effect
10 / Cosmetic changes, like having hair that turns to harmless flames or appearing as a different creature, but gaining none of their abilities.
10 + Spell Level / When you wish to cast a spell, or an effect that is similar to a spell, you must succeed on a check equal to 10 + the spell’s level. The DC is typically the same as the result of your check and the spell’s duration is either the duration of the spell or by how much you succeeded on the check (see above), whichever is shorter.
15 / Change your Strength, Dexterity, or Constitution score to 15; typically mental scores can not be affected in Dream
15+ / Transport yourself to either the Nightmares of Leng or to the Dreamscapes Core, and increase the DC by 2 for every additional willing creature you wish to bring with you
20 / Increase the influence of your bubble in the Dreamscapes Core by connecting your dream to another dream realm or a settlement like Sandcastle
25 / Force a dreamer to wake up out of their dream or collapse a dreamer’s bubble

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Nov 29 Exploring the Dream

Header Art: The Great Beyond-A Guide to the Multiverse (2008) by Paizo Publishing