Dreamscape

Part of the series on Psionics

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Disclaimer: the contents of this page reflect my in-game experiences, and any or all may be altered at the Team's discretion. -- Calzier

Dreamscapes - the places the mind goes when it dreams, the landscape and inhabitants of dreams. For most, this is merely a matter of semantics. A dream is a dream, fair or foul, a pleasant walk through memories or twisted nightmare. An experience during sleep quickly forgotten on waking. But for psions, and others with psionic abilities, the reality is something altogether more complex.

All psions appear to be lucid dreamers. They are aware of their dreams while dreaming, aware that they are dreaming, but able to control their action of their avatars within the dreamscape. But more than that, powerful psions can twist the material of which a dreamscape is made, dreamstuff, to shape and direct the dream in which they find themselves. They can also walk from one dreamscape to another, observing the dreams of sleeping minds, and, should they choose to do so, bringing an influence to bear on that mind. Thus psions know that dreams can be far from passive or harmless affairs. A mind can be terrified to the point that the dreamer will die in their sleep, or for benign or ill, thoughts can be placed in the mind of the dreamer.

To a psion, then, a dreamscape is a fractured landscape, a myriad of dreamscapes, each occupied by a sleeping mind unaware of the dreamscapes of others, all open to perusal by a psion or psionically aware creature. While the psion's body lies sleeping, its mind explores the dreamscape. Such exploration is not without danger, however.

Wilsash, Lord of Nightmares, brings his evil influence to bear on the dreamscape, sending waves of terror rippling through the dreamscape, twisting the dreamstuff and creating nightmares for sleeping minds. Even the lucid minds of psions find their dreamscapes twisted and distorted. Other psions can walk the dreamstuff in their sleep, and the illithid are fully aware of the terror they can exert by traversing the dreamscape, as well as the potential for subtle manipulation of the minds of dreamers.

All this brings great risk, as well as great opportunity, to those who wander the dreamscapes as they sleep, but there are tales of even more, of psions who can walk physically within the dreamscape, bringing their bodies along with their minds, traversing great distances, and awakening far from where they lay down to sleep. Other tales speak of arcane powers that permit both body and mind to enter the dreamscape; certainly the illithid Abalaxxarrh lurked within a dreamscape of his own weaving.