Dream world (also called
dream realm or
illusory realm) is a commonly-used
plot device in
fictional works, most notably in
science fiction and
fantasy fiction. The use of a dream world creates a situation whereby a
character (or group of characters) is placed in a marvellous and unpredictable environment and must overcome several personal problems to leave it. The dream world also commonly serves to teach some
moral or
religious lessons to the character experiencing it – a lesson that the other characters will be unaware of, but one that will influence decisions made regarding them. When the character is reintroduced into the real world (usually when they wake up), the question arises as to what exactly constitutes
reality due to the vivid recollection and experiences of the dream world.
According to
J.R.R. Tolkien, dream worlds contrast with
fantasy worlds, in which the world has existence independent of the characters in it.
[1] However, other authors have used the dreaming process as a way of accessing a world which, within the context of the fiction, holds as much consistency and continuity as physical reality.
[2] The use of "dream frames" to contain a fantasy world, and so explain away its marvels, has been bitterly criticized and has become much less prevalent.
[3]
[edit] Fictional dream worlds
Dream frames were frequently used in medieval allegory to justify the narrative;
[3] The Book of the Duchess and
Piers Plowman are two such
dream visions.
The Cheshire Cat vanishes in Wonderland.
One of the best-known dream worlds is
Wonderland from
Lewis Carroll's
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, as well as
Looking-Glass Land from its sequel,
Through the Looking-Glass. Unlike many dream worlds, Carroll's logic is like that of actual dreams, with transitions and causality flexible.
In
The Matrix, Neo and the rest of the humans live inside a dream world. Their brains are hooked up to a computer network that creates this dream world. However, some may argue that this is not a dream world, as it seems completely normal and indistinguishable from reality (aside from time differences).
In the
1939 movie,
Oz from
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was altered from a fantasy world (in the novel) to a dream world of Dorothy's; characters who were independent inhabitants of Oz were transformed into dream parallels of introduced Kansas characters.
[4]
In the 1980s, the
Nightmare on Elm Street series of horror films introduced a dark dream realm inhabited by the supernatural serial killer
Freddy Krueger.
Other fictional dream worlds include the
Dreamlands of H.P. Lovecraft's
Dream Cycle; Down Town, the land of nightmares where all people who are in comas go in the movie
Monkeybone, and
The Neverending Story's world of Fantasia, which includes places like The Desert of Lost Dreams, The Sea of Possibilities, and the Swamps of Saddness.
Dreamworlds also appear in
Rozen Maiden, in the Outback(s) of
The Maxx;
Total Recall;
Vanilla Sky; in Dream Land, the main setting of many
Kirby games, in the webcomic
The Dreamland Chronicles, in the Maginaryworld from
Sonic Shuffle, and in Nightopia and Nightmare (collectively known in a place called the "Night Dimension") from
Nights into Dreams... and its sequel for the
Wii,
Nights: Journey of Dreams.
The Life and Times of Juniper Lee and the movie
Sailor Moon Super S the Movie: Black Dream Hole also have dream realms in their universes. The film
Waking Life takes place almost entirely in a dream realm. The
Star Trek: Voyager episode "
Waking Moments" uses several dream realms and false awakenings.
Smirt and its two sequels taken together form an extended dream and most of their action takes place in a dream world.
The
American Dragon Jake Long episode "Dreamscape" takes place mainly in a dream realm. Similarly, the
Xiaolin Showdown episode
of the same title also uses the dream world in its plotline.
In
Clamp manga series such as
X/1999,
Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle and
xxxHolic, the dream world is very important to the events that occur within each story. It is later revealed in
xxxHolic that the dream world itself is its own world, as part of the Clamp multiverse. Similarly, in the
Bone graphic novel series by Jeff Smith, the primary plot device is a dream world called "The Dreaming." It exists independently from the real world, and it is described similarly to a river, being said to "flow" through people in "currents."
The
Ben 10 episode "Perfect Day" has the titular character being trapped in a dream world in order for a group of villains to remove the
Omnitrix from his wrist.
In the
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers episode "For Whom the Bell Trolls," Mr. Ticklesneezer's capture by Rita Repulsa and the Rangers' subsequent battle with the doll are all just a dream of
Trini's.
In the
Mortal Kombat: Conquest episode "Unholy Alliance,"
Shang Tsung places the Great
Kung Lao in an alternate realm modeled after the city of Zhu Zin before the unfortunate deaths of the Reyland family; he refers to the realm as the realm "born from Kung Lao's dreams," validizing it as a dream realm. The good part of the dream realm can only be maintained by Shang for 24 hours – after which Shang can form it into a nightmare world of his choosing, or as he says, "a
Hell he can never escape."
The video games
Link's Awakening and
Super Mario Bros. 2 take place in a dream of
Link's and
Mario's respectively.
Also, in the video game
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, there is a short quest which takes place in a dreamworld.
In the video game,
Fallout 3, a main storyline quest involves the main character going into a virtual reality simulator, referred to as "Tranquility Lane," a dreamworld simulation of a 1950s suburban neighborhood.
In the
UFO episode "Ordeal," Foster's abduction and rescue is explained away as a dream.
In the
Jay Jay the Jet Plane cartoon series, adventures where air-breathing jet planes cannot go (underwater and in space) happen as dreams.
In
JoJo's Bizarre Adventure part 3 "
Stardust Crusaders," Jotaro and his friends and grandpa are put in a dream world which takes the form of an amusement park by Mannish Boy and his Death 13 stand.
In the movie
Sharkboy and Lavagirl the main characters enter a world dreamt up by a small boy in order to save the real world.
In the first two games of the
EarthBound series, the protagonist (Ninten in
EarthBound Zero and Ness in
EarthBound) must travel to a dream world named Magicant. However, the two Magicants are different from each other. Ninten visits his Magicant, which is light pink and has seashell spires and clouds, multiple times during the story, until it is revealed to not be his own Magicant but instead just a collection of the memories of his great-grandmother, Maria. Ness's Magicant is a surreal, spacelike land in a purple sea that Ness only gains access to once he records the eight melodies into his Sound Stone, which he then must travel to the center of in order to overcome his weaknesses, and absorb the power of the Earth into his heart.
See
Deus ex machina for when the author of a series deletes the last part of its timeline and reverts to a previous situation, by stating that the rejected matter was a dream by a character.
The whole of
Zanarkand in
Final Fantasy X was a dream, along with the main character, Tidus.
In
The Wheel of Time book series,
Tel'aran'rhiod is a dream world that exists in close proximity to the real world. Objects and physical locations that do not frequently change in the real world have parallels in
Tel'aran'rhiod. Ordinary people can occasionally slip into
Tel'aran'rhiod, and events that occur within this dream world have physical consequences. A person that dies in
Tel'aran'rhiod will never wake up again, and in several cases it is shown that physical injuries gained there persist to the waking world.
Tel'aran'rhiod can be controlled similar to a
lucid dream, and several characters in the series can enter and manipulate
Tel'aran'rhiod at will.
In
Dragon Quest VI: Realms of Reverie, the game is split between two worlds initially known as the Real World and the Phantom World, named such because any being from the Real World is rendered unseen by the inhabitants of the Phantom World, like a phantom, and are only capable of becoming visible after drinking a special
elixir. After a time, it is revealed that the Phantom World is in fact the true Real World, while the former Real World is called the Dream World, created from the dreams of the people of the Real World, in which each inhabitant has a Dream World counterpart. In addition, the main antagonist of the game, Deathtamoor, plots to try and merge both the Real World and Dream World with his own "Dark World" in an attempt for world domination.
