Dreams and the ability to dream are significant in Llyria. While I have not figured out the mechanics of how each type of dream will work, dreams and the ability of people to dream is a skill or talent.
There are four types of dreams (please note I will re-name them later on), but for now, they are:
1 – Free dreams – dreams one has without any external influence or substances. These are personal dreams that are not shared.
2 – Shared Dreams – dreams dreamt by many, accessed by many. If you are in a shared dream, you may move around and interact with the dream. A shared dream is typically a social or artistic experience.
3 – Bound Dreams – dreams dreamt by ONE person by accessed by many. A bound dream is a shared dream, but you see and experience exactly what the dreamer is dreaming. A bound dream is typically an exposition on ethics, morals, and group identity.
4 – The True Dream – a mythological dream that used to exist in Llyria.
5 – The Dream Sphere – a conceptual entity. The dream sphere does not exist as a place. It is a concept. The Dream Sphere refers to the thing that comes under the influence of a “Dream Collective.” Something close to a collective conscious.
IMPORTANT NOTE:
Two substances modulate a persons ability to dream:
A) Phyrlox (Red Algae) – Exposure to even small amounts of red algae can down-regulate the ability a person has to dream.
B) Lucidium – In its unprocessed form, Lucidium gives you the ability to dream with a high level of dream control and awareness. It also allows you to enter shared dreams and the dreams of certain people pending various rituals or artifacts
– Pure Lucidium – Rare, harvested from the leaves of the Everlast or surrounding plants. Restores the ability to dream, in high concentrations you can enter the dreams of others.
– Unbound Lucidium – Lucidium, in its unprocessed state, allows you to enter the dreams of others
– Bound Lucidium – Processed Lucidium allows you to enter the dreams of only ONE person. That person is usually a Dream Caster.
Bound Dreams
Are a refelction of social truth or morality, Smaller towns and villages typically only have one or two dreamers who dream Bound dreams.
If you remember the post on Farming as an allegory for power, you might recall that in societies that depend on the “till” method of Farming, there is cyclical flooding every harvest, which prevents the emergence of white weed. The runoff water travels downstream and collects along the edges of water systems OR lakes. The presence of this runoff water leads to the formation of “Red Algae.” If you live close to or depend on these water systems, your ability to dream may not work at all. In areas that are regularly affected by red algae, the ability to Free Dream will be regarded with some suspicion, with most people favoring the Bound Dream.
The Bound Dream
This is a little difficult to explain. The Bound Dream is a nightly dream that is “cast” by a “Dream Collective,” and it solidifies or re-enforces the rightness of the chosen “Lived Truth.” People living in areas where they are exposed to Red Algae (usually cities or farmland) are dependent on the “Bound Dream” for their nightly dream. There is no rule forcing people to dream the Bound Dream. They may choose between dreamless sleep or the Bound Dream. If you want to dream the Bound Dream, you need Bound Lucidium.
Casters, Dream Casters & Dream Collectives
Quick note on “The Temple Sect:
As I mentioned, this is a world in which racial equality sits alongside racial purity. “The Temple Sect” is a religious sect based on equality. It includes ALL the gods and deities and practices of ALL the Equal people. It is not important what you believe in. It is only important that you believe. Your beliefs will be weaponized and turned into tools of division. The top-level deity of The Temple Sect is “The Eternal Believer.”
Casters:
Casters are people who can project visuals & visions onto reality. Someone with an ability to cast will typically end up as a member of “The Temple Sect” and travel the entire country “Casting” in various Temples and religious sites. Casters are not themselves religious. Some may be, some may not be. They are typically employed for life by The Temple Sect simply because they can cast visions. A Caster who is not employed by The Temple Sect would be greeted with extreme suspicion, especially in places where “Free Dreaming” is also viewed with suspicion. A person can have some latent ability to cast, which is only triggered during certain moments. The Temple Sect is extremely interested in all casters, so a “Sudden Casting” puts you on their radar. Working as a Caster for the Temple Sect affords you a level of freedom that most people in Llyria do not have. Essentially you have endless sponsored travel with a decent monthly wage. Casters are relatively infrequent in the population, and as such, they have significant bargaining power. Casting is innate. You either can or can’t. The amount of time it takes to learn to cast regularly and sufficiently convincingly makes the teaching of casting almost pointless.
Dream Casters:
Dream Casters are people who have a significant ability to control their dreams and can “Bind” other people to their dreams. Their distinguishing feature is that they do not need “Bound Lucidium” to enter a “Bound Dream.” A Dream Caster and a politician are essentially one and the same in Llyria.
Casters Vsion
Castings typically happen in liminal spaces, corridors, doorways, windows, mirrors, frames.... As seen here, Temples often have large empty frames into which casters project their visuals... The most poweful casters are able to cast anywhere.
Dream Collectives:
Dream Collectives are simply the mask that hides the true face of power. Dream Collectives are circumstantially funded by industries related to Lucidium, Sovereign Families, and The Temple Sect. The purpose of each Dream Collective is to have control over the Dream Sphere for as long as possible using the mechanism of a public vote. Though I haven’t fully worked out the mechanics of the voting system, I want it to symbolize the relinquishing of personal power and sovereignty in exchange for a “narrative” change that does not result in any actual change.
Ideological Change
We live the dream that ideological change every 4 years makes the world a better place when it does not and can not. We sign away personal power and sovereignty to a system design to enable power to accumulate on faraway desks and in faraway buildings.
Dream Casting & The Reasonable Truth
I wrote about Reasonable Truth & The Court of Dreams in the previous post. To re-cap, “Reasonable Truth” is an idea that serves as the basis for the legal system. What is right or wrong is based on “Reasonable Truth.” I have specifically used the word “Reasonable” because it hints at the idea that just by using the powers of reason, we can arrive at a communal truth that works for everyone.
Dream Casters are bound by the law to only dream what is “Reasonably True.” A dreamer whose dream contains elements that may be “questionable” or “untrue” may have a public case against them or their entire Collective. The case is tried in “The Court of Dreams.”
Dream Casters & Politics:
In Llyria, the only thing that matters is HOW the story is told. The ability to choose how the story is told is the soul of the political system. Choose narrative change, not actual change.
I guess what I am getting at is this: In our world (earth), choosing a political side is merely choosing a narrative change. Rarely are we ever choosing “actual” change in a system. We keep the same fallible, corruptible systems of “power over” while we change the details of the “dream.” So invested are we in the significance of the arbitrary details used to differentiate one “Lived Truth” from another.
In Llyria, the powers that be will frequently cite “reasonable truth” as justification for including or excluding some aspects in a dream. To “include or exclude,” they must have or be invested with “power over truth.” If a dream caster or Collective should dream that your properties and possessions are seized, it may be that your properties are seized in the real world.
The Court of Dreams:
A metaphor for the court of public opinion here on earth. Legal cases about the correctness of a dream will be argued out in “The court of Dreams,” where “Dream Casters” and “Curators” are frequently charged with accusations of having dreamed what is not true by “Reasonable Truth.” Verdicts are almost always of no consequence since Dream Casters and collectives are typically supported by large bodies of political power, which make them immune to any punishment of real significance.
Relevance to the Stories:
I don’t see Dream Casters or Dream Casting as a significant element in the stories. I feel these two things will fade into the background and be things that characters speak of, rather than things that are in the foreground.” The court of Dreams” is a little bit like “The court of Public Opinion.”
Relating all this back to Farming:
My idea is that the downstream effects of “till farming” or the type of farming that requires “power over” is a “red algae.” The main property of this “red algae” is that it makes it harder for people to dream their own dreams. So the connection (and it’s something of a stretch) is: that a forced lack of crop diversity in addition to the idea that people have and must have control over nature leads believing beings into the deluded state that they must and should choose ideological change over actual change. I admit it’s a bit of a stretch. But I truly wonder…. what the presence of multiple types of crops and even cuisines from different societies or cultures do to how we perceive difference and how accepting we are “others.” This leads nicely into my next topic of “Table” & “Table Culture”.
.
The Illusion
That ideological change makes society better is a convenient illusion.