Greetings all,

I love dreaming. I love learning about dreaming. And I aspire to be a master lucid dreamer (thanks, Lucas).

And so it is no surprise that I have an entire world (universe, really) dedicated to dreaming. In other words... it has an oneiric cobha.

Oneiric is a very rare word (except it was recently integrated into the name for the next version of Ubuntu, so it might become more common in future years, at least among geek circles) so I will not be surprised if you've never heard of it before. It basically means dream like or pertaining to dreams. Cool word, and it is pronounced oh-NAIR-ick.

Anyway, making an oneiric cobha is ridiculously hard. I mean, one of the most fundamental unique aspects of dreaming is the existence of false knowledge. Where you "know" that person is such and such or is going to do this or that and that you must do so and so because the whatchamacallit is going to do this and that. It isn't told you, it isn't even shown you. You just know.

And it changes all the time. Nothing is stable. Nothing is static. (Except when you have a static dreamworld, and those are simply awesome.)

How in the wide world of madness do you put something like that into a story? No idea. Don't ask me.

But I guess you'll have to, 'cause that's what this thread is about. Sort of.

It isn't about how to write about real dreams, but about worlds that are... like dreams. Whose cobha is oneiric.

So, I've got some ideas for my world, but I want to know what all your ideas are first before I go and spoil it all.

Sounds like Inception.

I wondered how long it would take for someone to bring it up. Anyway, yes, there are things one can learn from Inception to help you in developing oneiric cobha. But it isn't oneiric cobha... and it wouldn't really work too well as one.

I actually read a Terry Pratchett book involving dreams; how they're never completely right. You know you're dreaming, but don't know.

I'd have to go with something like Lewis Carrol, where things are some-what normal, but the differences are different enough to be bizarre.

Yes, Alice in Wonderland is a good example. Though it's a bit too... silly in a sense for a full epic landscape of a universe.

Yes, finding out the limits of change is vital, I found.

Well, if you check out the Path of Life thread in my world subforum, you'll find that I have three worlds in the Ithelak-Alronia-Cordime mythos. Cordime is the mind world, and that is the one which I am talking about.

Does that help?

So... you're talking about a world that is a dream, or a dream that is a world, except they're really the same thing. A world that feels like a dream, that works like a dream, where physics can be overthrown in an instant and where you're never sure the rules won't change?

And when the rules do change it's not always a problem because you know they've changed, you know how they've changed, and you can change to cope with them.

Am I getting this right?

Sort of... it's more subliminal than that I think, though.

The true rules never change. But the manifestations of those rules can change at the drop of a hat. Once you learn and master the true Name of something you know its rules, and thus can become its owner, its god in a sense. Then, and only then, can you have full power over something. Even yourself.

I can't decide whether that sounds vague and confusing or ordinary in the fantasy genre.

* chuckles *

Each person is on a quest to discover their own Name, and to master at least partially the realm in which they reside. Some learn the ways of multiple realms, few actually master a realm completely.

This is really cool! Dreams always have been something that interest me.

Does anything in your oneiric world have anything that predicts or hints at the future?

Hmmm... a Seer (someone who has the ability to traverse the three worlds without dying) could learn about future events in one world by going to Cordimu and mastering the Name of something from the future of one of the other worlds, thus deducing pieces of the future... or possibly just talking to someone who died in the future and asking them. That might work.

Wow. I'm not sure I entirely understand.

I can agree with you there. But then, I also understand parts of it, even though they get confusing.

Is it like a metaphor for everyone's subconscious quest to find who they truly are? Or similar?