Once upon a time, dreams were real.

Long ago, when God spoke to people through dreams and visions, dreams were experienced in flesh and blood. Rather than being a fabrication of the subconscious, dreams were adventures lived by the soul transmuted to a temporary body in a alternate realm between heaven and earth. God created the fantastical galaxy, an eclectic solar system of diverse plates, as a stage in which to delight His children with fantasies as well as instruct them with carefully-orchestrated events. It was, quite simply, a dreamworld.

A realm outside reality, this dreamworld was not bound by the laws of physics or time, and neither were its inhabitants. God populated the dreamworld with a variety of spirits, immortal beings in the form of humans and other humanoid races, to interact with dreamers during their adventures. Like actors in a play, these spirits had no concept of time outside of the dream in which they were currently living. When the dream ended and the dreamer’s soul returned to the real world, the spirits moved on to live a new dream, having no memory of the past and no concept of the future.

The galaxy continued in this endless yet ever-changing rhythm for centuries, but even the dreamworld was not safe from human sin. Men disobey God in their dreams as well as in reality, and one day a dreamer ignored the God-given commandment of a spirit and did the unthinkable—married a spirit and bore a child. Like her father, the child had a soul and sense of time, but like her mother, she was an immortal with no place in reality. Her father’s soul eventually returned to the real world, ending the dream and causing her spirit mother to forget her, but the child could not forget. She was cursed with her father’s ability to remember and carried his language, his traditions, and his religion—a human permanently confined to a dream.

Lonely, the dream-girl married a spirit and bore other children who also had a soul. Her children married other spirits, producing crossbreeds of giants, dwarves, and elves with souls. Soon the souled inhabitants began to multiply and build their own cultures in the galaxy—cultures that did not change with the passage of dreams. More spirits abandoned the pursuit of dreams and joined the humans’ way of life. After some time, the galaxy came to be dominated by a mindset that was fully human—and, consequently, sinful.

Knowing He could not allow the souled humans to live forever, God cursed the dreamworld just as He had Earth. In an act similar to the Flood, He forced the migration of all the humans and some remaining spirits in the dreamworld to one flat planet, which later came to be known as Erde. He then brought darkness upon the galaxy, confining it to the rule of night and day, and destroyed the other planets. When the light again dawned, all that was living found themselves cursed with mortality in the form of “fading.” As the humans continued to develop their own culture, straying further from their earthly roots and forgetting the God that formed them, their world began to fade. Even the ground was obedient to the curse of fading, slowly whitening and crumbling away.

Meanwhile, God cut the dreamworld off from reality and confined future dreamers on Earth to the realm of their subconscious. Dreams were merely fabricated visions generated of the mind; no soul has been allowed to travel to Erde to experience his dreams in flesh and blood.

Until now.

I love it! It sounds like a very exciting world with lots of possibilities.

Very intriguing. I understand the idea more now.


I would imagine that God still speaks to people through dreams and visions.


How did the man manage to keep himself in the dream and marry the spirit woman, instead of waking up?

Thanks. I expanded and clarified the concept a little since you last saw it.

He can, of a truth; I just don't see it, historically or practically, being as common, so it seemed like a good concept to launch off of and modify for the sake of fiction.

No one can wake themselves up from a dream. As for why God didn't wake him up, let me ask you--why didn't God orchestrate events to prevent Eve from sinning?

The reason I mentioned it is due to the theological implications, since it is saying that's how it is in our world, rather than in another world.


What I meant was what is the explanation for how he stayed in the dream and married the spirit woman? Could anyone have stayed in their dream and married someone?

Duly noted, although I don't see it as a problem because God speaking by dreams is far less common now, and nothing in my explanation says He can't--just that He chooses not to do it via a dreamworld. Humans still dream, just in a different way, and that seems to play nicely off the fact that God speaks through visions far less often. It's all fictional, but coincides nicely in my head.

I see no reason why he couldn't have married, especially since it was in the flesh, not merely a vision of the subconscious. I've done some pretty bizarre things in my dreams. I married a Catholic once. Or almost married. I don't remember. I just remember that he was Catholic for reasons beyond my comprehension...

Ah, so it's just not in the dreamworld. That makes sense, then.


So anyone could have married a spirit in the dreamworld, and he was just the only one to do it? But wouldn't other people have dreamed of marriage, too?

Bahahaha!! *cough* Sorry to derail. That sounded almost like something I'd dream.

More importantly, he was the first to have a child actually born of a spirit--as opposed to dreaming about children already born, or other such things. While anyone could have, the idea is that he wasn't supposed to; God did not encourage such things, but he directly disobeyed. Also, it was a long time ago...

Was he aware that he was disobeying?

Yes. He "disobeyed a direct commandment." So although it wasn't an established "rule" for the world--"Thou shalt not marry"--because the world was constantly changing, in this man's particular dream, it was intentional, conscious sin.

Ah. When and where had God commanded men on earth not to do certain things in their dreams?

It would have been commanded in the dream, not on earth, as dreams are all uniquely orchestrated.

Did people have greater awareness in the dreamworld than they do in "normal" dreams?

Yes; subconscious imagination is by nature more surreal, foggy, and transient, although there is always an element of personal experience to it.

Okay. I think I'm finally understanding it.

Thanks for all the questions.

Thank you for answering them.

I like it.

*is very happy that little brother likes it*