Disclaimer: The following document fragment is presented from an in-character perspective, it should not be taken as the truth of the setting.
Context: For this week we look into two excerpts presenting insight into the more practical aspects of Oneiromancy. In this first text, we look at the issue of how the subjective perception of distance between dreams arises and the various factors that influence it.
Dreams, what does distance mean when dreaming, on the other side, where the laws of physics exist only as ideas in our minds?
Dreams are not separated from each other by distance in the same way places in the waking world are. And yet, there is a similarity to the nature of fractal space and the dream, to the point we may wonder if space itself does not descend from the deep. We say, so, this is the surface, but I sometimes think of the dream and space and see myself as an entity standing at the edge of a dark, underwater brine pool — a lake within an ocean. To me, this might be the surface of the lake, but there are upper bounds to the body of water I occupy. Perhaps perceptible to some other being. Higher limits of reality.
Nonetheless, you do not read this book to hear an old man’s musings on the shape of his Mask. Instead, you want to know about the distances between dreams.
Dreams experience locality. We can think of the distance between them as the difficulty of detecting one from another and subsequently making the crossing between them. Thus when dreams are close, you can feel the other from within, as if there was some invisible thread between them that you can follow. Conversely, when dreams are far away, they escape our perception, hidden beyond the horizon of our mind.
Dreams are close when the dreamers are close. That is why there is a correlation between dreams and the waking world. When we interact with each other, even briefly, we spin invisible webs between each other, webs through which we bind our dreams together. But that is also why they break the confines of physical space, while our tightly knit bounds transcend space, and the stands of strong emotion linger regardless of physical distance. That is why our friends and our family abide with us, no matter where we go. As long as we are bound to someone by an intimate connection, they will remain there, within reach.
But what we feel around us, when we immerse ourselves in the dream, is primarily based on those we encounter, even if those interactions are trivial. Cities dream together. Planets dream together, even if the scope of all humanity is beyond our sight. Perhaps further still, galaxies and even universes share their dreams, and there exist entities whose sight reaches the vast spans of these oceans of thought. But maybe, by that point, our own dreams become so utterly small and insignificant.
In that way, I see it as not different from the fractal space of our physical reality. The collapsing spaces between points of self-similarity are like the bounds we shape with others — the distance cut to but an insignificant fraction by laws of higher order. We look at the vastness of the universe, the inhospitable scale of it all. Both in the dream and the waking world, we stand at the edge of a tremendous dark deep, and there is no room for us within its bounds; we enter it briefly, opening ourselves to its danger, and then we escape back to the womb of our species.
We jump from dream to dream, strengthen and sever the bonds between them at will, like a spider pruning its net. But is it our right to do so? Or is it merely an exercise of our power over those powerless to stop us?
Esoteric Musings... 