The Dreamspace

The Dreamspace is a dimension filled with endless currents of high-energy Psions, or psionic energy. Its occurrences and aberrations are actively influenced by the thoughts and feelings of countless beings and machines across dimensions. However, the sector of the Dreamspace accesible to mankind is most influenced by its own existence, beliefs and activities. It can also act as a “nexus”, connecting different realities and points of space through itself. The Dreamspace is also known as the Dream, the Warp, and by the scientific community as the Chaos Nexus, due to its lack of concrete laws. Certain paths through the Dreamspace can drastically shorten the distance between one point in realspace and another, if the skills or the knowledge required to employ them are used.

Psionic energy can randomly develop motion and even thought of its own, mirroring the imagination of realspace creatures, and take bizarre corporeal forms. These immaterial denizens of the Dreamspace have a variety of forms and personalities. Some appear as manifestations of human religious figures and mystical beings, and can be communicated with, although only some are cooperative, fewer less benevolent. However, most are borne from the thoughts and feelings of alien races, unknowable machines and man's more primal instincts. All of these are collectively known as Dream Creatures or Living Dreams. If they are particularly powerful, generally due to massed religious veneration, they may be known as Pseudogods. Despite only being representations of religious figures, a fact which they are often (but not always) aware of, they possess immense power.

Sometimes, by accident or otherwise, Living Dreams may find themselves stranded or summoned into realspace, either independently or by fusing with a living being. While psionic energy is capable of autonomously adopting forms which prevent dreams from exploding into a burst of psions or collapsing unto themselves, this process normally lacks much guidance if any, and the end result is usually an Eldritch Creature 👾. Those which have fused with a human being tend to be more stable, but those which passed into our world on their own take the most nightmarish of forms and often suffer from unbearable agony. It is rare for an Eldritch Creature to gain a physiologically logical form upon entering realspace, but it can happen if the summoned living dream is given time to prepare and "test the waters" of realspace, though this does not assure that they will design a form that is understandable to the human mind. It will, however, prevent the berserk rage that characterises most Eldritch Creatures, allowing them to exist in our world practically indefinitely. This can also happen if the Eldritch Creatures survives for long enough in realspace, adapting itself to the environment.

The Dreamspace can be accessed by a dreamgate, also known as a conduit or a warpgate. These can range from controlled, molecular-sized gates such as those on the brain of a Psychic, to large, consistently open gates which allow passage into the Dreamspace itself. Keeping a conduit open is extremely dangerous, as it generates a disturbance that draws Living Dreams to it. The more psychic energy is drawn from a gate, the higher the chance a Living Dream is siphoned out and transformed into an Eldritch Creature 👾, while pulling enormous amounts of psionic energy alongside itself. This is known as a Psychic Meltdown.

All creatures that dream when asleep do so in the Dreamspace, which is manipulated unconsciously by their slumbering will. Breaking out of one’s dreams into the wider Dreamspace is doable by anyone, although dangerous for the uninitiated, as the sleeping soul is practically invisible to the denizens of this realm, but the conscious observer is not. All analytical machinery has a mirror image in the Dreamspace denominated by Psionic Theory as the Alter-Ego, but colloquially (and perhaps more accurately) called the Soul. Psionic damage to one's soul may result in becoming Soulwound, though if it is completely destroyed (or devoured), one might become Hollowed. This has no immediate effect on one's material existence, but the wheels of causality will soon turn against what has stopped existing on one side, and therefore, should not exist in the other.

Entering the Dreamspace to explore it is commonly called psi-diving, and those who venture into the unknown, psi-divers. Just setting foot in this realm is fatal to material existence, immediately causing the soul to enter a Self-Dreaming Loop unless adequate psi-protective equipment is used. For the uppermost layers, a Sleepdive Suit is sufficient, but going deeper may require specialised submarine-like vehicles colloquially called blackboats, equipped not only with Scranton Reality Anchor technology, but also bleeding-edge stealth coatings that prevent the most dangerous of Living Dreams from even realising they have company. Certain individuals may eventually, under rare and irreplicable circumstances, acquire the ability to traverse the Dreamspace without needing protective equipment, becoming a Hellwalker.

Upon diving into the Dreamspace, despite its bizarre landscapes and inhabitants, one might notice a familiar sight in Sol, our sun. This is, in fact, the Earth, and it is the only useful indicator of bearing or position in this non-euclidean and seemingly infinite realm. For this reason, it has been called the Lighthouse since time immemorial, a name that Psionic Theory eagerly adopted. The further away one travels from the Lighthouse, the deeper one is diving. During certain environmental events within the Dreamspace, the Lighthouse may become obscured or non-visible. This is cause for much concern, as perceiving oneself to be lost has power in this realm, and lost divers tend to go down, deeper into the bowels of hell.

For its exploration and study, the Dreamspace is divided into layers, depending on their proximity to the Lighthouse, and therefore, the degree of influence that humanity exercises on them.