Dream world (also called
dream realm or
illusory realm) is a commonly used
plot deviceA plot device is an object or character in a story whose sole purpose is to advance the plot of the story, or alternatively to overcome some difficulty in the plot....
in
fictionFiction is a branch of literature which deals, in part or in whole, with temporally contrafactual events...
al works, most notably in
science fictionScience fiction is a genre of fiction. It differs from fantasy in that, within the context of the story, its imaginary elements are largely possible within scientifically-established or scientifically-postulated laws of nature...
and fantasy fiction. The use of a dream world creates a situation whereby a
characterA character is the representation of a person in a narrative or dramatic work of art . Derived from the ancient Greek word kharaktêr through its Latin transcription character, the earliest use in English, in this sense, dates from the Restoration, although it became widely used after its...
(or group of characters) is placed in a marvellous and unpredictable environment and must overcome several personal problems to leave it. The dream world also commonly serves to teach some
moralA moral is a message conveyed or a lesson to be learned from a story or event. The moral may be left to the hearer, reader or viewer to determine for themselves, or may be explicitly encapsulated in a maxim...
or religious lessons to the character experiencing it – a lesson that the other characters will be unaware of, but one that will influence decisions made regarding them.
Dream world (also called
dream realm or
illusory realm) is a commonly used
plot deviceA plot device is an object or character in a story whose sole purpose is to advance the plot of the story, or alternatively to overcome some difficulty in the plot....
in
fictionFiction is a branch of literature which deals, in part or in whole, with temporally contrafactual events...
al works, most notably in
science fictionScience fiction is a genre of fiction. It differs from fantasy in that, within the context of the story, its imaginary elements are largely possible within scientifically-established or scientifically-postulated laws of nature...
and fantasy fiction. The use of a dream world creates a situation whereby a
characterA character is the representation of a person in a narrative or dramatic work of art . Derived from the ancient Greek word kharaktêr through its Latin transcription character, the earliest use in English, in this sense, dates from the Restoration, although it became widely used after its...
(or group of characters) is placed in a marvellous and unpredictable environment and must overcome several personal problems to leave it. The dream world also commonly serves to teach some
moralA moral is a message conveyed or a lesson to be learned from a story or event. The moral may be left to the hearer, reader or viewer to determine for themselves, or may be explicitly encapsulated in a maxim...
or religious lessons to the character experiencing it – a lesson that the other characters will be unaware of, but one that will influence decisions made regarding them. When the character is reintroduced into the real world (usually when they wake up), the question arises as to what exactly constitutes
realityReality, in everyday usage, means "the state of things as they actually exist." Literally, the term denotes what is real; in its widest sense, this includes everything that is, whether or not it is observable or comprehensible. Reality in this sense includes being and sometimes is considered to...
due to the vivid recollection and experiences of the dream world.
According to
J. R. R. TolkienJohn Ronald Reuel Tolkien, CBE was an English writer, poet, philologist, and university professor, best known as the author of the classic high fantasy works The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion.Tolkien was Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford from...
, dream worlds contrast with
fantasy worldA fantasy world is a type of imaginary world, part of a fictional universe used in fantasy novels and games. Typical worlds involve magic or magical abilities and often, but not always, either a medieval or futuristic theme...
s, in which the world has existence independent of the characters in it. However, other authors have used the dreaming process as a way of accessing a world which, within the context of the fiction, holds as much consistency and continuity as physical reality. The use of "dream frames" to contain a fantasy world, and so explain away its marvels, has been bitterly criticized and has become much less prevalent.
Fictional dream worlds
Dream frames were frequently used in medieval allegory to justify the narrative;
The Book of the DuchessThe Book of the Duchess is a dream vision narrative poem by Geoffrey Chaucer.The Book of the Duchess, also known as The Deth of Blaunche[, Encyclopedia Britannica, 1910. Accessed March 11, 2008.] is the earliest of Chaucer’s major poems, preceded only by his short poem, "An...
and
Piers PlowmanPiers Plowman or Visio Willelmi de Petro Ploughman is the title of a Middle English allegorical narrative poem by William Langland. It is written in unrhymed alliterative verse divided into sections called "passus"...
are two such
dream visionA dream vision is a literary genre, literary device or literary convention in which the narrator falls asleep and dreams. In the dream there is usually a guide, who imparts knowledge that the dreamer could not have learned otherwise...
s.
One of the best-known dream worlds is Wonderland from
Alice in Wonderland. Unlike many dream worlds, the logic of the world is like that of actual dreams, with transitions and causality flexible.
In
The MatrixThe Matrix is a science fiction-action film written and directed by Larry and Andy Wachowski and starring Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Joe Pantoliano, and Hugo Weaving...
, Neo and the rest of the humans live inside a dream world. Their brains are hooked up to a computer network that creates this dream world. However, some may argue that this is not a dream world, as it seems completely normal and indistinguishable from reality (aside from time differences).
In the
1939 movieThe Wizard of Oz is a 1939 American musical / fantasy film directed mainly by Victor Fleming from a script by Noel Langley, Florence Ryerson, Edgar Allan Woolf, and others and based on the 1900 children's novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum...
,
OzOz is a fairy country containing four lands under the rule of one monarch.It was first introduced in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum, one of many fairy countries that he created for his books. It achieved a popularity that none of his other works attained, and after four years, he...
from
The Wonderful Wizard of OzThe Wonderful Wizard of Oz is a children's novel written by L. Frank Baum and illustrated by W.W. Denslow. It was originally published by the George M...
was altered from a fantasy world (in the novel) to a dream world of Dorothy's; characters who were independent inhabitants of Oz were transformed into dream parallels of introduced Kansas characters.
In the Disney film version of
Peter PanPeter Pan is a American animated feature produced by Walt Disney and based on the play Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up by J. M. Barrie. It is the fourteenth film in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series and was originally released on February 5, 1953 by RKO Pictures...
,
NeverlandNeverland is a fictional world featured in the works of J. M. Barrie and those based on them. It is the dwelling place of Peter Pan, Tinker Bell, the Lost Boys, and others...
is a dream world from which
WendyWendy Moira Angela Darling is a fictional heroine and female protagonist in the Peter Pan stories by J. M. Barrie, and in most of their adaptations in other media...
wakes at the opened window of the Darling home's
nurseryA nursery is usually, in American connotations, a bedroom within a house or other dwelling set aside for an infant or toddler. A typical nursery would contain a crib , a table or platform for the purpose of changing diapers, as well as various items required for the care of the child...
(her brothers, Michael and John, are still asleep in their own beds).
In the 1980s, the
Nightmare on Elm Street seriesA Nightmare on Elm Street is an American horror franchise that consists of eight slasher films, a television show, novels, and comic books. The franchise began with the film series, which was created by Wes Craven, with various other individuals taking over those jobs for each film sequel...
of horror films introduced a dark dream realm inhabited by the supernatural serial killer
Freddy KruegerFreddy Krueger is a fictional character from the A Nightmare on Elm Street series of horror films. He first appears in Wes Craven's A Nightmare on Elm Street as a disfigured dream stalker who uses a glove armed with razors to kill children and teenagers in their dreams, which ultimately results in...
.
Other fictional dreamworlds include the
DreamlandsThe Dreamlands is a fictional location in the Dream Cycle of H. P. Lovecraft. It is also the setting for a number of pastiches written by other authors....
of H. P. Lovecraft's
Dream CycleThe Dream Cycle is one of the three major categories of the fictional works of H. P. Lovecraft...
; Down Town, the land of nightmares where all people who are in comas go in the movie
MonkeyboneMonkeybone is a 2001 film that combines live-action with stop-motion animation. It was based on Kaja Blackley's graphic novel Dark Town...
, and
The Neverending StoryThe Neverending Story is a German fantasy novel by Michael Ende, first published in 1979. The standard English translation, by Ralph Manheim, was first published in 1983...
's world of
Fantasia-In music:*Fantasia , a free musical composition structured according to the composer's fancy**Fantasia Contrappuntistica, a solo piano piece composed by Ferruccio Busoni...
, which includes places like The Desert of Lost Dreams, The Sea of Possibilities, and the Swamps of Saddness.
Dreamworlds also appear in
Rozen Maidenis a manga series created by the manga author duo, Peach-Pit. The story centers on Sakurada Jun, a young hikikomori boy that finds himself indebted to a living doll by the name of Shinku, a doll of the Rozen Maiden series, who was created by a mysterious but extremely talented dollmaker...
, in the Outback(s) of
The MaxxThe Maxx is an American comic book and animation character created by Sam Kieth and published originally monthly by Image Comics and now collected in trade paperback collections from DC Comic's Wildstorm imprint...
;
Total RecallTotal Recall is a 1990 American science fiction action film. The film features Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sharon Stone, based on the Philip K. Dick story "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale". The film was directed by Paul Verhoeven and written by Ronald Shusett, Dan O’Bannon, Jon Povill, and Gary...
;
Vanilla skyVanilla Sky is a 2001 American psychological thriller movie which has been variously characterized by published film critics as "an odd mixture of science fiction, romance, and reality warp", "part Beautiful People fantasy, part New Age investigation of the Great Beyond", a "love story, a struggle...
; in Dream Land, the main setting of many
Kirby games, in the webcomic
The Dreamland ChroniclesThe Dreamland Chronicles is an all-ages fantasy webcomic and comic book series created by Scott Christian Sava with 3D computer graphics.-Plot summary:...
, in the Maginaryworld from
Sonic Shuffleis a video game for the Dreamcast and was Sega's answer to the Nintendo party game, Mario Party. The game was developed by Hudson Soft, who also developed Mario Party, and co-developed by Sonic Team.-Story:...
, and in Nightopia and Nightmare (collectively known in a place called the "Night Dimension") from
Nights into Dreams...Nights into Dreams... , is a video game released by Sega in 1996 for the Sega Saturn video game system. The game's story follows two children entering a dream world, where they are aided by the main character, Nights...
and its sequel for the
WiiThe is a home video game console released by Nintendo. As a seventh-generation console, the Wii primarily competes with Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3. Nintendo states that its console targets a broader demographic than that of both...
,
Nights: Journey of DreamsNights: Journey of Dreams is a video game for the Wii console. It is the sequel to the 1996 Sega Saturn title Nights into Dreams......
.
The Life and Times of Juniper LeeThe Life and Times of Juniper Lee, also known as Juniper Lee, was an American animated television series, created by Judd Winick and produced by Cartoon Network Studios. The series premiered on Cartoon Network on May 30, 2005.-Premise:...
and the movie
Sailor Moon Super S the Movie: Black Dream HoleSailor Moon Supers: The Movie is the third theatrically released Sailor Moon movie. This simplified name is the one given to the English-subtitled edition released by Geneon, while its full name in Japanese is in the style of the series' episode titles:...
also have dream realms in their universes. The film "
Waking LifeWaking Life is a digitally enhanced live action rotoscoped film, directed by Richard Linklater and released in 2001. The entire film was shot using digital video and then a team of artists using computers drew stylized lines and colors over each frame. The film was Fox Searchlight Pictures' only...
" takes place almost entirely in a dream realm.
Star Trek: VoyagerStar Trek: Voyager is a science fiction television series set in the Star Trek universe. The show was created by Rick Berman, Michael Piller, and Jeri Taylor and is the fourth incarnation of Star Trek, which began with the 1960s series Star Trek, created by Gene Roddenberry...
episode "Waking Moments" uses several dream realms and false awakenings.
The
American Dragon Jake Long episode
Dreamscape takes place mainly in a dream realm. Similarly, the
Xiaolin ShowdownXiaolin Showdown is an American animated television series that aired on Kids WB and was created by Christy Hui. Set in a world where martial arts battles and Eastern magic are commonplace, the series follows four young warriors in training that battle the forces of evil...
episode of the same title also uses the dream world in its plotline.
In
Clamp manga series such as
X/1999,
Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicleis a fantasy shōnen manga series written and illustrated by the mangaka group Clamp. It was serialized in the Kodansha publication Weekly Shōnen Magazine from May 2003 till October 2009...
and
xxxHolic, the dream world is very important to the events that occur within each story. It is later revealed in
xxxHolic that the dream world itself is its own world, as part of the Clamp multiverse. Similarly, in the
BoneBone is an independently published comic book series, originally serialized in 55 irregularly-released issues from 1991 to 2004. Bone was drawn and written by Jeff Smith....
graphic novel series by Jeff Smith, the primary plot device is a dream world called "The Dreaming." It exists independently from the real world, and it is described similarly to a river, being said to "flow" through people in "currents".
The
Ben 10Ben 10 is an American animated series created by "Man of Action" , and produced by Cartoon Network Studios. The pilot episode aired on December 27, 2005, as part of a sneak peek of Cartoon Network's Saturday morning lineup...
episode "Perfect Day" has the titular character being trapped in a dream world in order for a group of villains to remove the
OmnitrixThis is a list of known aliens stored within the fictional Omnitrix device in the American animated television series Ben 10 and its sequel Ben 10: Alien Force....
from his wrist.
In the
Mighty Morphin Power RangersMighty Morphin Power Rangers is an American live-action television series, created for the American market, based on the 16th installment of the Japanese Super Sentai franchise, Kyōryū Sentai Zyuranger. Both the show and its related merchandise saw unbridled overnight success, catapulting into pop...
episode "For Whom the Bell Trolls", Mr. Ticklesneezer's capture by Rita Repulsa and the Rangers' subsequent battle with the doll are all just a dream of
Trini'sTrini Kwan is a fictional character in the Power Rangers universe played by Vietnamese American actress Thuy Trang.She was played by American actress Audri DuBois in the pre-television pilot as "Trini"...
.
In the
Mortal Kombat: ConquestMortal Kombat: Conquest was a TV series that aired for one season from 1998 to 1999, and was based on the popular Mortal Kombat fighting game series. The program was filmed at Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida, and acted as a prequel to the first MK movie.-Storyline:"In each of us there burns a...
episode "Unholy Alliance",
Shang TsungShang Tsung is a video game character in the Mortal Kombat fighting game series. He was the final boss in the first Mortal Kombat game.-About Shang Tsung :...
places the Great
Kung LaoKung Lao is a fictional character in the Mortal Kombat fighting game series.- Overview :Kung Lao is a former Shaolin monk and a member of the former White Lotus Society. He stands in the shadow of his great ancestor, the Great Kung Lao, but unlike his great ancestor he has no desire to be champion...
in an alternate realm modeled after the city of Zhu Zin before the unfortunate deaths of the Reyland family; he refers to the realm as the realm "born from Kung Lao's dreams", validizing it as a dream realm. The good part of the dream realm can also be maintained by Shang for 24 hours - after which Shang can form it into a nightmare world of his choosing.
The video games
Link's Awakening and
Super Mario Bros. 2Super Mario Bros. 2 is a platform video game developed and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo Entertainment System video game console. It was released in North America in October 1988, Europe on April 28, 1989 and Japan on July 14, 1992...
take place in a dream of Link's and
Mariois a fictional character in his eponymous video game series, created by video game designer Shigeru Miyamoto. Serving as Nintendo's mascot and the main protagonist of the series, Mario has appeared in over 200 video games since his creation...
's respectively.
Also, in the video game
The Elder Scrolls IV: OblivionThe Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is a single-player role-playing video game developed by Bethesda Game Studios and published by Bethesda Softworks and the Take-Two Interactive subsidiary 2K Games. It is the fourth installment in The Elder Scrolls action fantasy video game series. It was released on...
, there is a short quest which takes place in a dreamworld.
In the
UFOUFO is a British television science fiction series created by Gerry Anderson and Sylvia Anderson and produced by the Anderson's and Lew Grade's Century 21 Productions for Grade's ITC Entertainment company...
episode
Ordeal, Foster's abduction and rescue is explained away as a dream.
In the
Jay Jay the Jet PlaneJay Jay the Jet Plane is an American CGI children's television cartoon fiction series. It has about 60 episodes. The characters are mostly talking airplanes, and a helicopter, and some humans, and two talking ground vehicles, based at a fictional Tarrytown Airport in the USA...
cartoon series, adventures where air-breathing jet planes cannot go (underwater and in space) happen as dreams.
In
JoJo's Bizarre Adventureis a manga written and illustrated by Hirohiko Araki. Every main character's name in each part can be read as JoJo. The manga, published by Shueisha in their magazine Weekly Shōnen Jump, started in 1987 and went on to 2004. The current story arc was initially published in Weekly Shōnen Jump, but...
part 3
Stardust Crusaders, initially referred to as , is the third story arc in the Japanese manga series JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. It spans chapters 114-265 of the series, which were collected in Vol.12-28 of the Jump Comics tankōbon edition...
, Jotaro and his friends and grandpa are put in a dream world which takes the form of an amusement park by Mannish Boy and his Death 13 stand.
In the movie Sharkboy and Lavagirl the main characters enter a world dreamt up by a small boy in order to save the real world.
In the first two games of the EarthBound series, the protagonist (Ninten in EarthBound Zero and Ness in
EarthBoundEarthBound, known in Japan as , is a role-playing video game co-developed by Ape and HAL Laboratory and published by Nintendo for the Super NES video game console. It was designed by Shigesato Itoi, who also developed its predecessor, Mother, which was released only in Japan. EarthBound was...
) must travel to a dream world named Magicant. However, the two Magicants are different from each other. Ninten visits his Magicant, which is light pink and has seashell spires and clouds, multiple times during the story, until it is revealed to not be his own Magicant but instead just a collection of the memories of his great-grandmother, Maria. Ness's Magicant is a surreal, spacelike land in a purple sea that Ness only gains access to once he records the eight melodies into his Sound Stone. He then must travel to the center of in order to overcome his weaknesses, and absorb the power of the Earth into his heart.
See
Deus ex machinaA deus ex machina is a plot device in which a person or thing appears "out of the blue" to help a character to overcome a seemingly insolvable difficulty...
for when the author of a series deletes the last part of its timeline and reverts to a previous situation, by stating that the rejected matter was a dream by a character.
The whole of Zanarkand in
Final Fantasy Xis a console role-playing game developed and published by Square as the tenth title in the Final Fantasy series. It was released in 2001 for Sony's PlayStation 2. The game marks the Final Fantasy series' transition from entirely pre-rendered backdrops to fully three-dimensional areas, and is also...
was a dream, along with the main character, Tidus.