Dreamwalker's Syndrome

Content Warning: This article discusses a medical condition that can result in serious physical and mental injury and death.

"You think that's air you are breathing?" - Cailtram, the King of Dreams

The Dream is the realm of ideas, concepts and association. While physical creatures can practice the art of Dreamwalking, it is not a safe place for them to linger. Physical bodies that spend a long time in the Dream begin to incorporate more and more dream-stuff into themselves, resulting in the condition known as Dreamwalker's Syndrome.

Causes

Physical bodies are constantly exchanging materials with the environment around them. People breathe, eat, drink, and excrete a wide variety of substances. In the Physical Realm, this is all fine and natural. But when you take that physical body into the Dream Realm, things begin to go wrong.

The Dream is not made up of physical matter, but rather the ideas and concepts of the universe. Dreamlands are created by the associations of those ideas to each other, and while they often resemble physical locations, they are fundamentally different. Amazingly, people can manage to survive for a time while breathing the idea of air and eating conceptual food, but over time their bodies begin to become composed of dream-stuff. This does not typically end well.

Symptoms

The symptoms of Dreamwalker's syndrome are as varied as the imagination, but ultimately arise from parts of the body being hightly responsive to the natural laws of the Dream, such as the Egregoric Force. The dream-stuff tends to be uniformly distributed through the body, with higher concentrations in the eyes and brain towards the beginning. Experienced dreamwalkers often report that itchy eyes are the earliest sign that they have spent too long in the Dream, and must find an exit soon.

Continued exposure will result in more significant and debilitating consquences. Eye color may begin to fluctuate wildly, as different colors gain local ascendency in the victim's mind. Neurological symptoms are usually the next to appear, with strange ideas invading the victim's thoughts and attempting to integrate themselves into their identities. During this period, the victim is prone to sleepwalking, glossolalia, projected hallucinations, and the loss of control of parts of their body. More than one dreamwalker has found their one of their hands attempting to carry out plans independently, or has begun compulsively singing lullabies in languages they don't know. Maintaining the mental focus for Dreamwalking is very difficult when this stage is reached, and sufferers frequently need assistance to navigate their way out.

In the final stages, the body begins to come apart altogether. Dream-stuff that has been incorporated into the dreamwalker changes its physical properties in response to the local thoughts, becoming incompatible to the body. The body's mucous membranes dissolve first, often with the dream-stuff transmuting into whatever materials the victim was thinking about at the time. As the condition progresses, the body will suffer from systemic transmutations. For example, if the idea of stone were to become dominant, all the bits of dreamstuff in a person's body could suddenly petrify, with gruesome consequences to the flesh they are embedded in. By this point, death is swift - although a strong-willed Dreamwalker might be able to keep going for a while after the death of their physical body, using their Eidolon and Pneuma to drag their physical body around for a time.

Treatment

There is only one way to treat Dreamwalker's Syndrome - get out of the Dream. Once back in the physical realm, the symptoms will stop getting worse, and will fade over time. In the early stages, a few days of rest will be sufficient. More advanced cases may take weeks or months to recover from, and the most serious cases are fatal. More than one Dreamwalker has escaped the Dream as a walking corpse and only finishes dying once someone convinces them that they are already dead (or when enough of the dream-stuff has gone from their body that their eidolon can no longer pretend they are alive successfully).

The keepers of the Fáros Óneiro are the most experienced in treating Dreamwalker's syndrome, and are best suited to dealing with the complications that attend advanced cases (such as when the idea of fire emerges as physical reality). If possible, try to exit via the Dreaming Lighthouse.

Type

Supernatural

Origin

Natural

Cycle

Short-term

Rarity

Rare

Do Not Eat or Drink in Fairyland

Most dreamwalkers know not to eat or drink the food within the Dream. While simply breathing the "air" of the Dreamlands is enough to bring about Dreamwalker's Syndrome in time, eating and drinking dream-stuff will bring it on much more quickly. Smart Dreamwalkers carry their own food into the Dream with them, and will eat nothing else.

Holding Onto Yourself

When suffering from advanced Dreamwalker's Syndrome, the best thing the victim can do is to focus intently on their own self-image. As the thinking being most closely associated to the dream-stuff within the body, they can exert significant pressure on it to remain compatible with the physical components. Inattention is deadly in these cases, and those best able to retain their focus will fare best.

Interestingly, this can sometimes result in transformations of the Dreamwalker's body. In cases where their self-image and their physical body are not aligned, they may emerge from the Dream with a body that has been altered to match their concept of themself. This can change a person's age, sex, or even species. It is extremely hazardous to attempt this on purpose, as transformations only occur in the most advanced cases.

Dreamwalker's Undeath

Every now and then, a dead Dreamwalker walks out of the Dream, their body being animated by their eidolon. Usually, they finish dying pretty soon thereafter. But occasionally they don't and the result is one of the Walking Dead. You can read more about them here.