"We are such stuff As dreams are made on; and our little life Is rounded with a sleep." ~Shakespeare~
What is the world made of?
“Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake.”
~ Henry David Thoreau~
Dreamweaving is the foundation of all creation; it is the use of Aether, the purest and highest form of magick. Souls are made of Aether, just like the burning stars of Nyxheim. It is the same substance from which dreams are made of, and it is through dreaming that High Deities create.
The physical world is the veil those who live call life. They sleep, and it is lifted. Unconsciously, they let themselves experience the truth of the oneness of all beings. This is the reason why sleeping brings peace to every creature. Nevertheless, when they wake they accept the painted veil over their eyes again. Separateness, egoistic striving, discrimination, hate, war… all this they call the reality of life.
Matter is what makes up the physical world; it is everything that has mass and occupies space. Aether on the other hand composes everything in the Dreaming, Nyxheim’s spiritual world. It is formed of everything that is immaterial: ideas and emotions. For that reason living creatures sustain the world, because they fuel the Dreaming which in turn keeps the world stable and in place. Energy on the other hand is what lies between Matter and Aether, it is both yet at the same time neither. If you need a definition, then Energy is the corporeal manifestation of the immaterial… regardless of how contradictory that might sound.
To summarize, there are two planes in Nyxheim, the physical and the Dreaming. And finally, every single thing you could possibly find in the world is made up of one of these three things: Matter, Aether, or Energy.
The Web of Dreams and Nightmares
“The world is the harmonious soul of many a soul. All is each and each is all. Only those who can see this will be great and free.” ~Fabled words of one of the Angelic Daevas which Hizzah has to name
The Web is what encompasses all and connects every single form of life and matter. You may wonder: where is it located? It is the Dreaming, a spiritual world that overlaps the physical world. It is everything looked from an entirely different perspective. What does it look like? The Dreaming is a realm of eternal twilight, a place filled with countless silhouettes and the play of light and shadows. In its skies there are three Crowns, three floating palaces which are home to Nyxheim’s sovereign trinity. Around it is the Elysian Sea. From it waves rise up to cover all of Nyxheim, leaving life upon their wake, and taking the dead as they retreat. In other words, the sea gift souls for every birth, and delivers a final end for every dead as it drags their souls down with its recoiling waves.
When a person sleeps his soul is more aware of this universal connection provided by the Web of Dreams and Nightmares, and it is for this reason that they may sometimes receive messages through these threads in the forms of dreams or nightmares. Cases of this are not a complete rarity, but for a message to be passed through the Web one must have a clear encoder and a skilled decoder. However, the use of these webs strictly concerns the discipline of Dreamweaving so it is only unconsciously, by chance and unintended that a person can gather some form of knowledge when they sleep. Although oracles are more sensible to the Web, they cannot always choose what they are allowed to see, and they always suffer the risk of misinterpreting the visions they find. When they search through the webs they fall into a trance, as if they were sleeping.
Dreaming connects everything and everyone, but not all threads are the same. True love for example takes the form of a thin red cord tied usually to the pinky finger of the right hand, and it connects two souls or more. For that reason, some lovers who are true to each other feel their beloved besides them at all time, even when they are seas across. So while one may feel an unexplainable anxiety during the day when fear overcomes their beloved, at night when they both sleep, serenity may cradle them when they feel the heartbeat of each other somewhere in a distant land. Love is the strongest form of bond, but there are other types such as loyalty and even hate. The cords that connect some specific souls to others are just a small example of the countless types of threads that compose the Web.
“Once I looked into the Fountain of Dreams and saw a great river. I fell into it, and fear shook me. All about me were drowning souls, their limbs being torn away, their essence broken into dust. Their agonizing screams were piercing and final. It was the end. It was Elysium breaking us down. Their hands tried to hold on to me, tried to pull me deeper, but every time the waters broke them apart before they could harm me. My hands rushed to cover my eyes from the horror, from my impending doom, and then I saw such a thin red cord tied to my pinky. It was like a wisp of a spider’s web, so feeble. Yet, I held on to it and felt comforted, as if I were being embraced by a loving mother after a nightmare. I closed my eyes and allowed the current to take me until I felt strong beams of light pressing against my lids. I opened my eyes and was blinded. As soon as I could see, I noticed I was back again in the Fountain Room and heard the sound of the door closing behind me followed by the soft steps of Adonis. It was all an illusion… No. It was a memory. I now remember…”
~Matthew, Hammer of Godly Thunder~
While the Dreaming is a general term used to speak of the spiritual plane as a whole, the Web is used to refer to that specific aspect of the Dreaming, to that large interconnected oneness that keeps everything together and in place. The Web of Dreams and Nightmares encompasses and sustains Nyxheim, just like space and time hold your universe.
What can be found in the Dreaming?
"To die, to sleep; to sleep, perchance to dream."
~ Shakespeare~
The spiritual plane is like a twisted version of the physical one. Within it, the physical laws are mocked and reality challenged. You will not find any living in there, but you will be able see their ideas and emotions in their purest forms… They run, fly, swim, stand and cry as long as their creators do not forget them. When they do, they die. When their creators die, they also die with them.
High Deities and sprits inhabit the Dreaming, such as Ghosts (Souls of the Dead), Wraiths (Souls trapped between the spirit world and the real world), Sprites (ideas of a single person), Voices(Incarnation of concepts such as Love, Hate, Progress, Fear, etc), Muses, and Reapers (white serpentine creatures dedicated to breaking rouge souls).
The Dreaming is generally a peaceful world, but not necessarily. There are tricksters spread about, and outsiders are harshly treated. The Elysian Sea is a very dangerous area, for the waters of life and forgetfulness can break down any type of spirits, save of course the Reapers.
In dawn and dusk, the Veil between the Dreaming and the world of the living weakens, and the presence of the spirits can more easily be felt. They are the silence when all else is gone, the whispers in the wind, the shadows that can be felt but not seen.
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Royal Seal 21:32, July 14, 2013 (UTC)