"Now, Kitty, let's consider who it was that dreamed it all. This is a serious question, my dear, and you should NOT go on licking your paw like that—as if Dinah hadn't washed you this morning! You see, Kitty, it MUST have been either me or the Red King. He was part of my dream, of course--but then I was part of his dream, too! WAS it the Red King, Kitty? You were his wife, my dear, so you ought to know—Oh, Kitty, DO help to settle it! I'm sure your paw can wait!" But the provoking kitten only began on the other paw, and pretended it hadn't heard the question.
Which do YOU think it was?
Which do YOU think it was?
— Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass
"Planet Earth. Or, as the rest of the omniverse calls it, the orb of dreams. The occupants of which spend so much time asleep and dreaming. Their vast imaginations humming away, charged with creative energy. Where does it all go? Up through a cerebral umbilical cord, where it collects and melds with all the other dreamer's energy. And something wonderful happens – it forms a world. An ethereal dreamscape of adventure and possibilities. An abstract plane of beautiful wonderment. Just waiting to be explored, And you can go there now..."
— Opening narration to LittleBigPlanet
Got to be careful. You spend too much time swinging from that jungle gym inside your skull and you'll fall right off the bars.
— Narrator, Little Worlds
William Shakespeare: My own pretty words aside, life is no play. We meet people once, and never see them again. There is no shape to events, no point at which we turn to the audience for praise. No time at which we step behind the stage, to see the actors changing their wigs, and painting their faces, and muttering their lines.
Morpheus: But that is precisely where you are now, Will.
Speak to me of raindrops and I'll sell you a migraine. Breathe in my ear and I'll vomit forth rainbows in which all the wisdom of Greece can be heard. Confused? Get used to it. If you venture forth into the Dreaming, you must accustom yourself to contradictions.
You have already visited the Dreaming many time; perhaps the adventures you had there seemed beyond your control, or perhaps you have already learned the ways of what mortals call "lucid dreaming," the art of moving yourself through the Maya with conscious deliberation rather than instinct. Maybe you have even accomplished the astral visitation known as hayimn, where your mind seeps across the barriers of other sleeping minds and steps into a communal Realm. Or possibly the fae have invited you on one of their mad dances, intoxicated you just enough to share the wellspring of their nature. And, of course, you have read books. Many books. And in each book lie the seedlings of a dream.
—Mage: The Ascension - The Book Of Worlds
I once studied the Fade as a scholar, dissecting it, as a child might a rat or a frog. I was young and craved the power conquering the Fade could bring. I tried in vain to chart its paths, and when that failed, I attempted to secure them. In my arrogance, I struggled against the Fade's very nature. How does one pin down a dream? How can one control a thought so that it might travel always the same course from conception to completion?
Only when I let go of my desires and humbled myself was the Fade opened to me. The spirits came and took it upon themselves to be my guides, my lanterns in the darkness. At their command, the paths grew still, and I could walk them again and again. I was shown vast oceans, containing not water, but memories, drawn from the minds of dreamers. I drifted through frozen moments, like paintings, perfect in each detail. As I explored this impossible realm, the spirits kept darker things at bay. I came to trust them, even love them, and I saw my own love reflected in them.
To know the Fade, one cannot seek to master it. The Fade is the master, the teacher. We are merely apprentices.
To know the Fade, one cannot seek to master it. The Fade is the master, the teacher. We are merely apprentices.
—"Writings of Magister Callistus of Taraevyn", Dragon Age: Inquisition
"The Dreamland is no childish metaphor for sleep, it is the collective subconsious of all living things in the universe. What did you think it was, your brain trying to organize the events of the day? Of course not. Anyways, the Dreamlands are just as important as what you might call 'Reality.' 'It Was All A Dream!' means that, on some level, it actually happened to you. In fact, there are whole civilizations that exist only within the Dreamlands."
— wesleythomasm, YouTube comment on A Thousand Eyes by Miracle of Sound
