The Dreaming
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The Dreaming is another name for the Dreamtime, a key concept in Australian Aboriginal culture and mythology
The Dreaming is also the title of an album and of a song by Kate Bush.
The Dreaming is also the name given to the realm of dreams which is the original home of the fae in the role-playing game Changeling: The Dreaming, part of the World of Darkness line published by White Wolf.
The Dreaming has also recently become the new band name assumed by the ex-lead singer of the band "Stabbing Westward".
The Dreaming is a part of a fictional, supernatural world used as the setting for several comic book series and graphic novels, particularly The Sandman by Neil Gaiman, all published by the Vertigo imprint of DC Comics.
In these books, The Dreaming is the domain of a character named Dream, and is postulated as the place visited by people when they sleep.
In Dream's words "The way to the center is a slow spiral. One passes the houses of mystery and secrets - old way stations on the frontiers of nightmare - from there one charts a course nightward until one reaches the gates of horn and ivory. I carved them myself, when the world was younger, and order was needed. The dreams that pass through the gates of ivory are lies, figments and deceptions. The other admits the truth..."
The Houses of Mystery and Secrets, are two buildings which were remnants of DC's old series of the same titles, which were introduced by the eerie brothers Cain (House of Mystery) and Abel (House of Secrets). The two brothers are clearly named after the first Biblical brothers, technically 'the first story'.
The Gates of Horn and Ivory admitting the true and false dreams are born of old myths and legends, reinvigorated by Gaiman.
At the centre of the Dreaming is Dream's castle, (containing among other cavernous rooms, the Library and Lucien, the librarian). The castle is guarded by Dream's three Guardians, a Gryphon, a Wyvern, and a Hippogriff, all mythological/fictional beings.
The ephemeral and confusing nature of many of the details of the Dreaming are apparently deliberate on the part of the authors, who use this as a means of creating a sense of wonder.
The Dreaming has since become an American comic book which ran for 60 issues, as a spinoff series from The Sandman.
External links
- Exceptional Summaries of many of the Dreaming Comics (http://www.comicboards.com/dcguide/Dmg/Title_Index.htm)
- A Chronological Look at the Dreaming Comics Series (http://continuitypages.com/sandmanPOSTGAIMAN.htm)