This feels like a weird topic to bring up here, as the Dreamsleeve is one of those TES lore concepts that we take for granted, like the towers or CHIM. But I'm having trouble finding a single reference to the Dreamsleeve in-game, in the PGE, or in the Keyes novels. In fact, the only evidence I *can* find from those sources points to a more traditional model of the afterlife.

The Raga believe in the Far Shores, the Nords believe in Sovngarde (which, at least, has been definitively proven to exist), and the last rites at Imperial execution commends souls to Aetherius, which the PGE 3rd Edition tells us is the home of the Divines and other Aedra. The only reference to a "dreaming-sleeve" that I can find is in the Mythic Dawn Commentaries, and even that doesn't really suggest a process of reincarnation to me. In fact, the only instances of reincarnation that we do know of come from Shezarr's multiple avatars, and Azura squishing one of her servants' souls into some poor schmuck.

Arkay is the god of death and birth, but nowhere can I find a reference to recycling souls. In fact, in "Ark'ay, the God of Birth and Death", the man who would become Arkay said "There are far more souls in the Universe than there is room for in the physical world. But it is in the physical world that a soul has an opportunity to learn and progress. Without birth, souls would not be able to acquire that experience, and without death there would be no room for birth." This suggests, at least to me, that a soul only gets one shot on Nirn, and after that they go to whatever afterlife their actions in life wrought.

Am I missing something really obvious? I hate to bring up the issue of canon, as it's always a sticky subject 'round these parts, but when the outside material seems to directly contradict what we know in-game, I have to ask.

EDIT: To clarify, I have no problem with the Dreamsleeve-as-wizard-Internet that we see in the obscure texts. I'm merely wondering about the whole cycle of death and rebirth.

I personally think that there is simply not enough souls in existance to make a Dreamsleeve-less world possible. The mortal Arkay is also just one interpretation (and a strange one), I don't know how many people actually believe that it's true, so I can't determine whether the belief of that will shape the reality of it.

It also seems rather pointless, existence that is, without the Dreamsleeve. Having only one shot to pass into something greater (CHIM or ARAMANTH) seems a useless endeavour. If you want the maximum amount of souls to attain this (which is presumably what Lorkhan wanted), the logical thing you do is to make it a cycle so that the soul goes round and round until it succeeds, and then break free of.

Dreamsleeve does that. It's a constant cycle of attempts, with failures resulting in total memory wipe, so when the soul is reborn, it can try something totally new. You cannot do something completely different, if one is still bogged down with past attempts. And once people start getting it, the Dreamsleeve can finally run dry.

Well the memory wipe thing doesn't help people from making the same mistake over and over again. There is no learning involved with that it seems. It would just be a game of chance, eventually you'll stumble upon the right method and escape.

How does this all tie into the Godhead?

I know, for some reason I explained why the Dreamsleeve is a good thing, instead of explaining why it would be bad without it. Excellent work by me then


Your failure lives on in the stories of others, it's not about the individual succeeding, it's about trying to get everyone to get it right. It's not good if only a single person goes poof without telling everyone.

A dreaming god can forget.

How many of our own dreams do we actually remember in detail? Not many.

I meant the dreamsleeve in general. How is it a part of the sleeping godhead? Nevermind, I'm just going to go watch Inception again.

It's a part of the Mundus. The Mundus is a part of the Godhead.

But all of this is operating on the assumption that the Dreamsleeve is a canonical part of TES lore. What I'm asking is, is there any actual evidence that it is?