Where is the Dreamsleve and is it for Daedra? : The Elder Scrolls Series Discussion

» Wed Aug 04, 2010 5:59 am

The spirit realm is not a location, but rather as 1999 noted a spiritually percieved environment. If somebody had levitated high above the IC while you were fighting Umaril they would have noticed nothing out of the ordinary due to them not 'being in the spirit realm', ie, not being dead theirself - afterall, you had to die to get there...

An individual cannot travel there physically since you're not really going anywhere, only in spirit or in mind. Notice that your body stayed in Garlas Malatar when you were fighting Umaril the second time, it was your spirit that entered the realm, the realm of spirits. Umaril's destination wasn't some "spirit realm" whose location is in the sky above Cyrodiil, his destination was Oblivion, you cut him off before he could get there, your spirit intercepted his spirit in the sky over Cyrodiil. The fight could have hypothetically taken place anywhere between Mundus & Oblivion. At that point you were pure spirit, which is the same thing as being in the spirit realm.

The spirit of Umaril should not be confused with a ghost. A ghost is ectoplasm animated by a soul, Umaril was just the soul. You can see a ghost, you can't see the soul, you can capture it, but you can't interact with it unless you are in the spirit realm and you can't be in the spirit realm unless you are a spirit.

One other thing we can learn from the encounter with Umaril is that a body can only kill another body, but that won't directly kill the soul (afterall it can still be trapped). However, a spirit can kill a spirit, utterly annihilating its existence (which sorta makes me wonder if a shehai could manage it).

Edited for clarification.

Your last para answers why the Daedra would not like the Dreamsleve/spirit realm - I'm sure they have spirits and so if they were encountered by a Spirit walker they could be killed forever = no return to Oblivion. And the Daedra created Oblivion in such a way that they couldnot be killed.

Accepted that the spirit realm may not have a physical dimension viewed from the outside ... however have you considered that it might have an inner structure or space?

edit: dominick's response:

Dominick
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Re: Predictions
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Maybe the dreamsleeve is a kind of connection with Aetherius and Mundus(The word sleeve kinda brings to mind a tunnel realm of passage). When playing the main quest, in the Sancre Tor part, the dead Blades say they go to Aetherius, I used that as a reference. If the knights of the nine "ascended" events took place in the Dreamsleeve, it would be perceived as Mundus by the Spiritual entity, in that case a location virtually generated to appear high above the imperial city. I read somewhere that Mundus is separated from Aetherius by Oblivion, the Dreamsleeve would thus be a dimension passing through oblivion, unperceivable by Daedra but accessible by daedra lords(It's how they get Daedric souls). with totally different spheres of existence, some relatively nice - like the Shivering Isles or Azura's realm of Moonshadow. It's hard to imagine though how they are separated, Dimensions are not like spheres inside one another like a matroska, rather than layers of existence separated by powerful universal forces.

» Wed Aug 04, 2010 10:11 am

Your last para answers why the Daedra would not like the Dreamsleve/spirit realm - I'm sure they have spirits and so if they were encountered by a Spirit walker they could be killed forever = no return to Oblivion. And the Daedra created Oblivion in such a way that they couldnot be killed.

In terms of why death svcks for Daedra:

"Actually, the incantation of the neonymic drains the vital force from an immortal, forcing him to follow that force into Oblivion. There one abides until the vital force is replenished. The experience is somewhat anologous to sleep for mortals. However, sleep is a normal experience for mortals. It is NOT a normal experience for an immortal. Suffice it to say that it is as close to the terror and despair of death as an immortal can come."

"Daedra do not really die. Not as you know death. But we can sacrifice ourselves to Oblivion. As she did. Oblivion is existence and self-awareness without the ability to see, hear, or affect the world. For an immortal it is hell -- Unspeakable pain and horror -- Absolute loss. Eventually we do return. But not all return as they were. There is sickness. Madness. Change."

Oblivion here however is not understood as the realms of Oblivion, ie, you're not banishing them back to their realm - this can be inferred from Imago also mentioning that Dagon "is cast into the Void" upon this action.

Furthermore, a daedra being cast into the Void upon banishment isn't the same as a mortal going to dreamsleeve upon death, note that Jaciel Morgan was trapped in the dreamsleeve and this is seen as something distinct from Deyanira Katrece being cast into Oblivion.

Accepted that the spirit realm may not have a physical dimension viewed from the outside ... however have you considered that it might have an inner structure or space?

I see no reason why the spirit realm would have an 'inner space', mainly because it implies something physical which defeats the whole idea.

"Maybe the dreamsleeve is a kind of connection with Aetherius and Mundus(The word sleeve kinda brings to mind a tunnel realm of passage). When playing the main quest, in the Sancre Tor part, the dead Blades say they go to Aetherius, I used that as a reference. If the knights of the nine "ascended" events took place in the Dreamsleeve, it would be perceived as Mundus by the Spiritual entity, in that case a location virtually generated to appear high above the imperial city."

A helpful reference:

"Death results in reappropriation of spirit towards its aligned AE?either to the god-planet Aedra or the Principalities of Oblivion."

"Aligned AE" refers to whatever the mortal happens to have become connected to in life. "We mortals leave the dreaming-sleeve of birth the same, unmantled save for the symbiosis with our mothers..."http://www.imperial-library.info/obbooks/mythic_dawn_commentaries.shtml. You are born connected only to the world and thus the natural alignment is to Nirn and its function of the dreamsleeve. This can be circumvented by aligning to Aedra, Daedra, Vivec, Camoran's Paradise or whatever else you can get your soul anchored to.

The term anchor is comparable to alignment. Your soul has one anchor here on Mundus, your body, and whatever's on the other end of the anchor-chain is where you go when you die (when your anchor here is severed) - whatever your anchor-chain is tied to is your alignment. Reference "You think you can svck the power from me and cast me into Oblivion? Well, it is not so simple as that. So long as my power is anchored to this world, I can resist the outflow of my magica. If not forever, then certainly long enough to blast you and your incantation into component syllables. And consider, fool. No mortal weapon ever forged has the power to sever my anchor to this realm"http://www.imperial-library.info/tsobs/part07.shtml.

This effect can be seen with the Mythic Dawn anchoring/aligning themselves to Paradise and thus going there when they die, with Umaril anchoring himself with Oblivion and thus going there when he died, a Dunmer being bound to the world upon death and thus staying to serve as an ancestor guardian, Vivec being bound to the Heart and thus not being able to really be killed, etc.

This views the dreamsleeve as being the default location of the anchor-chain with the individual being able to align or change that location, but even the dreamsleeve is not as cut-and-dry as just being a big recycling bin. The Daedra enter the sensory deprivation of sleep upon death as they're cast into the Void until they return. Vivec as an immortal says that he also experienced being "fully asleep" when he died, however this didn't seem to be a horrible experience for him, likely because for him unlike the Daedra, sleep was a normal experience. Within the dreamsleeve the individual dreams the afterlife they believed in, a dream in which they slowly succumb to the erasure of the dreamsleeve - an effect that seems to even affect ghosts bound to Mundus who slowly lose their memories the longer they stay http://www.imperial-library.info/mwbooks/ancestor.shtml.

And so if you're only basing your views off of the Imperial at Sancre Tor and you just assume that everybody goes to the dreamsleeve upon death regardless, then its easy to see why you might think that the dreamsleeve was in Aetherius. However you must allow in the other factors: that not everybody goes there upon death, and even more to the point, that even for those that do go there they don't all experience the same (ie the Nords experiencing it as http://www.imperial-library.info/mwbooks/bm_sovngarde.shtml, quite literally meaing sleep-guard, or the dream-sleeve).

» Wed Aug 04, 2010 3:47 pm

In terms of why death svcks for Daedra:

"Actually, the incantation of the neonymic drains the vital force from an immortal, forcing him to follow that force into Oblivion. There one abides until the vital force is replenished. The experience is somewhat anologous to sleep for mortals. However, sleep is a normal experience for mortals. It is NOT a normal experience for an immortal. Suffice it to say that it is as close to the terror and despair of death as an immortal can come."

"Daedra do not really die. Not as you know death. But we can sacrifice ourselves to Oblivion. As she did. Oblivion is existence and self-awareness without the ability to see, hear, or affect the world. For an immortal it is hell -- Unspeakable pain and horror -- Absolute loss. Eventually we do return. But not all return as they were. There is sickness. Madness. Change."

Oblivion here however is not understood as the realms of Oblivion, ie, you're not banishing them back to their realm - this can be inferred from Imago also mentioning that Dagon "is cast into the Void" upon this action.

Furthermore, a daedra being cast into the Void upon banishment isn't the same as a mortal going to dreamsleeve upon death, note that Jaciel Morgan was trapped in the dreamsleeve and this is seen as something distinct from Deyanira Katrece being cast into Oblivion.

I see no reason why the spirit realm would have an 'inner space', mainly because it implies something physical which defeats the whole idea.
Fascinating
A helpful reference:

"Death results in reappropriation of spirit towards its aligned AE?either to the god-planet Aedra or the Principalities of Oblivion."

"Aligned AE" refers to whatever the mortal happens to have become connected to in life. "We mortals leave the dreaming-sleeve of birth the same, unmantled save for the symbiosis with our mothers..."http://www.imperial-library.info/obbooks/mythic_dawn_commentaries.shtml. You are born connected only to the world and thus the natural alignment is to Nirn and its function of the dreamsleeve. This can be circumvented by aligning to Aedra, Daedra, Vivec, Camoran's Paradise or whatever else you can get your soul anchored to.

The term anchor is comparable to alignment. Your soul has one anchor here on Mundus, your body, and whatever's on the other end of the anchor-chain is where you go when you die (when your anchor here is severed) - whatever your anchor-chain is tied to is your alignment. Reference "You think you can svck the power from me and cast me into Oblivion? Well, it is not so simple as that. So long as my power is anchored to this world, I can resist the outflow of my magica. If not forever, then certainly long enough to blast you and your incantation into component syllables. And consider, fool. No mortal weapon ever forged has the power to sever my anchor to this realm"http://www.imperial-library.info/tsobs/part07.shtml.

This effect can be seen with the Mythic Dawn anchoring/aligning themselves to Paradise and thus going there when they die, with Umaril anchoring himself with Oblivion and thus going there when he died, a Dunmer being bound to the world upon death and thus staying to serve as an ancestor guardian, Vivec being bound to the Heart and thus not being able to really be killed, etc.

This views the dreamsleeve as being the default location of the anchor-chain with the individual being able to align or change that location, but even the dreamsleeve is not as cut-and-dry as just being a big recycling bin. The Daedra enter the sensory deprivation of sleep upon death as they're cast into the Void until they return. Vivec as an immortal says that he also experienced being "fully asleep" when he died, however this didn't seem to be a horrible experience for him, likely because for him unlike the Daedra, sleep was a normal experience. Within the dreamsleeve the individual dreams the afterlife they believed in, a dream in which they slowly succumb to the erasure of the dreamsleeve - an effect that seems to even affect ghosts bound to Mundus who slowly lose their memories the longer they stay http://www.imperial-library.info/mwbooks/ancestor.shtml.

And so if you're only basing your views off of the Imperial at Sancre Tor and you just assume that everybody goes to the dreamsleeve upon death regardless, then its easy to see why you might think that the dreamsleeve was in Aetherius. However you must allow in the other factors: that not everybody goes there upon death, and even more to the point, that even for those that do go there they don't all experience the same (ie the Nords experiencing it as http://www.imperial-library.info/mwbooks/bm_sovngarde.shtml, quite literally meaing sleep-guard, or the dream-sleeve).

Fascinating. I must admit to having read your quotes - but I had not taken them together - thanks

I will relay this to Dominick and hope he finds fertile material in your presentation

» Wed Aug 04, 2010 3:30 am

This views the dreamsleeve as being the default location of the anchor-chain with the individual being able to align or change that location, but even the dreamsleeve is not as cut-and-dry as just being a big recycling bin. The Daedra enter the sensory deprivation of sleep upon death as they're cast into the Void until they return. Vivec as an immortal says that he also experienced being "fully asleep" when he died, however this didn't seem to be a horrible experience for him, likely because for him unlike the Daedra, sleep was a normal experience. Within the dreamsleeve the individual dreams the afterlife they believed in, a dream in which they slowly succumb to the erasure of the dreamsleeve - an effect that seems to even affect ghosts bound to Mundus who slowly lose their memories the longer they stay http://www.imperial-library.info/mwbooks/ancestor.shtml.

From what I've seen, ghosts don't seem to lose their memories of their lives or what happened shortly afterward; after that it gets fuzzy. Pelinal Whitestrake mentioned that he cannot grasp what has happened after his death (aside from the fact that his friends built a shrine at the place he was tormented) yet he didn't seem like he couldn't remember his past.

» Wed Aug 04, 2010 12:27 pm

To help understand the dreamsleave, at least as it relates to death, we might want to consider some "real world" examples where a text with a religious/philosophical affirmation of reincarnation discusses the nature of the soul when it is not enfleshed in a living body. Looking for parallels in "real world" sources can be misleading, of course, but it can be useful to examine where something like this has been worked out already.

Anyways, I know of a few places where Plato explicates his view on this - though they're both explicitly metaphorical. First, there's the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_erfrom the Republic. Second, there's an intriquing section in the Phaedrus where Socrates discusses the nature of the soul. It's a bit long, so I'll just summarize it. The soul is likened to a charioteer leading two horses, one obedient to the driver and good tempered, and one disobedient and bad tempered. The gods throw a banquet and travel to the edge of the universe to dine on nectar and ambrosia, and to gaze upon that which is truly real (the Forms). Mortal souls follow the god they are most similar too, and get a glimpse of the Forms (so that they can have even a modicum of knowledge when they join with a body and live a mortal life). How good a view of the Forms a mortal soul gets depends upon how much control he has over his steads, which (you guessed it), depends upon how he lived in the past cycle of lives. How a person lives in a single cycle of lives depends (in part) on how knowledgeable he is (how clear a view of the Forms he recieved).

Now, we need to unify the Forms with the gods, and make them changeable according to mortal worship/need/mytheopiea; and then imagine this as an orchestrated musical score made from several incomensurate time signatures forced together.