For the past few days I have been idly pondering CHIM, and some things kept popping into my head, especially in regards to morality and free will.

Firstly, somewhat on a side note, what powers does CHIM give? For example, what of Vivec's powers and feats were because of his connection with the Heart, and what were because of CHIM?


Now onto the main focus of my thoughts. As I understand it, CHIM is a state of being brought about by an individual realising and knowing fully that they are part of a dream, but asserting that they are an individual anyway and thus gaining some sort of 'lucid dreaming' type of control over the dream. Please correct me if I am wrong, as this would impact on the following.

Now infering from this concept, I am curious about everyone else - those who have not achieved CHIM. Do they have free will, or are they pawns of the Dreamer? It seems to me there could be two ways of looking at this:

Dreamer Pawns

Since CHIM arises from one's capacity to understand and realise that one is in a dream, but having the ability to assert individuality against that evidence, it follows that those who are unaware of this fact have the illusion of free will but are actually merely acting out a predestined existence created by the Dreamer. This brings up the question of to what degree people's actions are their own and how culpible they are for what they do. Within their existence and to the knowledge of all non-CHIMsters, the world works as normal and everyone makes their own choices, and so it is a somewhat moot point. However, to someone who has achieved CHIM and to outside observers (e.g. we lore fans) can we truly make morality judgements on people if they are not truly living their own lives? In this scenario, it would seem that the only people we as outsides can 'judge' would be CHIMsters themselves, as only they truly have free will (unless CHIM is merely an extension of the Dreamer's will and no such lucid state actually exists...).

Necessary Free Will

Another way of looking at it could be that people need free will to exist withing the Dreamer's consciousness. All denizens of the Dream act with free will (unless manipulated by someone else within the dream, but that is different). When someone comes along and realises and understands that they are in a dream they lose the concept of their free will. This sparks the crisis in which such a person can either assert their individuality and regain their free will (thus achieving CHIM and some control over the dream) or fail to retain free will and cease to exist. It seems that once someone is aware of the Dream the only way to continue to exist is to grasp on to free will. If this were the case it could have implications that the reality and the world in which these characters live is created by the Dreamer, as are their bodies, but the Dreamer is unable to maintain the population and thus free will is necessary to have a populated realm. The Dreamer provides the puppets, but cannot control the marionette while holding together the stage. Thus they become actors in their own right.



*The idea that CHIM is not real, and that it is merely an extension of the Dreamer's will came to me while writing this post. If all other people and acts are the result of the Dreamer's mind (including the gods, etc?), then why not CHIM. Since we know so little about the Dreamer and the Dream, we have no solid evidence that CHIMsters are ACTUALLY influencing the dream rather than the other way around.