The Dreamsleeve, some have said, strips your soul, the medium by which Mortal is expressed in Mundus, of its memories and character, of its identity. The soul is left blank, ready for a new individual to use. But what happens to the pieces? What happens to those memories, that character? Are they destroyed? Or do they remain, as meaning without substance?

Could this be how the afterlives work? We experience what we have been promised by our actions as that which was inscribed upon our souls and that alone? Could it be that we are, in Sovngarde or the Hunting Grounds or wherever we have been doomed to go, no more or less than the words that we wrote on that blank slate, removed from the medium and left as perfectly discrete? Letters without surface on which to rest, freed by the last subgradient, the self from the soul?

Sounds legit.

If I understand you right, what you are saying is that the soul splits into pieces. Some parts go to the after life you want or deserve and another part goes back to being mortal.

It would seem like that would eventually heavily limit the chances you get, and the power of your soul until near nothing remains, at least if you try it enough times. So I seriously dobut it. It would make more sense to me if souls would go to a certain after life if they "deserved" it, and would be send to the dreamsleeve to be something new if they don't.

You misunderstand me, then. Metaphor time.

The soul is now a white slab of marble. I am to be born a mortal. At birth, the slab is painted with runes indicating when I was born, what race I am, what gender, etc and placed in my body. I now exist as a mortal, a temporary union of being, body and soul. My being is what the letters on the slab spell out. My body is the construct through which the soul acts. My soul is the vital spark that allows me life in Mundus. As I live, the slab is painted with more runes and patterns as my individual character and identity is developed. Eventually I die. At this point, the body breaks and the slab falls back into the Dreamsleeve, where the pattern I have painted across it is carefully removed. The slab, the soul, is now pure white again and as whole as ever, but I, the pattern, nonetheless remain intact. External. Singular. The pattern is what I am, and it now exists in the final subgradient, that which exists beyond mortal death. The slab is what allowed me to be, and it is used again.

I prefer the Hindu imagery of what the Dreamsleeve is, Brahman.

Imagine the ocean waves crashing onto a rocky shor(e). As the wave makes landfall, it is broken upon the earth and drops of water are thrown. Each drop of water is suddenly its own. A separate being than the greater ocean from which it was begat. But the drop is soon swallowed by the sea, it ceases to exist and can no longer say "I". The illusion is broken and all that is left is the singular entity in which we are all one. And cycle continues. New souls are broken upon the land and for a brief moment in time are given the illusion of self.

Believe what you will. We are all free to misinterpret as we see fit, after all. I have answered the question of what subgradient exists after mortal death for myself. For you? Perhaps not.

Right that makes a lot more sense Thanks for explaining.

I would wonder however, if what you say is true then what is the purpose of having an after life, after all if we assume the soul to be what it is traditionally believed to be then wouldn't that just mean an empty shell of memories gets the after life, somethign incapable of independent thought or pleasure or change but rather a already programmed robot who will act exactly like the soul would, only without any meaning?

What is the purpose of it? Can you call it human when what made it human in the first place is gone and send back to try again?