Places

Unlike most of the Otherworlds, you probably won’t be able to step sideways into the Maya; certain shamanic traditions, mostly among the Australian Aborigines, do teach their members how to do that, but it’s a rather obscure art. Skilled astral travelers can project themselves into the Dream Zone too… often into other people’s dreams; once again, though, that’s a very specialized trick.

The fae-folk supposedly share a common tie to the Dream Zone, which they refer to as The Dreaming. The realm of changeling magic, their vision of that Dreaming consists of a Near Dreaming – essentially the Dream Penumbra – and the Far Dreaming, which resembles an obscure version of the Middle

Umbra… and might, in fact, be part of it. Most of us, however, enter the Maya almost every time we sleep. The Dream Zone, you see, is the place where dreams take form, exist for short periods of time, and then pop like bubbles when the dreamer wakes.

Normally, a Dream Realm controls your reality; like a puppet, you’re at the mercy of its whims. Taking control of your experience involves the technique called lucid dreaming – that thing you do when you recognize that you’re in a dream and so decide to work it to your advantage. In a way, this is a lot like magic itself – you awaken to the idea that you can change reality to suit you. Oddly enough, plenty of mages never understand this element of a Dream Zone journey; it’s like their conscious mind is so used to changing reality that it craves a place where it can surrender control. As any dreamer knows, however, the most pleasant dream can flip over, without warning, into nightmare territory. And if you find yourself running from a Freddy Krueger rip-off, it’s comforting to know you can take control away from him if you’re smart and brave enough to do so.