Time in the Dreamlands

The way time operates in the Dreamlands is somewhat wonky. For one thing, it just seems to endlessly repeat itself with no discernible progress. Day becomes night, summer becomes winter, the moon progresses through its phases, and the sun rises higher then lower in the sky as the year passes. But it feels like the same day, the same month, the same year recycled over and over again. This doesn't mean there is no growth or entropic change; rather, it seems as if something simply turns a cosmic hourglass whenever the sand run out to start time all over again.

Time in the Dreamlands also flows at a faster rate: for every week that passes, only an hour passes in the Waking World. As a result a standard 8-hour night translates into two months of Dreaming time.

Few non-Dreamers can truly understand the impact this can have on the human psyche. Eile and Sunny, Team Girl, traveled to the Dreamworld for 75 nights straight before their Dream-deaths prevented them from returning. With an average Dreaming time of 9 weeks per night, that meant they spent 13 years in the Dreamlands, even though they had only known each other for 18 months in the Waking World by that time. The result was that their relationship was able to grow, develop, and mature to a point not otherwise possible in the Waking World.

Before they started going to the Dreamlands, they were for all intents and purposes "friends with benefits" who might have eventually broken up, but by the time they were unable to return they were ready to settle down and spend the rest of their lives together as a married couple. In any practical sense, their "short" sojourn in the Dreamworld determined the remainder of their lives.

However, this can create a serious problem. People spend so much time in the Dreamlands compared to the Waking World -- 56 days as opposed to only 16 hours -- that they can come to believe their Dream-lives are reality and their Waking-lives the "dream". More than one Dreamer has moved to the Dreamlands permanently with the help of a bottle of sleeping pills.

Another wonky aspect of time is that, while people age, they can live an extremely long time; hundreds, even thousands of Dream-years, unless killed in some fashion. Differel's husband, Victor, was killed in the Waking World in 2004. By the time she met him again in the Dreamlands in 2010, he had lived there for 1000 Dream-years and had barely aged a day. By the time Differel finely died in 2051 and moved to the Dreamlands permanently, Victor would live for another 7000 Dream-years and show no signs of old age.

Part of what makes this bearable is that the perception of time shifts in the Dreamlands. A life of 10,000 Dream-years can feel like only 100 Waking-years, but the Dreamer can remember things from thousands of years past as if they had happened yesterday. He can focus on the moment so that yesterday and tomorrow blur almost out of existence, then tomorrow comes and the new yesterday fades just as quickly. Yet he can instantly recall details from it as if he were reliving them.

A task of several hours can feel like only minutes, while another of only a few minutes can seem like hours. A journey of 10 days can feel like a mere hour's stroll, while a stroll around town can seem to last for days. Yet a Dreamer can accept this fluidity of perception as normal the moment he arrives in the Dreamlands.

Finally, there are the cities of Celephais and Ilek-Vad, where time does not seem to exist. The inhabitants of these municipalities can live forever, never aging or dying, and Dreamers can live there for as long as they wish and never awaken, but this is because while time progresses normally outside the cities, no time passes in the Waking World.