A Running Theme Throughout The Sandman Is Learning What Incarnation Dreams Take. Consider What We've

A running theme throughout The Sandman is learning what incarnation Dreams take. Consider what we've already seen adapted in the show.

Episode 2: Dreams are stories (Cain and Abel).

Episode 3: Dreams are relief from pain (Rachel), or a reflection of pain (Johanna).

Episode 4: Dream are hope (battle with Lucifer).

Episode 5: Dreams are motivation, even when they're little white lies we tell ourselves (the diner patrons).

Episode 7: Dreams are a reflection of identity. Melding everyone's dreams into one (as The Vortex would do) is a threat by more than destroying The Dreaming and Reality. She's also a threat by bridging separate identities and smashing them into one big and confusing dream, and in changing dreams in ways the dreamers themselves never would. We get to see the consequences of this throughout the arc.

Episode 8: Dreams are comfort in the form of fantasies: power fantasies (Barbie as the Magical Girl), carnal fantasies (Ken), fantasies of importance and belonging (Chantal), fantasies of companionship and belonging (Zelda), fantasies of success (Hal), and fantasies of banished grief (Lyta).

Episode 10: Dreams are a need to change or grow, inspire or create (Gault, the Corinthian).

Episode 11: Dreams are ideas (Calliope), and the ability to remake reality (Dream of a Thousand Cats).

I have listened to his dreamcast ep 6 times today alone

ur telling me that tom sturridge was lrt told by neil gaiman to make morpheus' voice sound like the voice that draws u into sleep nd tom pulled out THAT SHIT??? wonderful. perfect. explains my obsession.

I love him, your honour

tom sturridge's face is like.....white male preset #3 but his voice??? the way he moves???? the way his eyes communicate everything without him having to speak a word bc they literally SHINE every time he has an Emotion??????? yeah that's some good shit 👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻

I like how we've collectively decided that Hob bought/started The New Inn, despite no evidence in the show even suggesting it.

Everyone calls Dream a pathetic petty little baby girl and like, yeah he is - but 

And the characters themselves are like Morpheus is cold, unfeeling, harsh, cruel and yeah he can be and he holds intense grudges - but 

I haven't really seen anyone talk about the scene where he's facing the Corinthian, who Morpheus admits was his masterpiece. And our favourite nightmare pointedly says that Dream doesn't care about humanity. He only cares about himself, and his realm and his rules. 

Morpheus sort of gets exasperated here, like really dude? And tells us he contains the entire collective unconscious, without his rules it would consume him and humanity. Like maybe he's been there before, or close to it. He admitted he lost an entire universe before because he didn't take out their vortex.

His voice trembles on the word consume, like its always there, ready to crush him, like he's constantly battling, like he's tired, like no one's ever really asked, understood or comprehended that before and he's admitting it for maybe the first time or it's one of the very few. And of all the beings he's admitting it to the Corinthian who throws it in his face.

Death more or less says dream mopes and he should get over it. Fiddler's Green insinuates he's almost incapable of apology or empathy. Lucienne believes he dismisses their efforts and that he's harsh with his punishments. Gault in their defiance tries to make him see that things should be capable of change and wanting something different. 

No one seems to get the truth of him? Or part of it. Or if they do it's not apparent and it seems a great tragedy to me. When he says the entire collective unconscious, I'm assuming he means entire, as in not just human - as in all life including other species we don't know of, that are otherwise 'alien'. It seems almost unfathomable to me no one stops to think he's the way he is for a reason. 

Every single unconscious thought, decision, fear, nightmare, dream, hope - anything and everything that can manifest in dreams from the nonsensical and absurd to disturbing and whimsical, including concepts we don't even understand as humans. That is what Morpheus is made of. The screams dying in throats as people wake from horrors, the reoccurring scenes of falling, being chased, being late, the grief from loved ones dying, flying, school, sex - the ones that don't make any sense. 

The nightmares that are so real and strong you can't get back to sleep. The dreams that are so sweet or fantastic you wake up mourning their loss. Day dreams, dreams that pick up where they left off, lucid dreams, depraved and disturbing dreams. The little thoughts we have about others we'd never say out loud or tell another living soul but they exist. It's all real, part of what makes us who we are and every other being that can dream - no wonder Morpheus' voice trembles on the word consume. That has to be near maddening? Like he's riding the line between insanity at any given moment because dreams can be entirely bizarre as much as they can hold significant meaning. 

So he mopes? He's distant? He's cruel or uncaring. Unfeeling in how he operates - I feel like I would be too if I contained the concepts of the entirety of existence - everything his siblings govern exists in his realm in the form of dreams. You can dream about desire, death, destruction, delirium, destiny, despair, all of it. He doesn't feel enough? Distant? Ungrateful? 

I think he feels too much, way too much and he can only push it down so far, or hold it back just enough. It makes him seem so delicate in my mind, like those who bottle and bottle. Pushing everything down or back just to keep functioning and then one little thing makes them snap. Suddenly you've damned your former lover to ten thousand years in hell because that amount of time and processing doesn't seem unreasonable against the impossibly incomprehensible thing that is existences unconscious. Let's not forget the souls in hell or every other afterlife, if they also dream, the concept of dreams as goals, the act of dreaming, creation and destruction, every nasty little thought, every fucked up thing anyone has ever comprehended and every joy. 

Maybe that's why everyone's harsh on him in my eyes, that he should have all this perspective but seemingly doesn't? But he believes what he does because he has that perspective and some things within that spectrum do not change, they repeat because there's only so much that can exist, and that has to be tiresome. 

But honestly, the other Endless, dreams and nightmares should realise what he's dealing with? Especially those close to him, or orbiting because no one is ever really close, and if dreams and nightmares can dream then Morpheus should know those too. I'd probs keep everyone away from me if I was a scrambled construct of emotions.

Fuck me up honestly. My tiny human brain is snapping trying to even comprehend the inner workings of Dream. None of this even makes sense. Just let the man rest, give the baby girl some slack. He's got both feet off the edge and no one's got his back. I'm tired now.

TLDR: Dream probably is the way he is because being who he is, is a lot. 

The way Boyd said "Let's find out"

“You don’t think Dreams can die? Let’s find out”