Saturday 13 August 2016

Dreams In Alternative Twentieth Centuries

In the goetic universe:

World War II was fought against the Caliphate;
Juan Fernandez of the US Army propaganda section scripted nightmares to be sent to the enemy;
after the War, he broadcast "...a popular dream series..." (Operation Chaos, p. 98), for which he was well paid by the sponsors.

In the DC Universe:

in 1916, magicians, hoping to control Death, imprisoned her younger brother, Dream;
the Dreaming decayed;
on Earth, there were cases of insomnia and sleepy sickness;
some nightmares escaped into the waking world, causing various insanities of the twentieth century.

The disease plays a prominent role in the first issue of Neil Gaiman's comic book Sandman;[24] the disease, usually referred to by its nickname "sleepy sickness" and only once by its medical name, is attributed to the imprisonment of the sleep-master Dream in 1916 by an occultist.
-copied from (see link from "sleepy sickness" above).

5 comments:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

I don't know if you have read any of Robert Silverberg's "Majipoor" series, but the King of Dreams on that planet is one of the quadrumvirate ruling Majipoor. His function as the King of Dreams is to send evil dreams to criminals as punishment, till they have repented.

Sean

Paul Shackley said...

Not read.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

You might like LORD VALENTINE'S CASTLE, VALENTINE PONTIFEX, and MAJIPOOR CHRONICLES, which are the Majipoor books I have. If you wish, of course!

Sean

Paul Shackley said...

Sean,
Is Majipoor on an alternative Earth or is it an extrasolar planet?
Paul.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

Majipoor is an extrasolar planet colonized by humans and non human races from other worlds. It's set far in the future, apparently long after the collapse of an interstellar civilization. At any rate, by the time of Lord Valentine there had been little contact with other worlds for thousands of years.

Sean