An Essay on the Ambience, Dreams, and the Nature of Planes Recently I attended a class held by Thunberg regarding the Ambience. This was unlike any other class because it was held *IN* the ambience. He took us there via return talismans that he had bound to that point. He said that it didn't always work that way, and that we had to be in a room that was "In touch" with the Ambience, and that only 21 rooms in each plane are in touch. We left from Lambent Flats, and appeared in a place we knew as being the North Cave in the Lost Caves. It resembled the Basin exit except for the ceiling, and the black sky. The first thing we noticed was our ability to fly. Thunberg refused to speak for what seemed like an hour while we just floated around and explored the place itself, and chatted amongst ourselves. Our connection to the place seemed loose and we all appeared as though we were stormed but were not. Movement was visible, but not fluid. It was as if it was beyond our immediate comprehension. The first thing I tested was forge. The energies of the ambience can be manipulated just like the dream itself, which led me to believe we were not *beyond* the dream but still a part of it. Just as we found ourselves in the North Cave, and could talk to those who were physcially present in the cave. After discussion, Thunberg returned me by giving me a talisman that would send me to the nearest true room in the dream. In this case, the North Cave. Mace was there and reported that I had "Fallen in from the ceiling." This, and the discussion(which I will summarize soon), led me to ponder certain old theories in a new light. Contemplate these points as I continue:
1) The dream is a creation of our own conscious and subconscious thoughts.
2) We "leave the dream" when crossing planes
3) We can leave a room after storming, but are "out of tune" with that room and cannot continue
Lets examine point one. I believe it is possible that the "fabric" we describe in the dream, is as strong as the minds concentrating on it. The art of Reweave, therefore, would strengthen a shield by enhancing its image in your mind. The Chaos can cause you to lose this concentration, this focus, and therefore weaken the shield. We all were raised knowing the dream is a psychic realm, and blades and chaks are just physical manifestations of psychic attacks. Now, if point one is true, then the strength of regions of the dream are dependant of how many people are thinking about it. Few know the ambience exists, few that know believe it. Therefore this region of the dream would have a weaker "fabric." The concepts of physics (force, gravity, etc..) seem to stop holding true in this area. These regions of Ambience seem to have an imperfection to them, as if they were abandoned by the dreamwrights. Thus the lack of perfect physics in the regions, and the portals' innactivity. Ponder this theory: As objects remain in the dream, they begin to fade from the mind and memory of dreamers, and therefore, dissipate quickly. Prime Artifacts on the other hand, are always being thought about by *someone* and are therfore able to remain in the dream. Vaults are rooms that have the power to draw on the consciousness of all dreamers dreaming at the time in order to prevent the objects inside from dissolving. This is shown by the fact that there have been times in the dream when all dreamers were awakened, the gates were sealed, and upon return, the vaults have been found empty. There was no consciousness to draw on and the objects in the vaults dissolved just like the rest.
In these instances, those with greater power than you or I, visitted the dream, took all prime artifacts from the dream, and returned them when it was opened again. Lets move on to point 2. We leave the dream when crossing planes. Thunberg told us that we took an ancient "Gateway" to travel across to the Ambience from where we were. The arts of Return, Recall, and the lyran ability of Teleportation all untilize these gateways. Return is a GK major art that lets you set a point and return from there from any point in the dream, and according to Thunberg, you do it via the gateway. Recall is similar but you are recalled upon collapse. Now, think of the possibility of chaos being within the walls of the city after the rifts. Each plane is its own bubble(see picture.) The Ambiance surrounds the room and holds the walls of the plane in place. Before the rifts opened, the planes were all within a large bubble of order called collectively "The Wall." When some sections of the wall fell, chaos flooded the city, now the interior walls of the planes are all that separate us from the chaos. There have been times when we have reached the chaos from an interior plane, rather than the rifts, suggesting that the chaos surrounds every plane. Plane barrier portals, therefore, are the chains binding these planes together. You leave the dream, and enter the chaos, follow the path made by the dreamwrights and travel to another plane. The Avatar is what protects us from the chaos, thus return and teleport are perfectly safe arts to evoke when you are in full avatar form. You cross a plane and your avatar is protecting you in the chaos. Recall on the other hand, when used across planes, almost always causes the person to be lost in the storms. When they leave the city walls without an avatar, they have nothing to protect them from the chaos, and very seldom make it through to the other side. This leads to point 3: You can leave a room while storming, but you can't leave the subsequent room because you are Out of Tune. All the rooms of a plane are within their own wall, and are surrounded by ambience. Imagine a portal as a cannon you climb into and get fired at the next room. If you are storming, the alignment will be off. You won't miss the room completely, but you won't be able to leave that room until you align yourself correctly with the room in your mind. It can cause dissorientation, skewed vision, and delayed reaction. When you are out of tune, no one in the room sees you, and you cannot see anyone in the room until you adjust yourself. The nature of the rooms' connections to one another leads to another possibility that I am sure we have all seen.
The exterior does not necessarily reflect the interior. Rooms can also fold back on another from a geometric standpoint. You can walk down a set of stairs, walk across a flat floor, and return to the top of the stairs. Sometimes flat rooms allow you to walk into a space where the room you were just in should have been. Therefore, rooms within planes are aligned 3 dimensionally and connected by portals, but are *not* necessarily where they appear they should be. The Threshold Way may be geographically as far as it gets from the Neutral Home, but the walls of the rooms may well be touching in the ambience. Rooms can also be added where the were not physically possible. The Library in OoSM is too large to fit into the alcove where the portal is. Therefore it cannot physically be where it appears to be. Sometimes, great forces of chaos can storm an entire plane. A great battle or very massive gathering of people for instance, may challenge the stability of the plane. The plane is opened to the chaos, which floods inside and expells all dreamers wtihin from the dream. Eventually the plane regains its stability, and is accessable by dreamers again. But if this happens, that means A) the chaos must be pressing on the very walls of that plane, and B) each plane must be independant of each other. Also, mares can be prevented from entering a certain plane by blocking certain holes in the wall. But it only stops them on THAT plane. More evidence suggesting planes are entirely independant, and each is surrounded by the chaos. I hope these ideas have challenged you to think about the dream in a completely new way. A greater understanding of how the dream works can help us prevent the problems that caused such things as the great loss. The old dreamwrights tried to expand the great wall, rather than allow the planes to protect themselves. I believe that the key to fixing their mistakes lies in understanding how the Ambience supports each plane, and protecting the planes individually.
