Dream language worldbuilding

This page contains information about the fictional setting in which the dream language exists.

About the setting

General Setting

The basic idea is that there is another plane of existence, one we can't see when we're awake, and the world where dreams exist is connected to this other realm, so when we dream we sometimes come into contact with the ethereal beings that speak this language, and they are kind and loving.

I imagine their settlements are built on floating islands full of all sorts of critters and nature, and their world as a whole is probably a bit weird and doesn't always seem to follow logical rules, in keeping with the kind of things you see in dreams, so they might look a bit like something you'd see in an M.C. Escher artwork, where you're not exactly sure what you're looking at, but it has a certain beauty to it.

Floating Islands

The speakers of the language live in a cluster of floating islands that are not too far apart from each other, a lot of them are relatively small, perhaps big enough for some sort of structure to be built upon them, like a home, there's also a few even smaller ones scattered all over the place, and there's a bunch of bigger ones where communal areas are built (though I imagine the dream angels wouldn't necessarily build things on every single one of these islands).

The ground of these islands tends to be fairly flat, some of the bigger ones can have small hills, but never mountains.

The islands are not all necessarily at the same elevation relative to each other, not all of them would even be facing in the same direction and some might even move slowly as time goes on, but none of these are issues for the dream angels because they just float to move around anyway. The top of these islands tend to have grass and vegetation on them, while the bottoms are mostly dirt and rock, but gravity is not really a thing here so things can be built and grow on the underside of the islands as well.

There is some water in the form of ponds, lakes, rivers and waterfalls.

Some of the islands are connected to each other, perhaps through rivers or waterfalls that flow between them, or roots of trees that come out from the bottom or the side of the island and connect with other plants. There's some waterfalls that just fall into the void, and if you follow those waterfalls as if they were paths perhaps you'll end up in a different part of this surrealistic realm.

Climate

The climate is cold side but not usually freezing. Maybe one day I will come up with more specific details of the seasons, but for now let's just say that they have a "warm" season when things are just a bit cool or unremarkable and then a cold season when it gets cold enough that instead of rain you get snow, and perhaps the flora and fauna have ways to adapt to this colder weather.

There's never any thunder (at least not coming from the sky or the clouds), and in general the weather of this place can't harm anyone, it might be able to make you uncomfortable but because this is kind of like a dream world even if something would hurt you in real life (like excessive cold) it wouldn't be able to damage you when you're here.

Emotion based weather

Rain can get triggered by emotions, for example if a group of dream angels is mourning then their emotions might be strong enough to create some rain clouds that start releasing a bit of light rain towards the nearest island, as if the dream angels are crying through the weather. Sadness is not necessarily the only emotion that would make rain clouds happen, I'll come up with the specifics later.

The sky looks like you're in outer space most of the time, where you can see lots of stars, perhaps at some times you might be able to observe certain phenomena similar to the northern lights or slight changes in color that make it look a bit closer to twilight instead of night time, and once again these phenomena might be triggered by emotions rather than the seasons.

Speakers

I call the speakers of the language "dream angels" (I will give them another name eventually, a name in their own language).

Dream angels usually don't interfere with human affairs too much, but they sometimes help us by making nightmares go away and soothing the people they see, at least while the people are asleep (since they can't interact with us outside of dreams).

These beings are very surreal in their appearance, there's probably different types of dream angels but the ones I'll be working with are kind of like a mix of various sea creatures, drifting through space peacefully, building all sorts of things and admiring the nature that exists in their world.

They might look a bit intimidating or scary to some due to the incongruous mix of features they're made from.

I imagine the dream angels don't really need to live in a specific temperature range unlike humans so they're fine regardless of the climate, they'd definitely be able to sense the temperature to some extent, it just might not be as noteworthy for them.

I imagine different dream angels would have different characteristics, but in general they're basically like some sort of jellyfish with 3 main tentacle-like appendages, many thin tendrils, 6 insect-like arms, 6 little wings (because it makes them look a bit more angelic) and they have one eye, but no human has ever seen their eyes because it is always covered by something, in the case of the illustration showcased above it's a butterfly, but whatever is covering their eye it does not prevent them from seeing, this is the dream world after all.

I think there might be other types of dream angels, and they're all able to speak a human-like language because they don't need a mouth to speak, they just telepathically send sounds to other beings, so the speakers of my language will be characterized by being similar to sea creatures, perhaps there's other dream angels that are more similar to other types of animals, or inanimate objects, maybe some are just completely out there and don't even look like anything we're familiar with as humans.

By the way if you feel inspired to design your own dream angels go ahead! I think it'd be nice if I was able to inspire creativity in others with my work.

Flora

In general most if not all fauna have bio-luminescence because of how dark it tends to be, and none of the plants or fungi would be poisonous, or at least not to humans or dream angels, like how chili peppers are meant to be harmful but we as humans just find it to be a pleasant taste, maybe smaller creatures have to be a bit more selective with what they eat in these islands.

You'd see a lot of mushrooms and other fungi, most of which are edible (I know they're not plants but I don't think I'll have a separate section for fungi, so I'll lump them in with the plants). You'd see lots of colorful flowers of different types, berries, trees that look like weeping willows and pine trees, tall grass, lilypads in the water, seaweed and vines that creep up trees and rocks.

I like to think there's some plants with huge leaves that can be used for building things, unsure what type of plant they are, I just know I like the idea.

I imagine some plants are used for making dyes or for getting building materials and whatnot, but the dream angels try to live in harmony with nature as best they can, so if they cut down a plant they plant another one, and they don't live outside of nature, even around their houses they can have lots of tall grass, mushrooms and all sorts of things.

Fauna

While they may have some features that set them apart from real animals they are close enough where I will probably just describe them in terms of the fauna that exists in our world.

The animals are not hostile, they may not all be the friendliest but they tend to be pacifists and relatively sentient, not enough to be able to speak but enough to where dream angels can communicate with them a bit. This also means that all fauna in the islands is herbivoral (even if their real life counterparts aren't), instead of eating one another they forage for plants and they purposefully help the plants to spread their seeds to other islands.

I'd like to include some coral, perhaps these are the home of some other animals. I imagine a lot of small fish would be swimming around in the islands, including some mini squids and octopuses.

I don't like most insects but I will include a few, mostly the ones I think are cute or cool, like bees, butterflies and beetles. I like to imagine there's these super long eels that just swim around and you see their tails winding around the landscape, and whales may be heard in the distance every now and then, but they don't appear very often. I also think amphibians are awesome, so there's definitely frogs and axolotls in there somewhere, and you might see some more mammalian types of creatures occasionally, I think mostly stuff like otters and jerboa because I think they are adorable.

There are other types of dream angels that look very different from the ones that speak my language, but it would be very rare to come across one of them in the island and they are incredibly varied in the way they look, so I think for now I'll just focus on the dream angels that speak my language.

About the language

Name

The language hasn't been named yet.

Registers

Dream angels shift the way they speak to be a bit more familiar to the person they're encountering, so I imagine the phonology of their language might shift a bit from its default form depending on what your native language is, the language would still be unintelligible to you but it would sound a bit like someone speaking your L1 in a weird way (which also means that it will be easier for you to pronounce the language if you are able to speak back at them because you will at least get to use sounds you already know how to pronounce, though you're welcome to pronounce it in its original form).

Other links

• Back to the main Dream language page