I've had this idea bouncing around in my head for a while. Imagine (if you will) a world ruled entirely by corporations. The CEOs double as political officials and the government itself is all about business deals and making money. But there is a way out: Somnium. A world that exists entirely in the mind of a comatose extraterrestrial monster. By "jacking in" to its mind (like in The Matrix) you can manifest yourself in its dream. There, you don't have to eat, sleep, grow old, or ever worry about money again. With practice, you can even learn how to alter the dreamscape with what they call dreamweaving. But the corporations have sunk their claws into Somnium. To get in costs a fortune that only the most elite of the most elite could ever hope to afford. The working class is given hope with a yearly drawing for a free ticket to Somnium, but its rigged so one of the elite wins it anyway. But there's another option: join the Dreamguard. They are the army that stands between Somnium's residents and the Nightmares that rise from the sleeping creature's subconscious. Survive the fight for twenty five years, and you'll be rewarded with a permanent place in Somnium. Not that anyone ever does survive that long, but you know... And that's what the book would be about. Someone who joins the Dreamguard to realize his dream (pun intended) of someday living in Somnium. What do you think?
So, the elites basically own and control everything. Why would they want to go into a dreamland where Nightmares reside? What makes people who have everything escape to somewhere else? Is that just some kind of depraved lust thing? Is it like drugs? What happens when the monster awakes? All in all it sounds like the premise to a Lovecraftian horror story and could be really awesome. ... It also reminds me a little to the novel "Vurt" by Jeff Noon.
Because no matter how much money you have, you're still in the real world, controlled by reality. In Somnium, you can fly, you can create things just by thinking about them, and you'll never grow old. It's literally a paradise for everybody because everybody can make it into exactly what they want.
Ah, ok. And does everybody have their own little "universe" in the dreamworld or are they all sharing the same dreamworld like a Minecraft server? Do their manifestations influence each other? Do the dreamers get into conflict with each other?
Dream worlds are great plot devices to make fantastic elements plausible in a story. You can make a science fiction with dragons breathing flames and wizards casting magic with this. And who couldn't relate to the problem of megacorporations controlling every aspect of our life nowadays? Your idea is good. But you're going to need a great hook. Have you written a chapter of it?
Sounds like a metaphor for how working class people are coopted into the military and police forces to fight the elite’s wars for them and contain proletarian revolt. In which case the good guys would be the ones who want to let the nightmares through.
Yes, they're all in the same world together. They could influence other people's creations, but they sort of have an honor system in place to keep them from doing so. In fact, one of the dreamers trying to take control of the entire dream is a big part of the central conflict.
Nah, bad idea. The reason Nightmares are such a big problem is because the dreamers' connection to Somnium goes both ways. They can't kill you in the dream, since that isn't your real body. But they can crawl through you to get to the real world, possess your body, and then you've got somebody in our world being controlled by the half-formed fears and negative thoughts of a giant alien.
I hate to say this, Adam, but I think you're missing the point of both Inception and The Matrix. In Inception, you have to wake up eventually. In The Matrix, the main characters are trying to escape from the Matrix and unplug people because it isn't real. You haven't accounted for the unreality of Somnium. How will the story have any conflict if everyone is happy all the time? Can't they just wish the Nightmare's out of assistance? After all everyone there is all-powerful gods. Dream weaving is just way too powerful. I have an idea for you, but I don't know if you'll like it. What if instead of being a utopia where you can do anything, Somnium is a dystopia that is primarily controlled by the evil monster. This evil monster feeds on negative emotions and enjoys tormenting people. The elite executives of the mega-corporations only keep the monster around because it gives them useful information about how to make money. Instead of being some heavenly vacation with superpowers, it is a dumping ground for people the corporations don't want around anymore, like environmentalists, unionized labor, socialists, lazy workers, thieves etc. Dream-weaving exists however it is very difficult and unreliable because the evil monster turns your desires into something you don't want. Wish for a maid-cafe, and you get a maid-cafe run by fat three-headed trolls dressed like maids who want to pour molten brass down your throat instead of serving tea. I'm proposing all of this so the story doesn't turn into some boring conflict-free utopia.
Sounds like a really cool story. I do agree that the end goal being to a live in a dream world is not a great message but whatever, it's your story.
