A concept that is introduced right off the bat in Madness and Wonder, and is an important mechanic throuought the Wonder setting, is the ability to leave your body while unconcious and travel to other worlds.
Rosie and her friends think of it as dream walking and, except for Rosie, have only used this ability to travel between each other’s dreams. Rosie has been dream walking to a fey world since she was a small child, but doesn’t realize it’s a real place until she meets Hatter.
Hatter, on the other hand, has been living in Wonderland as long as he could remember. He’s been world-jumping as long as he can remember too, but memory was a hazy thing for Hatter until he had Rosie to remember. (…But that’s their story & if you want to know more about them you’ll have to read Madness and Wonder.)
Though they think of it differently, they’re both doing the same thing. In the Wonder setting, dream walking is a form of astral projection, where the spirit can travel at the speed of thought to almost limitless destinations.
Wonder where Fey-born with dream walking talents go? The answer is only limited by imagination.
Most worlds are fleeting, and attached to a dreamer. There are so many Dream worlds that they seem limitless, but it’s a constantly changing selection because the worlds disappear when their dreamer wakes. These fleeting worlds can be anything, from scarily disturbing to full of wonder, but dream walkers usually don’t know what they are walking into until they’re there. Dream worlds are the most common, but not the only kinds of worlds dream walkers can visit.
There are also worlds compiled of common dreams and subconcious desires that become stable places for Longer periods, tapping into the sheer number of people thinking about them currently. For example: Opening weekend of a blockbuster movie may inspire a compiled world until its popularity ebbs, or a long running TV series can have a world that lasts decades.
Even rarer are stable places that have been around long enough that it’s hard to tell if they were inspired by imagination or if they inspired man kinds imaginations. In Madness and Wonder two of those worlds are Wonderland and The realm of Fey. In the (still being written) next book, Wonder in the Prime, you’ll get to discover the plane of lust, and… Sorry… Spoilers. 😉 (You’ll just have to wait till I finish Wonder in the Prime.)
Traveling through worlds can be chaotic, because every new world has its own rules it lives by, and they may not match the rules the travelers expect. Physics may work differently, gravity could pull you up instead of pushing you down, or magic may create wild effects. But experienced dream walkers can alter these rules, and can manipulate the worlds realities to varying degrees; depending on the world. The waking world (prime material), is the hardest world to effect, while worlds like Wonderland are very maluable.
Here’s another thing to understand when world-jumping. Most worlds occupants seem real, but are only constructs of the dream or world. They may look, physically feel, and sound real, but it’s usually easy for dream walkers to ‘feel’ the difference between other true souls and constructs.
The worlds are so numerous that it’s rare to meet another dream walking Fey-born without prior contact and intent to find them. When these chance encounters happen, less experienced dream walkers often doubt their instincts and question the others reality. Despite being drawn together by common magical gifts, (unaware or very minorly talented) Fey-born often meet in their dreams but never realize it’s more than a vivid dream. Even very talented Fey-born sometimes question how real their dreams are, as Rosie does in Madness and Wonder.
I feel that I must add that not all the beings that travel through the worlds are Fey-born. Fey-born are the most common, and aware, travelers, but they’re not alone. I’m not referring to the dreamers; every dream world has a dreamer, but without fey blood they can’t lucidly dream so are more like their unaware constructs than dream walkers. The others I’m referring to come from places farther than most dream worlds, places that still hold true fey and even more powerful magical beings. To say more than that would be a Spoiler, so I’ll say no more here. (Magic and Wonder has more…)
So, assuming you read the previous post on Fey-born, you have an idea of who the Fey-born protagonists in the Wonder series are (& if you haven’t, click on the Fey-born link already 🙂 ). Now you know the kinds of places Fey-born, with dream walking talents, can go for their sleepy time meet ups. From the info so far, seems like only Fey-born with a rare talent can dream walk, but there are still world-jumping travel options for other Fey-born. They can travel with a dream walk talented Fey-born, or they can learn an almost forgotten dicepline, traveling astrally between worlds using a little reflected light off certain faceted gems.
Learning to dream walk that way is traveling by facet. Travel by facet will be seen in book two, Wonder in the Prime, but can also be found in the free short story Travel by Facet exclusively on this site.
Thanks for reading another insight into the Wonder setting. If you’d like to read book one of the Wonder series, it’s currently available in print and Kindle formats on Amazon. Buy it Here.