Dream

Real Name: None - he has many names and no real name, since he is the anthropomorphic personification of an abstract concept.

Identity/Class: Endless

Occupation: Lord of Dreams

Affiliations: The Endless; the Corinthian; Matthew the Raven; Merv Pumpkinhead; Cain; Abel; Nuala; Lucien; Joanna Constantine; Hob Gadling, Caliope (the Ninth Muse, mother of his son Orpheus); Orpheus, Will Shaxsberd

formerly Nada (the queen of the Glass City in Africa, who wouldn't be his queen, for which he condemned her for eternal suffering in Hell), Thessaly (ex-girlfriend)

Enemies: Lucifer Morningstar, Anthony Burgess (the mage who captured him for most of the 20th century), Brut and Glob (escaped servants who created their own Sandman), the Corinthian (the original one, an escaped nightmare, destroyed and rebuilt); the Kindly Ones (a.k.a. the Furies), Desire (who plotted to trick him into spilling family blood and thus unleash the Kindly Ones on him), Dr.Dee (a.k.a. Dr.Destiny)

Known Relatives: Death, Destiny, Destruction, Desire, Despair, Delirium (brothers and sisters); Orpheus (son, deceased)

Aliases: According to the period and the dreamer, Dream goes by many names - Morpheus, Murphy, the Sandman, Oneiros (by the Three Witches and by his lover Caliope, the Ninth Muse, in issue #17), the Shaper, the Shaper of Form, Kai'ckul (one of his favorites, 10,000 years ago, in Africa), Lord of the Dreaming, the Dream King, Dream-Sneak (by Dr.Dee in the Preludes), the Dream Cat (in "A Dream of A Thousand Cats"), Lord L'Zoril (his name amongst the Martians, as confirmed by J'onn J'onzz in #5)

Base of Operations: The Dreaming

First Appearance: Sandman #1 (DC Comics)

Powers/Abilities: Dream can create and manipulate dreams, illusions and stories. His illusions don't just seem real, they are real, as dreams and reality are far closer to one another than most realise. Inside the Dreaming, he can easily alter reality at whim, creating objects and entities to obey his every command. He can travel instantly anywhere in the mortal realm that people dream, and, so long as he shows proper respect, he can easily enter and transit most magical realms too. His physical form is immune to mundane attacks - only magic can affect him, as his body is just one more illusion. When he is feeling vengeaful, he can damn a soul to Hell, or inflict never-ending living nightmares, such as he did to the child of his captor Burgess. He has a particular talent for introducing ideas and new concepts into people's minds and lives.

History: Morpheus, the Lord of Dreams, the Sandman. He goes by many names, but none of them is truly his. He is the personification of stories, of ideas, of dreams, and he is one of the Endless, a group of beings who are both greater than gods, and less too. He had existed since the dawn of time, though the twentieth century proved more trying than most. A mortal mage managed to trap him for most of the century, until he was freed towards the end of the 1980's. Immediately after escaping, he set about cleaning up the problems which had arisen in his absence - retrieving artifacts of power stolen by his captors and dispersed, then recapturing escaped dreams such as the murderous Corinthian and the rogues Brut and Glob. This led him to encounter their faux Sandman, Hector Hall, whom he appeared to destroy, much to the distress of Hall's wife Lyta (a.k.a. the superheroine Fury). She returned to Earth, but her child, Daniel, who had been born in the Dreaming, was not a normal child.

His new understanding of what it was like to be imprisoned and helpless, along with the chiding of his sister, made him decide to free Nada, a woman he had once loved but who had rejected him, from Hell, where he had sent her. He expected to encounter fierce resistance, as his recent artifact hunt had offended Lucifer when he had invaded the Morningstar's realm; instead his return to the infernal dimension was met by the sight of Lucifer shutting up shop, having turfed out the demons and the damned both. Dream was given the keys, and told to do with the prime supernatural real estate what he willed. Many parties petitioned Dream to take the keys of his hands, including the Norse trickster god Loki, and the Faerie (one of whom, Nuala, was then given to Dream by her brother, Cluracan), but eventually the demons were returned home, under the command of a reluctant pair of angels.

Loki later tricked Lyta Hall into thinking Dream had killed Daniel, and she called on her namesakes, the Furies, for revenge. Since Dream had recently performed a mercy killing on his own son, Orpheus, the three "Kindly Ones" had the supernatural remit they needed to attack. Sensing his impending death, Dream said his goodbyes, and went to meet his fate. While saying his farewells he doomed himself - he released the young Faerie woman Nuala from his service, and gave her a boon. She had fallen in love with him, and she used her boon to ask him to love her back - but not only were her feelings unrequited, she accidentally did him a great deal of damage by calling upon him to leave the safety of the Dreaming while the Kindly Ones were pursuing him. Bound by rules which made them unable to attack him directly, the Kindly Ones followed their usual pattern of destroying all that was dear to their target, in this case the Dreaming; having been called away, Dream was unable to defend his realm, and was eventually left with only one option to protect the Dreaming - to kill himself. Upon his destruction, Daniel was transformed by Morpheus' medallion into the new incarnation of Dream; Dream might have died, but while life exists, Dream is also Endless.

Comments: Created by Neil Gaiman

Thanks to Marie Shrewsbury for providing information about his powers, to Moshe Himmelfarb for many additional details, and to "Liza" for corrections and details about Nuala.

CLARIFICATIONS: Not to be confused with

Any Additions/Corrections? Please let me know.

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