Dream Vortex

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A Dream Vortex is a rare and catastrophic disturbance in the fabric of the Dreaming.

A Dream Vortex forming

Description

A vortex appears "once every era" for reasons unknown even to the Endless. It appears in the form of a mortal who briefly becomes the center of the Dreaming. Before the vortex openly manifests, its presence attracts stray dreams; it also influences causality, leading to a series of fateful coincidences appearing all around it.

At some point the mortal is no longer able to contain this power, and then the vortex starts destroying the barriers between dreaming minds, damaging the "ordered chaos" of the Dreaming. When myriads of dreamers become trapped in one shared dream, the vortex collapses on itself, destroying their minds, damaging the Dreaming itself and potentially devastating entire worlds. The only way to mitigate the vortex is to kill the mortal; according to the rules that the Endless follow, dealing with a vortex is the only time Dream is empowered to take human life.

Known Vortices

(Unnamed)

An unnamed vortex manifested "eons ago, and half a galaxy away". Morpheus's hesitation to deal with it led to the destruction of an entire world.

Unity Kinkaid

Unity was destined to become a vortex, but due to her sleepy sickness, her vortex powers never manifested and were transferred down the hereditary line to her granddaughter Rose Walker. She then reclaimed her powers from Rose to be destroyed in her place.

Rose Walker

Rose's powers began showing in 1989, when she was 21; first she started seeing future events and visiting the true Dreaming in her dreams; then strange events started happening around her, and she ended up attracting several rogue dreams, including Fiddler’s Green and the Corinthian. When her powers finally manifested in full, creating a shared dream in the house she was living in, Morpheus had to intervene. Rose was saved by her great-grandmother Unity, who reclaimed the vortex powers from her.