Madness

Madness is Delirium's realm, a place as strange and chaotic as she is. A vast assortment of all sorts of colors, words, items, and directions randomly float and drift across her realm in every direction.

It's said that one is only able to navigate it by focusing on Delirium and traveling towards the center. How one knows which way is the center is a little unclear, though... At the middle there is a broken sundial reading "Tempus Frangit" ("time breaks," a Latin pun on the phrase "Tempus Fugit", "time flies"), along with the usual gallery, scrying pool, and private residence.

Background[]

The Madness is a realm of shifting colors, fractured thoughts, and broken symbols, a place where reality dissolves and reforms without reason. It is the dominion of Delirium, one of the Endless, once known as Delight, whose transformation reshaped her realm into a chaos of ever-changing forms.

The Madness reflects its Mistress: unstable, fragmented, and unpredictable. Its landscapes are fluid, sometimes beautiful, sometimes terrifying, often nonsensical, but always echoing Delirium’s mind. At its core lies a broken hourglass engraved with the words Tempus Frangit—“time breaks”—a reminder of her lost stability. The realm also contains Delirium’s crystalline scrying pool, her wandering gallery, and her shifting residence that rarely looks the same twice.

Like the Dreaming is tied to Morpheus, the Madness is bound to Delirium’s moods and condition. It can be joyous and dazzling when she is delighted, or dark and incomprehensible when her mind turns inward. Directions, language, and logic lose all meaning within its boundaries; to navigate the realm, one must follow Delirium herself.

Portals to the Madness are rare, often appearing only when Delirium wills it. She may open them in the waking world, though mortals who enter risk losing themselves to her domain. Her sigil, a swirling multicolored vortex, serves as the key to her gallery and the symbol of her rule.

The Madness is not only a place but a reflection of the very essence of Delirium: a realm of fractured beauty and dissonant wonder, where meaning and madness are forever intertwined.

Netflix adaptation[]

Dream travels to Delirium’s domain to reconnect with her and seek answers about their missing brother, Destruction. His entrance into the realm is spectacular: Delirium creates a portal in the form of a cracked glass surface, reflecting the fragility and instability of her world. The realm itself is in constant flux, where colors, shapes, and sounds blend chaotically, embodying Delirium’s mental state. During their meeting, Dream and Delirium exchange words filled with nostalgia and pain, revealing the depth of their familial bond. Guided by Delirium through this strange and unstable place, Dream embarks on a quest to find Destruction.

Known locations[]

The Fragile Bridge: An unstable and shifting bridge that appears suspended in mid-air. It reflects the fragility of Delirium's thoughts and emotions.
The Shattered Forest: A forest where trees constantly twist and transform, embodying confusion and unpredictability.
The Lake of Cracked Mirrors: A reflective but ever-fractured body of water, where the reflection of those who look into it is distorted and sometimes shifting.
The Incomplete Palace: Delirium's main residence, a palace that appears half-built, with rooms appearing and disappearing.
The Maze Paths: Paths that change direction without warning, representing the unstable mind and fleeting thoughts.
The Swirling Sky: Above the kingdom, the sky alternates between colors and shapes, reflecting Delirium's mood.
The Screaming Flowers: Plants that produce strange and incoherent sounds, symbolizing sensory chaos.

Gallery[]

Comic[]

Netflix[]

Behind the Scenes[]

As stated by Delirium, due to the chaotic-ness of her realm, she has a tendency to misplace her possessions within her realm. Delirium had even "lost" her Gallery within her realm.
In the Netflix series, the entrance is opened by shattering open the fabric of space like glass.
In the Netflix series, the realm takes the form of a series of subway cars that are plagued by all manner of random horrors and distractions, which are all implied to be the manifestations of the states of insanity and delirium of all living beings in the universe.
- As shown when Dream entered the Madness, there was multiple entities within Delirium’s realm, indicating that like the Dreams and Nightmares that populate the Dreaming, Delirium is also capable of creating subjects and subordinates to help her with her function.
When she was Delight, the Madness was implied to be a completely different realm, possibily with a different name. As Delirium would describe that as she began to change, her realm and everything in it began to slowly unravel and break apart into the jumbled-mess that it currently is now.