# Sleep/dreams are a where, not a what? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 5, 2020, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sleep-dreams-are-a-where-not-a-what/853161 "2020-05-05T04:07:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2020, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sleep-dreams-are-a-where-not-a-what/853161/1 "2020-05-05T04:07:14Z")
I’m looking for book/show/movie recommendations for stories where characters discover that everything that happens in dreams is real, because sleep is a literal other place you go each night. Know any? ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2020, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sleep-dreams-are-a-where-not-a-what/853161/2 "2020-05-05T05:06:55Z")
> [@elfkin477](#): > > I’m looking for book/show/movie recommendations for stories where characters discover that everything that happens in dreams is real, because sleep is a literal other place you go each night. > > Know any? I remember some sort of ABC Movie of the Week or some such from the early 1970s where that happened. The he protagonist even went to bed with a Polaroid camera, and when he woke up the next morning, he had pictures from his dreamplace. That’s all the information I can give you on that though. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2020, 8:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sleep-dreams-are-a-where-not-a-what/853161/3 "2020-05-05T08:57:16Z")
There’s some street where this happened a bunch of times. Named after some kind of tree I think. Elm Street maybe? ---
**Author:** ![manjulaagarwal1955](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/bbe5ce/32.png) [@manjulaagarwal1955](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/manjulaagarwal1955)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2020, 9:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sleep-dreams-are-a-where-not-a-what/853161/4 "2020-05-05T09:14:50Z")
Yes you are exactly right, same I’m also think the same 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Grrr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grrr/32/146_2.png) [@Grrr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grrr)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2020, 9:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sleep-dreams-are-a-where-not-a-what/853161/5 "2020-05-05T09:34:50Z")
There was a show recently, I’m not sure if it aired more than a handful of episodes. In the awake world he was a detective. And in the sleep world he was also a detective working different cases. Can’t remember the name of the show though. ---
**Author:** ![BeagleJesus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/5daacb/32.png) [@BeagleJesus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BeagleJesus)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2020, 12:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sleep-dreams-are-a-where-not-a-what/853161/6 "2020-05-05T12:05:14Z")
The Twinborn Chronicles by JS Morin It’s high fantasy, takes awhile to get going and is not consistently great but I enjoyed the world building and many of the concepts. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2020, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sleep-dreams-are-a-where-not-a-what/853161/7 "2020-05-05T13:41:50Z")
Nothing comes to mind. ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2020, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sleep-dreams-are-a-where-not-a-what/853161/8 "2020-05-05T13:54:20Z")
Perhaps not quite a real world in dreams, but the classic comic strip [Little Nemo in Slumberland](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Nemo) is worth reading. There are long, consistent storylines, stretching over many months of weekly full-page comics, amounting almost to graphic novels in Nemo’s dream world. He continues the same dream each night. It’s something of a cult classic, and a milestone in comic book history. ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2020, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sleep-dreams-are-a-where-not-a-what/853161/9 "2020-05-05T14:02:31Z")
> **[Altered States (1980) - IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080360/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0)** > > Altered States: Directed by Ken Russell. With William Hurt, Blair Brown, Bob Balaban, Charles Haid. A psycho-physiologist experiments with drugs and a sensory-deprivation tank and has visions he believes are genetic memories. Would Altered States qualify? And Stephen Kings Mr Mercedes series. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2020, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sleep-dreams-are-a-where-not-a-what/853161/10 "2020-05-05T14:23:48Z")
Here’s a real recommendation: [The Lathe of Heaven](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lathe_of_Heaven) Great story by Ursula K LeGuin. One man’s dreams are more than reality just for himself. A couple of TV adaptations have been done. Well worth reading this science fiction classic. ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2020, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sleep-dreams-are-a-where-not-a-what/853161/11 "2020-05-05T14:49:40Z")
HG Wells has a story called a Dream of Armageddon which is similar. In Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell there are people who go into deep sleep and visit an alternate reality. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2020, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sleep-dreams-are-a-where-not-a-what/853161/12 "2020-05-05T14:52:33Z")
> [@Grrr](#): > > There was a show recently, I’m not sure if it aired more than a handful of episodes. > > In the awake world he was a detective. And in the sleep world he was also a detective working different cases. > > Can’t remember the name of the show though. _[Awake](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Awake_(TV_series))_. Excellent show. He switched between two worlds. One where his wife was killed in a car accident, and the other where his son was killed in the same accident. Sometimes the insights of things he learned in one world gave him clues to solve crimes to another, and there was a lot about how he managed his grief in each. They were cancelled, but were able to end it on a strong note. The lead actor is currently in _Star Trek: Discovery_ as Captain Lorca. ---
**Author:** ![Uniqueorn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/uniqueorn/32/2807_2.png) [@Uniqueorn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uniqueorn)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2020, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sleep-dreams-are-a-where-not-a-what/853161/13 "2020-05-05T15:11:34Z")
Isn’t this basically the premise of Gaiman’s Sandman comics? ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2020, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sleep-dreams-are-a-where-not-a-what/853161/14 "2020-05-06T02:52:46Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > There’s some street where this happened a bunch of times. Named after some kind of tree I think. Elm Street maybe? Is that really what Nightmare on Elm Street was about? I wasn’t allowed to watch horror movies during the 80s (and this series and Friday the 13th haven’t tempted me to catch up) but I was under the impression that the plot was if you die in your dreams you die in real life, _not_ that they were literally somewhere else while asleep. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2020, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sleep-dreams-are-a-where-not-a-what/853161/15 "2020-05-06T03:19:14Z")
> [@elfkin477](#): > > Is that really what Nightmare on Elm Street was about? I wasn’t allowed to watch horror movies during the 80s (and this series and Friday the 13th haven’t tempted me to catch up) but I was under the impression that the plot was if you die in your dreams you die in real life, _not_ that they were literally somewhere else while asleep. It’s somewhere on the spectrum of dreams as reality. I only saw the first one in it’s entirety long ago so I don’t recall many details but people would enter a dream world that was not quite reality, and yes, if they died in their dream they would be dead. The Lathe of Heaven is perhaps on the other end of the spectrum, there the dreams became reality. It seems you may be looking at people that ‘travel’ somewhere else altogether in a dream, perhaps like Dorothy in the movie version of the Wizard of Oz, but maybe a regular dream than the result of a concussion. There are so many different world themes like that, often involving time travel, but nothing quite like that based on dreams comes to mind. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2020, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sleep-dreams-are-a-where-not-a-what/853161/16 "2020-05-09T20:52:44Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > It seems you may be looking at people that ‘travel’ somewhere else altogether in a dream, perhaps like Dorothy in the movie version of the Wizard of Oz, but maybe a regular dream than the result of a concussion. There are so many different world themes like that, often involving time travel, but nothing quite like that based on dreams comes to mind. Yes, that’s what I mean. The dreamworld is a real place and things done there really happened. Say, for example, you were an international spy in your dreams or had a family there that you don’t while awake, those things are real too. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Q](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/898d66/32.png) [@Johnny\_Q](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Q)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2020, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sleep-dreams-are-a-where-not-a-what/853161/17 "2020-05-09T21:05:00Z")
“The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath” by HP Lovecraft.