What’s in a dream?
In terms of narratives, of stories, what measure are dreams?
Or nightmares, or hallucinations or illusions, or really, anything that falls under what I like to refer to as ‘deliberate states of unreality’.
Answer: everything, nothing, and all that comes in between the two.
That’s the beauty of it. As creators, dreamstates allow us to detach from the aesthetic confines of the rest of a world, to explore realms of wonder, of strange and wild blooms of sight and sound.
Just as a few offhand examples, recall the beautiful animated segment of Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows Part 1, when Hermione tells the story of the titular Hallows. The recent Doctor Who episode Can You Hear Me? did something similar, placing an eye-catching, animated ‘creation myth’ of sorts in the middle of a live-action episode. Or perhaps you’ve played the game Bloodborne, whose entire narrative deals in the lucid nightmare of layers of dreams. One of my favourite visual scenes in the Marvel Cinematic Universe is Mysterio’s big illusion sequence in Spider-Man: Far From Home: a haunting, imaginative nightmare that really must be experienced rather than described.
The point is, states of unreality, in the right hands, allow us as creators to set our imaginations wild.
I’ve previously talked about artist Claudya Schmidt’s fantastic Myre, volume one of her Chronicles Of Yria series. Haunter Of Dreams is a side-story in the same universe, a fragment of lore as told by the people of her world of Yria.
If viewed by conventional narrative standards, Haunter Of Dreams might come off as experimental: while there are snippets of narration, the vast majority of this book is told completely visually, letting the images fill your mind.
But I’ve talked about how Claudya AKA AlectorFencer’s storytelling allows a lot of breathing room even when there is dialogue, and Haunter Of Dreams takes this visual-storytelling ideology to its natural endpoint, with a dreamscape adventure that compels you almost solely through its visuals.
And these visuals are enchanting, with absolutely stunning use of colour and bloom against deepest black. If I had to make a direct comparison with something else, I would say that the sense of wonder these images evoke in me does remind me of the game Ori And The Blind Forest, with its ethereal woodlands giving way to flourishes of surprising menace.
Haunter Of Dreams follows a young boy, transfixed by the transient beauty of his shifting surroundings as he zealously protects a beautiful music-box he’s found himself with. He finds himself coming to treat with majestic dragons, assailed by vicious birds, and comes face to face with things deeper and darker still.
And as one set of imagery melts into the next, we see the power of the ‘state of unreality’ in stories: these images flow like a river from one into another, without the anchoring need for a literal, physical traversal from setpiece to setpiece. Dreams take us where they will, without concern for the rigid confines of physical reality. The main Chronicles Of Yria story is an adventure of the physical world, of rugged slopes and exotic cities and treacherous caverns and beyond; Haunter Of Dreams, meanwhile, is an adventure of the spaces beyond spaces, of the river of dreams, and most importantly, it feels like it.
In fact, the lack of dialogue actually helps the immersion, I find, because that way, the swirling, ethereal visuals surround you and consume you as you go from page to page.
In real life, dreams do not necessarily have deeper meanings on their own. They might delight, or shock, or horrify or amaze, but they might not unfold layers of meaning crucial to the waking world.
But this is a story, a realm where the pieces fit a greater whole, where the page becomes a puzzle-box of light and wonder – or of darkness and despair – the deeper we dive. And without doing Alector a disservice by spoiling the story, I will tell you that there are meanings here that enrich the narrative immensely. As the story comes to a close, we understand the beautiful music-box that the boy must protect in the dream. We understand the dark things that menace him, turning the dream to a nightmare. And we understand how he finds his courage, becoming far more badass in those climactic pages than you’d ever expect a little bunny to be. When you realize it, it’s such a chillbump-inducing “Ohhh!” moment, with added significance if you’ve already read Myre. (Speaking of which, read Myre.)
You’ll finish the story quickly, being told without dialogue (save for the narration that bookends the story) and being a shorter endeavor than Myre, but there’s plenty here to go back to time and time again in these lush pages.
And I would say, no, the story could not have been told to the same effect if it had not dealt so heavily in those states of unreality that I talked about. One big impact that unreality-states have is that they allow creators to bend and shape the observable world in ways that best fit the themes they’re trying to hit at. And I can’t imagine a story like this being told any other way.
This is a much shorter article/review than I normally do, but something about this book’s spellbinding visuals brought out the spirit of spontaneity in me. Maybe words only go so far when trying to capture a story that has so little need of them.
Don’t stop dreaming, and fight your way through your nightmares. Brighter days await.
If all this sounds like an enchanting experience to you, you can buy your own hardback copy at Claudya Schmidt’s webshop right here! All images here were plucked from that website. Support artists, credit work if you share it!