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D&D 5e Dream Spell 😴 Game-Changing Uses and Deep-Dive
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Oct 3, 2022
One of my favorite #DND 5e spells is the fifth-level illusion spell, Dream. In this video and its accompanying article, you’ll find creative uses for the spell that can shape your worldbuilding with its implications. I’ll give an overview of the Dream spell before going into the creative applications, countermeasures, and other considerations. Follow along for #DND5e ideas involving Dream #DNDSpells: https://www.flutesloot.com/5e-dream-spell-the-spell-youre-sleeping-on/?utm_source=youtube ⏰Time Stamps: 00:00 Flutes is so dreamy 00:38 Dream breakdown 03:24 Who can cast Dream? 03:46 Idea #1: Planting and Extracting Ideas 06:35 Learning to manipulate people 06:56 Idea #2: Dream Entrepreneur 08:33 Idea #3: Assassination and Harassment 09:45 Idea #4: The "T" Word 10:32 Idea #5: V for Vendetta 12:03 Idea #6: Snooze School 12:47 Idea #7: Sleep Test 13:20 Idea #8: Tinder for NPCs (and Cure the Blind) 14:24 Idea #9: Beholder? I Barely Know Her! 15:08 Countermeasures to the Dream Spell 15:48 Too Many Cooks!
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Hey looters! Today I'm going to talk about the dream spell, do a deep dive into it, and tell you all the creative ways you can use this spell today on Flutes Loot
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Before I get too far into this video, there is an article that accompanies this video, and the link is in the description to flutesloot.com
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My wife Opal and I create the content, plus a few other writers. That means I already took all the notes for you, so you can check out my article
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Follow along with this video or bookmark it for later. Send it to your friends. Make sure to like and subscribe because we create content for DMs and players
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This is for both. The dream spell is an illusion spell of fifth level. It takes a minute to cast
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The material components are pretty cool. You get a handful of sand for that sandman type effect
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A dab of ink for you being the author of someone's dream. and then to write with that ink, a writing quill that was plucked from a sleeping bird
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The duration of the spell is eight hours, so the normal eight-hour sleeping time that most people need, or a long rest
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a dream is useful for. The dream spell allows you to shape and mold someone's dreams to whatever you want it to be
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like an architect in the movie Inception. And I'm going to bring up the movie Inception a lot in this video
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Any creature that you know of that is known to you and is on the same plane of existence
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you can target. You can't connect with elves because they don't technically sleep
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and so any creature that doesn't sleep, you won't be able to use dream on. When you cast the spell, you choose yourself or someone you touch to enter a trance
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as you make the designated person you or the person you touch the messenger for the dream spell
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While in this trance, you remain aware of your surroundings, but you can't take actions or move
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So while you're aware of everything around you, you're very much in the zone into the dream
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Then you hope the target is asleep, and if they are, you're good to go. So the target's asleep, the messenger goes into the dream
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You don't actually have to appear in the dream though, because you shape the dream in every way
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So you could be a nameless, faceless messenger that they don't even know is molding their dream
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The spell can end early if the messenger chooses to end the spell early, so you're never locked in for a full eight hours
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If you're aware of your surroundings and there's trouble, you can end the spell right away and get into action
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The target of your spell, the person who dreams you're molding, will perfectly remember the dream that you mold for them
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I'm going to talk about that again later. If you cast a dream and the messenger goes into the dream but finds that the person you're targeting is not asleep
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you can choose to, for the eight-hour duration of the spell, have your messenger sit and wait to see if that person falls asleep
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If they do fall asleep during the duration of the dream spell, that eight hours, you can get into their dream and start molding it
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So it's not just a one chance and then you waste the spell slot. You can choose to wait around on hold for them to go to sleep
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You can choose to give the target a nightmare as the messenger becomes a monstrous visage to the target of the dream spell
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If you do that, you can deliver a message of 10 words or less, and the target makes a wisdom saving throw
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If they fail that saving throw, their dreams are plagued for the rest of their sleep by the phantasmal monstrosity that you've created
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and they do not gain the benefits of rest. They also take 3d6 psychic damage when they wake up
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So if they were trying to get back hit points, they don't, and they lose more hit points of psychic damage
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You can also give the target a disadvantage on that saving throw against the terrifying visage if you have some voodoo part of their body, like a lock of their hair
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This is a saving throw you do not want disadvantage on, so I highly recommend you getting a little piece of them to use
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So that's the spell's description, and I'm sure some of you already had some ideas floating in your head that you're like
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oh, I didn't think of this before, but let's get into what kind of characters can use the dream spell
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Dream is available to bards, warlocks, and wizards. Druid Circle of the Land, if they pick Grassland, can get the spell Dream
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and druid circle of dreams obviously can get the dream spell. So what can we do with the dream spell
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Let's get into it. Idea number one, planting and extracting ideas. Again, going back to the movie
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Inception, whose plot was all about inserting an idea into someone's mind without letting them know
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that the idea came from someone else, as if they believed it was their own idea and it gave them
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purpose behind it. You could target someone important and make them start suspecting that
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one of their underlings, their number two, their right-hand man, is plotting against them, planning
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their demise. Night after night, the person will start to wonder if this is prophetic or if there's
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something subconsciously being picked up that they're not realizing yet, but their dreams are
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trying to tell them. Tell the lord of the land that her husband is having an affair. Make her
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live a dream where she's constantly discovering her spouse cheating on her, and it's going to
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start to affect her during the real life waking hours. The point is to seed distrust and suspicion in someone you targeting so that they start to distance themselves from those that they should be trusting the most You could also plant evidence or something in a certain place that they wouldn have known but in the dream they dream about it being there
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And when they wake up, they'll be very curious, is that thing really there
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Is that something I missed? And they go there and there's really an incriminating knife under their spouse's pillow or something
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And the dream was about how the next night on their child's wedding night
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they were going to kill the dreamer or whatever. You know, there's so many different scenarios you could set up and plant evidence and make them really start to question themselves because their dreams are coming true and they have physical evidence of that
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The other part to this is extracting ideas. It's possible that while someone is dreaming, you could make the dream so vivid and believable that they believe they are awake
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And you could make yourself as the messenger in the dream spell appear as someone that they trust
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Let's say there's some big event coming up and you know that they're plotting something
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the person you are targeting with Dream. You appear as someone they trust and you act out that event
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like maybe a wedding, like I mentioned, or a political meeting they're going to
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or the pillaging of an ancient ruin. You know, it could be anything
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And you make it act out in the way that they probably expect it to. And at some point you can learn what their plans are
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because they make it happen in the Dream or they tell you what to do
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This is an excellent way to get information divulged to you from whoever you're trying to target. It could be the BBEG themselves or someone
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more minor in the story, but who still has important information that you can glean. So you don't have
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to just be nightmarish. You could be a pleasant dream where all their plans are coming to fruition
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You can find out, is the general going to betray the king after sacking a certain city and usurp
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power? That would be important to tell the king. You could act out that conquest that the general
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is looking forward to. And then in the dream, if they go to kill the king, you can bet what they're
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going to do in real life. You'll want to learn what makes people vulnerable to use the dream spell
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This is going to sound really evil, but it's really easy to manipulate people based on things
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they've lost and in their dream, allow them to relive time with that person they've lost or that
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thing they've lost in their life. And then while they're feeling joyous, get the information you
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need. On that wicked note, let's go to point number two, a dream entrepreneur. Again, in Inception
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there are people who choose to, as much as they can, live in the dream world that is constructed
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instead of real life that is disappointing. Every person has some sort of fantasy
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a desire that is not realized in their life. You could sell to people who are the highest bidders
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the most powerful people in the land, and you could do this from anywhere in the same plane of existence
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Sell the dream spell. Sell people their fantasies because you can shape their dreams
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Every time they go to sleep on the 15th of each month, they've signed up for your dream slot where they will be enraptured in their own fantasies because they've paid you for it
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Every 15th of the month, they know that they're going to have a really good dream. You could eventually shake down people saying, oh, we're going to have to raise our prices or I'm not going to be able to do the dreams for a while
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and if they become a little bit addicted and at that point they're willing to go above and beyond
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to try to get you to keep doing the dreams for them, they might just divulge information
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or give you things that you were kind of leading up to
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If you have particular skills, like if you're a bard, you could give them beautiful music in their dreams
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because it's something you're skilled with. After all, you must be a talented architect
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in order to give them the best dreams possible. If they want art, they will need an artist to give them art
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If they want other things, they will also need a kind of artist to help them
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If you get my drift. Side note, don't do anything weird in your game without talking to your DM and other players
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Because the dream spell in this line of thinking could lead to some strange things
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You know what I'm talking about. Idea number three, assassination or harassment
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Most players when they read spells, they're looking for damage. So most of you probably already noticed the damage part of the dream spell, the 3D6
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It's nothing impressive, but removing someone's ability to rest, especially from anywhere on the same plane of existence as long as you know them
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I could totally understand if your world building made the dream spell outlawed, and if anyone was casting it, they would definitely be beheaded or something like that
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because you could assassinate people with it. You just play the long game. If someone doesn't have a lot of hit points, it's a short game
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3d6 might be enough to kill them outright in their sleep. If they have more hit points, you just night after night, or even twice a day, cast the
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dream spell so that any time they try to sleep, you just won't let them. They'll start to gain exhaustion, and so then they'll have disadvantage on the saving throws
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eventually, and yeah, they're going to have a hard time if anyone is casting the dream spell
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It's kind of like Nighthags. If you familiar with those those can be really bad news if they have it out for your player characters So imagine your party spellcaster having that same power If you don want to assassinate someone the harassment and the lack of sleep might be enough to make them cave to you if you
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have demands of some sort. Leave my dreams alone, please. Just, well, I'll give you whatever you
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want. Just let me rest in peace. Party rogues like rest in peace, you say? Number four, terrorism
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In a world where the dream spell is real, it has to be a taboo because political people would
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actually not want to meet other political powers because then they would know each other and if they
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had a spellcaster who could cast dream they're going to cast dream on that political leader
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they could terrorize them and hold their dreams ransom so that their whole nation does what the
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other nation casting dream wants them to do because the leader caves into the demands you could crumble
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kingdoms over it if people just couldn't dream if people can't eat they get desperate if they can't
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drink and sleeps the same way people will be driven mad into their wits end and who knows what they
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would be willing to do, or even just the threat of knowing what you could do to them. Only one dream
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to harass them and terrorize them, and they're willing to bend over backwards for whatever your
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demands are. Number five, maintain a spy network and communication with no one able to detect it
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Is there a better place to discuss secrets than in your own dreams? The only downfall would be is
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you need to know that whoever's in your dream is really who they say they are, so you're going to
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need some code talk. So let's say you and your spy friend in the capital city communicate over
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dream. They cast dream on you every night and in your dreams you say the password so that they know
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that it's really you and you know it's really them. You then share information freely with one another
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across anywhere in the world. You don't have to send some carrier pigeon or use an even higher
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level spell to cast telepathy. Seventh level I think that is to like to sync up with someone
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No, just use dream. You could coordinate a nationwide rebellion and again get into the
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terrorist stuff out of the dream. You coordinate who's going to go where at certain times and share
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information freely through dreams. It wouldn't leave a trace of your organization's existence
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It's foolproof. As long as you have those passwords and everything for anyone who does
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learn about your network so they don't infiltrate it. And remember, the dream allows the target
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of your spell to perfectly remember up to eight hours of whatever dream you give them. You could
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give someone the complete layout of a fortress down to the brick in eight hours, and then they
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would know exactly where to go when, and there'd be no problems knowing where the guards are going
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to be if you have that information anything the whole place is going to be perfectly remembered
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by whoever you cast dream on and that will be the leader of your rebellion as they slip in to take
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out whatever leader or monster tyrant you want number seven snooze school i'm not talking about
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hitting snooze on your alarm when it's time for school kids i'm talking about learning with again
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perfect recall in your dreams if you're trying to tutor someone or learn from someone better than you
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the dream is the perfect way to do it. If you need to learn mastery over weaponry or high-level spells
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then it may be that the place to do it is in the dream with someone who can teach you
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You would perfectly remember everything in the real world. And in the dream, when you're sparring and learning martial moves with swords
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you don't have to worry about accidentally getting your head cut off or an arm chopped
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For sparring in your dream, it's basically like you're playing a video game and you respawn instantly every time
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like virtual reality, really. Idea number seven, just see if someone's asleep. If someone is
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supposed to be sleeping at a certain time, cast Dream on them, and then the messenger, according
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to the spell's description, will know whether or not they are sleeping because they won't be able
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to enter the spell's dream world. You can easily catch someone when they're out of their bed
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if you need to infiltrate while they're away, or know when someone's supposed to be asleep
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but they're really not. Like if you're trying to catch a murderer and you have some suspects, and you know they go out at a certain time every night to commit their murders
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cast Dream to see if they're still asleep. And if they're not, rush to try to find them because they might be your murderer
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Number eight, transcend language and species. In the dream world, if someone doesn't like the skin they're in
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you can give them the ability to live out their dream in whatever form they want to be
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Someone wants to have good looks or a fuller beard or in any way a more attractive body
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you could allow them to do that in the dream. But also, if it's someone you can't really communicate with in the real world because of language barriers
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you could overcome that language barrier in the dream because it doesn't say that you have to share a language with the person
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So you can easily overcome those language barriers. You could pick the messenger, be someone who's in love with a woman from a distant, far-off land who speaks a foreign language
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and allow them to actually converse. You could be a dating site with the dream spell. That one way you could use it is to again help people joys and dreams come true bring people together but in a very different way that the dream spell isn limited as real life is You really could put out like dating profiles in far off lands and go meet that person and then sync them up to have them do a virtual date through the dream spell
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Yeah, this could happen. Manipulate a beholder to create new realities. If you don't know this about beholders, they create new beholders and sometimes very strange
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versions of beholders and other things because of their dreams. When beholders dream, they make whatever they're dreaming about become reality
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And they are paranoid buggers. If you cast Dream on a Beholder, first of all, good luck to you that that Beholder doesn't find you
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Second, you could make that Beholder create something in real life, like a rival for itself
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If you need to kill a Beholder, that Beholder is known to you. You could make it create its own rival until they weaken each other
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and then you could go in to take out that Beholder. That's one way to do it. Or you could just use Beholders to kind of farm matter creation
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I don't really know how that works, but if you captured a Beholder and just kept making it Dream whatever you want while it's captive
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you could have it create things for you. That could be interesting. So how can the dream spell be countered now that I've given you some ideas for it
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The DM might allow a spell like Mind Blank to block it. Or an item like the Ring of Mind Shielding might stop it
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Would Leomond's Tiny Hut block it? What about Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion? I think that one definitely would because it's a different plane of existence
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You could use Contingency to cast Dispel Magic on you automatically if anyone casts the dream spell on you
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If you're targeted by a dream spell, you could use yourself or pay someone else to cast Scrying and trace the attacker of the dream
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Then use spells like Augury, Communion, and Divination to figure out who's casting Dream on you and bring the fight to them
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Another interesting peripheral consideration for the Dream spell is what happens if two people cast Dream on the same target
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Using the overlapping spells mechanics from D&D generally, I believe it would be the most recent casting of Dream would override the other until it ends and then the other one would begin
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So you could have an interesting tug of war of casting dream where you cast dream, but
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someone else casts it and kind of takes over. And then you can't recast yours
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You end it and recast it to take control of the dream again. If you have enough spell slots for it, or maybe your DM would just have it be you two
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both manipulating the dream and being in conflict with one another. And that would be an interesting cluster
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For example, my DM had some fun with this because he knew I was really into the dream spell
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So when I entered the dream of a duchess that we were trying to figure out how she was
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being manipulated, I found a mind flayer's visage in her dream, manipulating her, and the mind flayer
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was hiding in a certain place. We had no idea mind flayer was part of the equation, and so the DM
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allowed me to use dream to get that information, and that was very satisfying for me. The spell
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description mentioned this countermeasure with elves, but any race that doesn't need to sleep
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could counter the dream spell. Warforged are another race that doesn't need to sleep. This
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could mean interesting things for your world building, where warforged and elves might be
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more trusted with information because they're not susceptible to the dream spell and being
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leveraged with terrorist dreams trying to manipulate them. So in your world where dream is a problem
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are Warforged created to specifically not be susceptible to it? They're the lore keepers
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the information keepers, the secret librarians, or elves, something similar. Could be an interesting
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detail for world building. I know I will be considering that myself. The warlock invocation
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aspect of the moon makes it so they don't need to sleep anymore so they would be immune to the dream
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spell as well. Another consideration is waking up. The dream spell doesn't say what happens if
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the target wakes up or if they even can wake up early during the duration of the dream spell
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but I would say if someone shook them awake, they could get out of it. As the spell says
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if they're not sleeping, the duration of the spell can keep going if you want the messenger
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to sit and wait for the person to go back to sleep, so that is also an option. That's how I
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would rule it at least. But your DM's ruling might be that they're kind of trapped in the dream as
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long as you want for that duration because you've enclosed them in the spell. Ask your DM. It's
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really up to them. So those are my thoughts on the dream spell and why I think it's such an
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interesting spell that rewards creativity and can be used at such a grand scale or very minute in
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its applications. Let me know, has the dream spell ever come in handy for you? Have I inspired you to
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try it a little bit more? Is your world building going to change a little bit because the dream spell exists? Maybe I'm dreaming right now. Cast dream in the comment section below to give me your
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thoughts that I can perfectly remember because it will be recorded on the internet for all time
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in this virtual way. Even though subscribing to us will allow us to invoke disadvantage on your
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saving throws against our dream spells nightmares, I promise you we will not do that to you. So please
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subscribe and you will be safe from our dreams. If you made it this far in this video, please
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say in the comments your favorite quote from Inception. The one I'll use right now is
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you mustn't be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling. Have a good adventure this weekend
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and I'll see you later. Bye
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