By Dennis Detwiller, © 2012
Is there another realm beyond that of earth, but counterminious with it? A realm of thought, formed by the dreams of humans and other creatures? If there is, in Delta Green, you can be certain it is composed primarily of nightmares. If we say that, yes, beyond the waking world, certain minds can travel through a barrier and experience what some have called the ‘shared hallucination’ of the Dreamlands, then we must also say the the minions of the Mythos can do so, as well. There is no escape, just another field of conflict; even in the world of dreams.
Travel to this ‘hallucination’ is accomplished in many ways, but in the world of Delta Green, it is mostly accomplished through drug use. Such drugs are difficult to come by, nearly impossible to make, and addictive.
Almost always, one hit, and the subject is hooked. Transported to an unearthly realm which seems to be an amalgam of Earth cultures on a foreign globe, six hundred to a thousand years in the past, ripe with magic and alien races, few ever truly return to earth mentally, instead, viewing their “real” life as a necessary illusion; a place which must be tended to to allow access to the Dreamlands.
Several Delta Green operations have crossed over into this realm in the groups’ pursuit of the destruction of Mythos threats. Reports have been collated, and their contents have proven disturbing. The machinations of the Great Old Ones and their cults are much more evident, powerful and eager in the world of Dreams (it has been posited by A-Cell that perhaps a battle for the human psyche must be won in the Dreamlands for the world to fall).
Unfortunately, Agents who are veterans of the Dreamlands are often shattered, broken individuals, looking only for their next hit to avoid the dull monotony of our world, which appears, in comparison, like a lightbulb next to a sunset. The emptiness and drabness of the ‘real’ earth cripples them.
Still, permanent travel to such realms is possible. Antique devices and technology offer a gate to these realms, often transporting the operator to places of great danger in the Dreamlands. But once you have a taste of such a place, even the worst threat there makes earth and all of its inhabitants seem like nothing more than a figment.
