Dream (DC)

* Morpheus (Comics)
* Morpheus (TV Show)
* Daniel Hall

**Dream of the Endless**, originally referred to as **Morpheus**, and also known as **Oneiros**, the **Sandman**, and later **Daniel Hall**, is the main protagonist of *The Sandman* franchise, appearing as the titular main protagonist of the 1989-1996 comic series *The Sandman* and its 2022 streaming series adaptation of the same name. As one of the Endless, a group of seven dysfunctional siblings that embody different fundamental aspect of reality and who are inconceivably powerful beings older and greater than gods, Dream is the anthropomorphic personification of all dreams and stories, and all that is not in reality.

In the Netflix series, he is portrayed by Tom Sturridge.

## Appearance

### Morpheus

Although his appearance can change depending on the person who is seeing him, Morpheus usually appears as a tall, thin man with bone-white skin, black hair, and two distant stars looking out from the shadows where his eyes should be. Most often they are silver, blue, or white, but when he becomes angered, they have been known to turn red.

#### Speech

Morpheus' speech is usually portrayed as white text in black, wavy-edged speech bubbles bordered in white. The text is capitalized normally (sentence case) in stark contrast to other characters' speech; generally in block caps text. He has a formal manner of speech.

He almost never laughs out loud - or even smiles - but when he laughs, it is a disquieting sound, almost a growl.

### Daniel Hall

When he was mortal, Daniel appeared as a human infant with fair blond hair. He wore a pink shirt with green overalls. After his ascendance into the new Dream Lord, he was almost identical to Morpheus, but his hair was stark white. It has also been noted that Daniel as Dream looks more youthful than the previous incarnation of himself, appearing to be in his late teens, rather than early thirties. He wears white garments and the emerald dreamstone around his neck.

## Personality

Though ultimately a heroic character, Dream has many flaws. He is sometimes slow to understand humor, occasionally insensitive, regularly aloof, awfully naive, often self-obsessed, and very stubborn to forgive others in the slightest. He can also be very gloomy and melodramatic. While being extremely arrogant and haughty, Dream is unfailingly polite, and increasingly after his imprisonment, he can even be kind. However, as Azazel finds out the hard way, this should never, *ever*, be mistaken for weakness.

He has a long history of broken romances, and is shown, both directly and by implication, to be prone to harsh reactions when his relationships fail. Both his mother, Night, and his siblings have commented that Dream has always wanted and always failed at finding a partner. As Mervyn Pumpkinhead remarks after the end of one of Morpheus' romances, *"He's gotta be the tragic figure standing out in the rain, mournin' the loss of his beloved. So down comes the rain, right on cue. In the meantime everybody gets dreams fulla existential angst and wakes up feeling like hell. And we all get wet."*

There is a long-standing enmity between Morpheus and Desire, stemming from Desire's involvement in the breakup of one of Dream's romantic relationships. Desire's self involvement, by definition, being even greater than Dream's. Billions of years ago, it is revealed that Dream and Desire used to be extremely close friends. However, this lasted until Desire, without shame or any pretense of hiding their involvement, made Dream's then-girlfriend cheat on him, just because it was funny.

It is implied that before his imprisonment he was in some ways colder and more blind to his flaws, and much of *The Sandman* is focused on Morpheus' desire to atone for his past behavior such as helping past lovers Calliope and Nada. Morpheus has great pride that does not tolerate damage or embarrassment, examples include banishing Nada to Hell for rejecting him, and being angry (originally) at the notion presented by Hob Gadling that he is lonely and needs friends.

Morpheus is constantly aware of his responsibilities, both to other people and to his realm. He puts great stock in duty and rules and is very detailed and exacting in their fulfillment, as noted in *Season of Mists*, where Morpheus is described as, "*Of all the Endless, save perhaps Destiny, he is most conscious of his responsibilities, the most meticulous in their execution."* While he rarely gets along with any of his siblings, Dream shares a close, reciprocal bond of dependence and trust with his elder sister, Death.

Despite his narcissism and pride, Dream has a strong sense of honor. He repeatedly risks his life to make amends for a past wrong, despite not needing to do so (though, this was only after Death pointed out how horribly he had behaved) and continues on his search for Destruction with Delirium despite his aversion to doing so, feeling it was unjust their human guide died without knowing anything of their quest.

Over the course of the series, Morpheus consistently strives for understanding of himself and of the other Endless, especially his elder sibling Death, but he is ultimately undone by his most tragic flaw, his innate inability to accept change. This is especially ironic considering that the nature of dreams are constant change. As Lucien remarks in The Wake when asked (by Matthew, the raven) "*Why did it happen? Why did he let it happen?*", "*Charitably...I think...sometimes, perhaps, one must change or die. And in the end, there were, perhaps, limits to how much he could let himself change.*" In a last gut-punch of ironic underpinning, by the series final story arc, Morpheus had become a kinder version of himself, more able to forgive, and better able to love.

Following his reincarnation, Dream is a noticeably more benevolent ruler, something the denizens of the Dreaming are quick to comment on. He pets the Hippogriff (something he had never done before) and freed Lyta Hall and Alexander Burgess, judging that revenge was a "road with not endings."

## Powers and Abilities

### Powers

* **Personification of Dreams**: As one of the seven Endless, inconceivably powerful beings, Dream is both the lord and personification of all dreams and reality. He possesses absolute control over sleep, dreams, nightmares, and even insomnia. Morpheus is almighty in every sense in dreams, having infinite power and abilities that can elevate him to a supreme position in dream reality and superhuman in the real world. He can manipulate all forms of dreams freely and without limit. Morpheus can even extend dreams beyond their boundaries and into the real world, making any dream have a complete impact on reality and in his control.
	+ **Dream Manipulation**: As the anthropomorphic personification of dreams, Morpheus can manipulate the dreams of others for a variety of purposes, including modifying, suppressing, fabricating, influencing, manifesting, sensing, and observing dreams as well as nightmares, daydreams, etc., possibly including past ones. He can even produce and modify dreams, bestow nightmares or lucid dreaming, entrap people in REM, and promote spiritual/emotional healing within dreams.
	+ **Immortality:** Being an Endless, Dream is an immortal being and will exist forever. Diseases and age do not affect him, allowing his existence to be unshakable. If an Endless is killed or destroyed, their personality and powers will be passed on to someone else, taking their place and incarnation in the universe.
	+ **Oneiric Omniscience**: Dream is aware of the dreams of anyone who has dreamed and/or are dreaming. This allows him to gain deep insight into knowledge the dreams may possess, discern the deepest desires of others and understand secrets that are kept consciously hidden. These secrets can vary from the fondest of dreams to the worst of nightmares.
		- **Cosmic Awareness**: As guardian and ruler of the Dreaming, Morpheus has access to all stories ever told. Dream effectively knows almost everything, including how the Omniverse was created and the stories yet to be told.
	+ **Shapeshifting:** The ruler of dreams can alter his own appearance and clothing at will through "dream space". He also seeks to disguise himself in the presence of lesser beings so they can understand who he is.
	+ **Dimensional Travel**: Dream can open portals to other dimensions at will. He can travel instantly to the Dreaming, and anywhere in the mortal realm that people dream. He can easily enter and transit most magical realms as well, such as Hell.
	+ **Dream Conjuring:** He can conjure dreams, ideas, and nightmares into the minds of humans with ease, having complete control over this aspect. He cursed a man into an "eternal awakening", causing him to be trapped in an endless cycle of awakening from a terrible nightmare.
	+ **Sleep Inducement**: Morpheus can make any human instantly fall asleep. When he escaped from his prison, he made his guards fall asleep with a blast of sand from his hand. Sandman legends say that he made children sleep when he dumped small grains of sand over their eyelids.
	+ **Dream Invasion:** He has the ability to enter the dreams of others without them realizing it, often analyzing and even interacting with his target's dream. Even in prison, Dream offered some risk to the guards who watched him, always being warned not to sleep during his shift so that Morpheus wouldn't enter his naps.
	+ **Dream Absorption:** Morpheus literally feeds on dreams generated by people and the food within dreams.
	+ **Oneiric Reality Warping**: Dream's power is directly connected to the Dreaming. Inside the Dreaming, he can effortlessly alter reality on a universal scale. He can create objects and entities to follow his every command. The Dreams landscape and weather can also change simply but his current mood, and he also controls all the dreams within it. Due to Morpheus' potent dream manipulation, overwhelming dreaming power, and unnatural interconnectivity between reality and the dream world, he can even breach the barrier between these two concepts, enabling the dreams to impact reality rationally or subconsciously. It can impact how planets, galaxies, compact stars, and on a quantum scale, indirectly manifest massive changes to the universe. His 70 year absence from the Dreamlands had caused the realm to decay. As Dream grew weak while he was imprisoned, the Dreaming did the same.
		- **Dream Materialization**: With his power, Dream can materialize the sequences of dreams, nightmares, or visions that others experienced into reality. Morpheus can even insert entire complete dream sequences (from landscapes, environments, materials, objects, organisms, etc.) instead of creating things and beings, carrying out the dream sequence in real-time.
	+ **Superhuman Strength:** Dream has higher and tougher strength than an ordinary human. He managed to lift a demon guard and hurl it a great distance with just one arm.
	+ **Superhuman Endurance:** Dream spent his last 70 years trapped without food, which didn't starve him to death. Despite this, he was only slightly weak and hungry.
	+ **Telepathy**: Dream has vast telepathic powers, which grant him numerous different abilities. He is able to detect, manipulate, and enter the minds, thoughts and memories of others, as well as transmit his own thoughts and memories as well as interact with, affect and even manipulate the minds of humans and animals with higher order intelligence (such as dolphins, ravens or dogs).
		- **Mental Manipulation**: Morpheus is able to manipulate the minds and mental functions of others. This was best shown when he took away the Collectors' delusions to force them to face their hidden guilt and inflicted Richard Madoc with an overabundance of ideas and later deprived him of his ability to have any idea.
	+ **Oneiromancy**: Dream can give people pleasant dreams and even send messages and visions through them.
	+ **Illusion Casting**: Dream can create projections of Illusions so real that he can physically and verbally interact with them. He says that dreams and reality are much closer to each other than many realize.
	+ **Healing:** He can heal his own wounds and injuries quickly.
	+ **Photokinesis:** Dream can manipulate, create, and cast light at will.
	+ **Telekinesis:** Dream can manipulate objects and people with the force of the mind. He managed to unlock a door and telekinetically open it.

* **Magic:** Dream is an excellent and powerful magic user, being near-omnipotent within the Dreaming.
	+ **Power Distribution:** Morpheus was able to distribute a portion of his power over his equipment like Sand Pouch and Dreamstone.
	+ **Curse:** Dream can cast and create curses through magic. He can curse someone who has troubled him suffering from nightmares for eternity with ease.

### Abilities

* **Artistry**: Supreme talent to make creative dreams (and nightmares).
* **Insight**: Dream has a particular talent for introducing different ideas and new concepts into people's minds and lives (and also removes them).

## Trivia

* His overall look resembles his creator, Neil Gaiman.
* Dream is the third oldest of the Endless. After to his elder sister Death, he arguably has the most influence over mortals. As quoted by Mervyn Pumpkinhead at the end of one of Dream's relationships: *"He's gotta be the tragic figure standing out in the rain, mournin' the loss of his beloved. So down comes the rain, right on cue. In the meantime everybody gets dreams fulla existential angst and wakes up feeling like hell. And we all get wet."* This implies that depending on Dream's mood, he is able to empathically affect peoples dreams by projecting his emotional state upon them, effectively manipulating mortal's behavior when they are awake.
* His sigil in the galleries of the other Endless is a mask with a long beak.