Dream Cycle

The Dream Cycle refers to a series of stories by author H. P. Lovecraft. These stories concern themselves with "The Dreamlands": a vast, alternate dimension that can be entered via dreams.

A map of Lovecraft's "Dreamworld" by Jack Gaughan (1967).

Geography

The Dreamlands is apparently divided into four regions:

• the "West" (location of Steps of Deeper Slumber, the port of Dylath-Leen (largest city of the Dreamlands), the town of Ulthar (where no man may kill a cat), Hlanith (a coastal jungle city), Ilarnek (a desert trade capital), Mnar, the ruins of Sarnath and Enchanted Wood);
• the "South" (location of the isle of Oriab and the Fantastic Realms);
• the "East" is (location of the city Celephaïs, created from cloth by its monarch King Kuranes, the greatest of all recorded dreamers, and The Forbidden Lands);
• and "the North" (location of the Plateau of Leng, complete with man-eating spiders and satyr-like beings known as the "Men of Leng").

Other locales include "The Underworld" (a subterranean region underneath the Dreamlands and inhabited by monsters), the "Moon" (accessible via a ship and inhabited by "moon-beasts", creatures allied with Nyarlathotep) and Kadath, a huge castle atop a mountain and the domain of the "Great Ones".

Bibliography

• Dreams of Terror and Death: The Dream Cycle of H. P. Lovecraft. Del Rey, 1985.

Contents:

• "Polaris" (1918)
• "The Statement of Randolph Carter" (1919)
• "The White Ship" (1919)
• "The Doom That Came to Sarnath" (1919)
• "The Cats of Ulthar" (1920)
• "Celephaïs" (1920)
• "Ex Oblivione" (1920)
• "From Beyond" (1920)
• "Nyarlathotep" (1920)
• "The Quest of Iranon" (1921)
• "The Nameless City" (1921)
• "The Other Gods" (1921)
• "Azathoth" (1922)
• "The Hound" (1922)
• "Hypnos" (1922)
• "What the Moon Brings" (1922)
• The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath (1926)
• "The Silver Key" (1926)
• "The Strange High House in the Mist" (1926)
• "Pickman's Model" (1926)
• "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward" (1927)
• "The Descendant" (1927)
• "The Thing in the Moonlight" (1927)
• "At the Mountains of Madness" (reference only) (1931)
• "The Dreams in the Witch House" (1932)
• "Through the Gates of the Silver Key" (with E. Hoffmann Price) (1932)

Other

• Harms, Daniel (1998). "Dreamlands". The Encyclopedia Cthulhiana (2nd ed.). Oakland, CA: Chaosium. pp. 89–91. ISBN 1-56882-119-0.