Diksha Sundriyal
Netflix’s ‘The Sandman’ is a fantasy series that seeks inspiration from the stories created by Neil Gaiman. Its source, the comic books, is a set of intricate tales that take place in an increasingly bizarre world. The TV show stays true to that character and delivers a very peculiar and eccentric story that catches the audience off guard at every turn. A lot of weird stuff happens in the show with even weirder characters appearing in it. From Cain and Abel to Barbie and Ken, you never know where the show will land when it comes to cooking up unusual things.
We see something similar happen to a woman named Lyta Hall. She accompanies Rose Walker in the quest to find her missing brother. In the process, Lyta ends up with something that changes the course of her life. She gets pregnant from a dream. How does that happen? Let’s find out. MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD
Lyta Conceives a Child in Her Dreams
Lyta was married to Hector Hall, who tragically died in an accident a few years back. His death hit her pretty hard, leading her to find comfort in her dreams where she would meet Hector. In the beginning, these were regular dreams, that would break once Lyta woke up. There was a clear line between her dreams and the real world, and she knew that Hector was now only in her mind. That is changed by the arrival of the dream vortex.
Being in close proximity with Rose Walker, Lyta starts to become heavily invested in her dreams, which become more real with each day. One day, Hector asks her to leave the waking world and stay with her, in the house that he has built for them in the Dreaming. Lyta is tempted by the offer and decides to accept it when something unbelievable happens.
In her dream, Lyta gets pregnant with Hector’s child. When she wakes up, she realizes that she is still pregnant. Unlike her previous dreams, this isn’t something that goes away when she wakes up. She discovers that it has to do with Rose, whose powers as a dream vortex are starting to tear down the walls between the Dreaming and the waking world, bending reality in the process. With the diminishing barriers between dreams and reality, what happened in the Dreaming stays true in the waking world.
Lyta’s Child’s Conception and Connection to Dream’s Realm
When Morpheus discovers that Rose’s powers have led to Lyta’s pregnancy in the waking world, he decides to intervene. He tells Lyta and Hector that having died a long time ago, Hector is a ghost who does not belong in the Dreaming. While he sends Hector back to the land of the dead and Lyta to the waking world, he doesn’t harm their child. Rather, he claims it as his own because it was conceived in his realm. He tells Lyta that, one day, he will come for the child. While this scares Lyta, whose son is the only family she has left, it also sets the stage for the future of Dream in ‘The Sandman’.
In the comics, Lyta’s son, named Daniel, inherits the title of Dream from Morpheus, which validates the latter’s claim on him. Daniel comes out of the union of his mother, who lives in the waking world, and his father, who is a ghost wandering in the Dreaming. He is conceived in Lyta’s dream and is made real because of the dream vortex. The Dreaming is a place created by Dream and holds its essence. Because of Daniel’s connection with the Dreaming, he is also related to Dream in some form.
In the comics, a few years after Daniel is born, Lyta becomes increasingly worried about Morpheus’s impending visit. When Daniel disappears, she believes it is Morpheus who kidnaps him, which leads her to set up a series of events that lead to Morpheus’ downfall. With him gone, someone else has to take up the mantle of Dream, and with Daniel being the closest to what can be considered his son, he becomes the natural successor.
Read More: The Sandman Ending, Explained: Who is the Dream Vortex?
