Dream Terminology

The only thing that I can think up is *Dream Weaving*...

Not to be confused with the song "Dream Weaver"...

Well the reason I thought of "Dream Weaving" is that the dream could be made up of the game concepts. Weaving as in composition/combination. Which tends to work well with cards and their content.

I remember reading some articles about Freudian dream analysis... Unfortunately that was a way back and I can no longer remember his terminology. But one thing for certain, he had a terminology about how the dreams where pieced together... Sorry, I can't remember what it was.

From the names you detailed it sounds like the game has a childlike quality to the theme. If thats the case I'd suggest a time or duration mechanic linked to little people.

So you could have a lullaby timer, the dream progression takes the form of notes in a lullaby. Each note represents one card play. When the notes end the lullaby effect ends and the child wakes.

You could also link it to a mechanic where the players draw notes (in the form of tokens from a dream pillow bag). These notes could be soft and sharp. Different notes could make the dreamer wake early, sleep late, or have other in game effects.

A different take would be to introduce a clock marker board. Each card play moves the clock one hour forward. Other actions could force the clock to move more than one hour forward at a time. When the clock reaches a given point, say 6am - the child wakes. The passage of time could be spread across three rounds (or any number of rounds).

This way the players would have to be strategic in the card play. I have 9 card slots, if i play 4 in this round i can play 2 in the next and 3 in the final round. Or i could play 2 this round, 5 in the middle round and 2 in the last round - and so on.

Another theme could be sheep, as int he counting of sheep to go to sleep. And a final idea for you is stars blinking out, as in the nursery rhyme twinkle, twinkle little star.

Dream Catching - aka Dream Catchers, which filter out all bad dreams and only allow good thoughts to enter our minds.

Oh, if you are looking for a name, what about "Dreamers' Wake". If things go well the dreamer wakes up, if they go badly a wake is held for the dreamer - who didnt survive their dreams.

Ah, a sense of movement for that mechanic. Projection might work, I think it has that sense of movement and investment of effort and hints at astral projection. Could go more in an emotional way, implying bravery to take more cards like Risk or Dare.