Practical Effects of Pacts

[joker]

As with the other questions I've asked, this is basically a desire for some clarification. Specifically, how is a pact formed, what kind of link is actually created, and aside from any instinctual desire what would a dream/nightmare get out of it?

It's stated to be a form of protection for humans and that humans gain access to some of the dream/nightmare's power. While that's great for the human side of the pact, I'm not seeing much benefit for the other. It seems like they're giving the human some of their power AND pledging to protect them out of the kindess of their heart. While that certainly seems like something that SOME dreams/nightmares might do, it seems strange that something so one sided would be considered the norm. Is it simply some part of their being that compells them to make a pact? It says it's often done out of convenience which leads me to believe the dream/nightmare is also getting something out of it.

Secondly, what kind of link is it? Can they share thoughts? Is it draining to the dream/nightmare to have their power used by someone else? Does the dream/nightmare become bound to the human in any way? If a pact is a tangible enough thing that it can allow a human to use dream/nightmare power than I'd expect there to be some kind of real connection, whether emotional, physical, or spiritual. Even if the actual bond between them might be slight, it's clear a pact is more than just an agreement of cooperation.

And finally, is there a special method to creating a pact? It's said breaking the link is easy, but what about making it? Do you just put your hands on someone and say "Now we have a pact!" or is there a mental trick involved? How does one go about actually creating a pact?

[ArchAngel]

Alright, I’m answering this but keep in mind that this is my theory on this and Magic will have the final say on this. Not sure if she wants to go with this or get ideas from members of the site, but at least with this we can get this conversation going. So without further ado, here we go.

Let’s start with what a nightmare/dream would get out of it. From what I can gather/hypothesize, dreams and nightmares feed off of the energy that those respective things cause us: happiness and such for dreams, pain and fear for nightmares. Basically to survive they need to keep feeding off of these things from people (not necessarily when they’re asleep) so if you’re in a pact you have a guaranteed source of energy that you don’t need to worry about going from person to person to survive (an act that would be looked upon like how a woman is considered a whore for sleeping around). Nightmares don’t care about going from person to person, thus why they don’t typically attempt to go for pacts.

Originally I thought about dreams/nightmares gaining power out of a pact, but if that was true it’d probably be more common for nightmares to enter pacts. So outside of an energy source, perhaps since positive emotions are not as powerful as negative ones in order to breech this gap they enter a pact that allows them to gain more power from the emotions. The boost isn’t as significant for a nightmare since they can get most of the potential energy without a pact, which is why they don’t tend to enter them.

On top of that, I also think that it would make sense that through a pact the members can speak telepathically. After all, dreams and nightmares started in our minds so it would make sense for there to be a connection like that. I also think that a human uses their own energy to use the ability’s not their dream/nightmare’s, but it’s more draining on them than if the dream/nightmare used it. The reason they can use the abilities is likely because of that mental link that allows the telepathy, giving the human the knowledge of how to use the abilities. However they forget it the pact is ever eliminated.

Next I believe that a dream/nightmare is bound to the human, that the boosts in what they gain from feeding off their partner and sharing abilities can only happen with the one person in the pact. Once you’re in a pact you need to end that pact before you can go into another one (which I suspect needs both parties present, not just deciding out of the blue you want to leave).

Lastly, creating a pact as well as breaking it I would imagine requires physical contact to allow all of the connections to be made. I’d also think that it can be tiring to make one, and that it must have the consent of both members to make one. This prevents a person from forcing a dream or nightmare into a pact against his/her will. To break a pact you should also need contact, and leave both feeling physically weakened even if it is temporary.

Like I said, these are all ideas I’ve come up with but I’ll leave it to Magic to continue after this and decide what she wants to do with this information. Hope I’m making sense and that it helps, even though it was late. I apologize for that, but here it is ^^;