u/Alone-Ad-9237

I learned this from an episode of Batman TAS years ago and thought it was a cool fact. Seeing Asgore be unable to read his notes because they're jumbled made that memory reappear like a flashbang holy shit.

You can't read in dreams. The left hemisphere of your brain is active during sleep, but the right hemisphere isn't and that one controls language comprehension (reading AND speaking).

At the end, the flowers say "Thank you for watching my dream." Not our dream. That makes it sound like each flower's dream is what they manifested as in the dark world, i.e the yellow flower's dream was to be a cowboy, a deliverer of justice.

So the dark world is a dream space and I'm basing that EXCLUSIVELY on Asgore's notes being jumbled. I realise this doesn't hold a lot of water because in each chapter there are signs you can read all over the place and they've been legible so far. It might be because Asgore's notes have been brought in directly from the Light World instead of having a Dark World counterpart generated for some reason. Actually after typing that out, I remember Asgore was dressed like a normal person when he entered and hadn't demonstrated any gained powers or abilities the entire chapter. Does he think little of himself? Lack imagination? If it's based off how Kris views him, it'd be kinda depressing to find out your own child just sees you as an ordinary dude instead of even like a supercop when he was still chief.

Off the top of my head I can't think of another reason why the letters are jumbled, it makes the most sense to me for it to be dream related because Toby Fox has a very subtle theme of dreams in his games and he's giving us the answer without saying so outright.

Okay the unhinged speculation starts here

The Plantners appear as what they dreamt of being, but they aren't Lightners or Darkners. They're alive without being sentient, the darkness elevates their consciousness. Gerson has passed so he can't dream, so he's based off the memory of another Lightner, the darkness elevates that consciousness.

I don't know how it translates to Lightners. Do they have their consciousness elevated to be in the Dark World so they can experience it? Or is the Dark World and its Darkners elevated to meet the Lightners' level of consciousness?

Berdly thinks he's omega smart so he's a high tech sci-fi guy. Susie feels like she needs to be tough at all times so is a spiked brazen brute. Noelle has an affinity for cold and likes Dragon Blazers so she's an ice mage from the game. Kris is aaaaaiiii don't know??? Warrior? Knight? Is he a defender of something? A squire to the SOUL?

Do Darkners dream? Can they dream? Or are they dreams themselves? Darkners seem to gain shape and strength based on Lightner influence. Tenna is strong because of his importance in the Dreemurr household, it made him the de factor leader of the home in the Dark World. Queen is strong because she's the most technically advanced device in the library, if not the whole town. King is strong because he's... arbitrarily chosen to be the best king of the suits? Because he has a tear/scar that means he's battleworn?

AND RALSEI

Ralsei is SOMETHING. Ralsei and Flowery both share knowledge of the menus and prophecy, both have coloured eyes in their talk portrait, both are faking their stats. Asgores points out how Ralsei looks less like a monster the longer you look at him. So Ralsei is something that is alive but isn't sapient, like a plant, otherwise why draw parallels to Flowery. He has horns but that might be because he's trying to look like Asriel? His job description changes to read "Watering his thorns" so is he a thorned plant, hence horns? The only other thorned plant I can think of is Omega Flowey and the giant spiked plant arms he has, unless the thorns is just a metaphor because they're in the plant world.

Is he a living dream? A living hope? Is he the personification of the three previous heroes? Their hopes and/or dreams? Did he come from across the lake? Did he splinter off from a greater consciousness? Are just puppeteering Asriel in the Player 2 slot and screen cheating?

Can't wait for chapter 6