Egwene's Dreams

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Author: Emerylde niRohan

People with the talent of Dreaming, who are able to enter Tel'aran'rhiod often gets glimpses of what may be while in the dream.

Book 1 - Eye of the World

No Dreams in book 1


Book 2 - The Great Hunt

Chapter 12: Woven in the Pattern

  • "First there had been a man with a mask over his face, and fire in place of his eyes. Despite the mask, she had thought he was surprised to see her. His look had frightened her till she thought her bones would break from shivering, but suddenly he vanished, and she saw Rand sleeping on the ground, wrapped in a cloak. A woman had been standing over him, looking down. Her face was in shadow, but her eyes seemed to shine like the moon, and Egwene had known she was evil. Then there was a flash of light, and they were gone. Both of them."
Egwene later notes she hasn't dreamed about Rand for several months. Presumably, this is when he was in the alternate world of the Portal Stone and not in their world to be dreamed about. Indicative of being able to sense someone's presence in the current world, perhaps.


Book 3 - The Dragon Reborn

Chapter 14: The Bite of the Thorns

  • "At least she was sure the Amyrlin did not know that she had dreamed of him (Rand) last night, running from Moiraine."

Chapter 25: Questions

  • "She had dreamed of the Seanchan, too, of women in dresses with lightning bolts woven on their breasts, collaring a long line of women who wore the Great Serpent rings, forcing them to call lightning against the White Tower. That had started her awake in a cold sweat, but that had to be just a nightmare, too.
  • And the dream about Whitecloaks binding her father's hands. A nightmare brought on by homesickness she supposed. But the others...
  • There had been a dream of Rand, reaching for a sword that seemed to be made of crystal, never seeing the fine net dropping over him. And one of him kneeling in a chamber where a parched wind blew dust across the floor, and creatures like the one on the Dragon banner, but much smaller, floated on that wind, and settled into his skin.
  • There had been a dream of him walking down into a great hole in a black mountain, a hole filled with a reddish glare as from vast fires below, and even a dream of him confronting the Seanchan.
About that last, she was uncertain, but she knew the others had to mean something. Back when she had been sure she could trust Anaiya, back before she had left the Tower, before she learned the reality of the Black Ajah, a little cautious questioning of the Aes Sedai - done, oh so carefully, so Anaiya would think it no more than the curiosity she showed about other things - had revealed that a Dreamer's dreams about ta'veren were almost always significant, and the more strongly ta'veren, the more "almost always" became "certainly."
But Mat and Perrin were ta'veren, too, and she had also dreamed of them. Odd dreams, even more difficult to understand than the dreams of Rand.
  • Perrin with a falcon on his shoulder, and Perrin with a hawk. Only the hawk held a leash in her talons - Egwene was somehow convinced both hawk and falcon were female - and the hawk was trying to fasten it around Perrin's neck. That made her shiver even now; she did not like dreams about leashes.
  • And that dream of Perrin - with a beard! - leading a huge pack of wolves that stretched as far as the eye could see. Those about Mat had been even nastier.
  • Mat placing his own left eye on a balance scale.
  • Mat, hanging by his neck from a tree limb.
  • There had been a dream of Mat and Seanchan, too, but she was willing to dismiss that as a nightmare. It had to have been just a nightmare. Just like the one about Mat speaking the Old Tongue. That had to come from what she had heard during his Healing."

Chapter 37: Fires in Cairhien

"Her own dreams, without the ter'angreal, had been filled with images that seemed almost like glimpses of the Unseen World.
  • Rand holding a sword that blazed like the sun, till she could hardly see that it was a sword, could hardly make out that it was him at all.
  • Rand threatened in a dozen ways, none of them the least bit real.
  • In one dream he had been on a huge stones board, the black and white stones as big as boulders, and him dodging the monstrous hands that moved them and seemed to try to crush him under them.
It could have meant something. It very probably did, but beyond the fact that Rand was in danger from someone, or two someones - she thought that much was clear - beyond that, she simply did not know.
  • She had dreamed of Perrin with a wolf, and with a falcon, and a hawk - and the falcon and the hawk fighting -
  • of Perrin running from someone deadly, and
  • Perrin stepping willingly over the edge of a towering cliff while saying, "It must be done. I must learn to fly before I reach the bottom."
  • There had been one dream of an Aiel, and she thought that had to do with Perrin, too, but she was not sure.
  • And a dream of Min, springing a steel trap but somehow walking through it without so much as seeing it.


There had been dreams of Mat, too.

  • Of Mat with dice spinning 'round him - she felt she knew where that one came from -
  • of Mat being followed by a man who was not there - she still did not understand that; there was a man following, or maybe more than one, but in some way there was no one there -
  • of Mat riding desperately toward something unseen in the distance that he had to reach, and
  • Mat with a woman who seemed to be tossing fireworks about. An Illuminator, she assumed, but that made no more sense than anything else.

Frantic dreams, hectic dreams.

  • Men and women breaking out of a cage, then putting on crowns.
  • A woman playing with puppets, and another dream where the strings on puppets led to the hand of larger puppets, and their strings let to still greater puppets, on and on until the last strings led into unimaginable heights.
  • Kings dying, queens weeping, battles raging.
  • Whitecloaks ravaging the Two Rivers.
  • She had even dreamed of the Seanchan again. More than once. Those she shut away in a dark corner; she would not let herself think of them.
  • Her mother and father, every night."
  • "Fool!" she muttered softly. "Me, Elayne, not you, so don't glower at me like that." She continued in a whisper. "A Gray Man is after Mat, Elayne. That must be what that dream meant, but I never saw it. I am a fool!"

Chapter 48: Following the Craft

  • "Sometimes there had been glimpses of Rand, or Mat, or Perrin, and more in her own dreams without the ter'angreal, but nothing of which she could make any sense. The Seanchan, who she refused to think about.
  • Nightmares of a Whitecloak putting Master Luhhan in the middle of a huge, toothed trap for bait.
  • Why should Perrin have a falcon on his shoulder, and what was important about him choosing between that axe he wore now and a blacksmith's hammer?
  • What did it mean that Mat was dicing with the Dark One, and why did he keep shouting, "I am coming!" and why did she think in the dream that he was shouting at her?
  • And Rand. He had been sneaking through utter darkness toward Callandor, while all around him six men and five women walked, some hunting him and some ignoring him, some trying to guide him toward the shining crystal sword and some trying to stop him from reaching it, appearing not to know where he was, or only to see him in flashes. One of the men had eyes of flame, and he wanted Rand dead with a desperation she could nearly taste. She thought she knew him. Ba'alzamon. But who were the others?
  • Rand in that dry dusty chamber again, with those small creatures settling into his skin.
  • Rand confronting a horde of Seanchan.
  • Rand confronting her, and the women with her, and one of them was a Seanchan. It was all too confusing."

Chapter 54: Into the Stone

  • "I dreamed about Rand, and Callandor. I think he is coming here." But why did I dream of Mat? And Perrin? It was a wolf, but I am sure it was him."


Book 4 - The Shadow Rising

Chapter 11: What Lies Hidden

  • "Rand as tall as a mountain, walking through cities, crushing buildings beneath his feet, with screaming people like ants fleeing from him.
  • Rand in chains, and it was he who was screaming.
  • Rand building a wall with him on one side and her on the other, her and Elayne and others she could not make out."
  • "She had dreamed of Aiel fighting each other, killing each other, even throwing away their weapons and running as if they had gone mad.
  • Mat wrestling with a Seanchan woman who tied an invisible leash to him.
  • A wolf - she was sure it was Perrin, though - fighting a man whose face kept changing.
  • Galad wrapping himself in white as though putting on his own shroud, and
  • Gawyn with his eyes full of pain and hatred. Her mother weeping. "


Book 5 - The Fires of Heaven

Chapter 15: What Can Be Learned in Dreams

  • "Rand sitting down in a chair, and somehow she knew that the chair's owner would be murderously angry at having her chair taken; that the owner was a woman was as much as she could pick out of that, and not a thing more.


Sometimes the dreams were complex.

  • Perrin, lounging with Faile on his lap, kissing her while she played with the short-cut beard that he wore in the dream. Behind them two banners waved, a red wolf's head and a crimson eagle. A man in a bright yellow coat stood near to Perrin's shoulder, a sword strapped to his back; in some way she knew that he was a Tinker, though no Tinker would even touch a sword. And every bit of it except the beard seemed important. The banners, Faile kissing Perrin, even the Tinker. Every time he moved closer to Perrin it was as if a chill of doom shot through everything.
  • Another dream. Mat throwing dice with blood streaming down his face, the wide brim of his hat pulled down low so she could not see his wound, while Thom Merrilin put his hand into a fire to draw out the small blue stone that now dangled on Moiraine's forehead.
  • Or a dream of a storm, great dark clouds rolling without wind or rain while forked lightning bolts, every one identical, rent the earth. "


Book 6 - Lord of Chaos

Chapter 15: A Pile of Sand

  • "Others were all her own. Tender kisses that lasted forever.
  • Him [Gawyn] kneeling while she cupped his head in her hands. Some made no sense.
  • Twice, right atop one another, she dreamed of taking him by the shoulders and trying to turn him to face the other way against his will. Once, he brushed her hands away roughly; the other time, she was somehow stronger than he. The two blended together hazily. In another he began swinging a door closed on her, and she knew if that narrowing gap of light vanished, she was dead.
  • Dreams tumbled through her head, not all of him, and usually nightmarish.
  • Perrin came and stood before her, a wolf lying at his feet, a hawk and a falcon perched on his shoulders glaring at each other over his head. Seemingly unaware of them, he kept trying to throw away that axe of his, until finally he ran, the axe floating through the air, chasing him.
  • Again Perrin; he turned away from a Tinker and ran, faster and faster though she called for him to come back.
  • Mat spoke strange words she almost understood -- the Old Tongue, she thought -- and
  • two ravens alighted on his shoulders, claws sinking through his coat into the flesh beneath. He seemed no more aware of them than Perrin had been of the hawk and falcon, yet defiance passed across his face, and then grim acceptance.
  • In another a woman, face shrouded in shadow, beckoned him toward great danger; Egwene did not know what, only that it was monstrous.
Several concerned Rand, not all bad, but all odd.
  • Elayne, forcing him to his knees with one hand.
  • Elayne and Min and Aviendha, sitting in a silent circle around him, each in turn reaching out to lay a hand on him.
  • Him walking toward a burning mountain, something crunching beneath his boots. She stirred and whimpered; the crunching things were the seals on the Dark One's prison, shattering with his every step. She knew it. She did not need to see them to know."


Chapter 27: Gifts

"In any case, the thought of approaching them [Elayne and Nynaeve] at all still made her vaguely uneasy.
  • She had had another hazy almost nightmare about it; every time one of them said a word, they tripped and fell on their faces or dropped a cup or plate or knocked over a vase, always something that shattered on impact. Since interpreting the dream about Gawyn becoming her Warder she had been making an effort at all of them. To no real effect so far, but she was sure that one had meaning."

Chapter 32: Summoned in Haste

  • "Light, but she wished she could talk with Nynaeve and Elayne. Only, she could not see what good it would do, and she was certain that dream of breaking things meant something would go badly wrong if she did speak to them."


Book 7 - A Crown of Swords

Chapter 10: Unseen Eyes

  • "She stood in a vast, dim chamber where everything was indistinct. Everything except Gawyn, slowly coming toward her. A tall, beautiful man - had she ever thought his half-brother Galad was more beautiful? - with golden hair and eyes of the most wonderful deep blue. He had some distance to cover yet, but he could see her; his gaze was fixed on her like an archer's on the target. A faint sound of crunching and grating hung in the air. She looked down. And felt a scream building in her. On bare feet, Gawyn walked across a floor of broken glass, shards breaking at every slow step. Even in the faint light she could see the trail of blood left by his slashed feet. She flung out a hand, tried to shout for him to stop, tried to run to him, but just that quickly she was elsewhere."
  • "In the way of dreams she floated above a long, straight road across a grassy plain, looking down upon a man riding a black stallion. Gawyn. Then she was standing in the road in front of him, and he reined in. Not because he saw her, this time, but the road that had been straight now forked right where she stood, running over tall hills so no one could see what lay beyond. She knew, though. Down one fork was his violent death, down the other, a long life and a death in bed. On one path, he would marry her, on the other, not. She knew what lay ahead, but not what way led to which. Suddenly he did see her, or seemed to, and smiled, and turned his horse along one of the forks.... And she was in another dream.
  • She stood before an immense wall, clawing at it, trying to tear it down with her bare hands. It was not made of brick or stone, but countless thousands of discs, each half white and half black, the ancient symbol of the Aes Sedai, like the seven seals that had once held the Dark One's prison shut. Some of those seals were broken now, though not even the One Power could break cuendillar, and the rest had weakened somehow, but the wall stood strong however she beat at it. She could not tear it down. Maybe it was the symbol that was important. Maybe it was the Aes Sedai she was trying to tear down, the White Tower.
  • Mat sat on a night-shrouded hilltop, watching a grand Illuminator's display of fireworks, and suddenly his hand shot up, seized one of those bursting lights in the sky. Arrows of fire flashed from his clenched fist, and a sense of dread filled her. Men would die because of this. The world would change.
  • Straps at waist and shoulder held her tightly to the block, and the headsman's axe descended, but she knew that somewhere someone was running, and if they ran fast enough, the axe would stop. If not.... In that corner of her mind, she felt a chill.
  • Logain, laughing, stepped across something on the ground and mounted a black stone; when she looked down, she thought it was Rand's body he had stepped over, laid out on a funeral bier with his hands crossed at his breast, but when she touched his face, it broke apart like a paper puppet.
  • A golden hawk stretched out its wing and touched her, and she and the hawk were tied together somehow; all she knew was that the hawk was female. A man lay dying in a narrow bed, and it was important he not die, yet outside a funeral pyre was being built, and voices raised songs of joy and sadness. A dark young man held an object in his hand that shone so brightly she could not see what it was."


Book 8 - A Path of Daggers

Chapter 15: Stranger than Written Law

At least she could recall the dreams she knew must be significant, though not how to interpret them.
  • Rand, wearing different masks, until suddenly one of those false faces was no longer a mask, but him.
  • Perrin and a Tinker, frenziedly hacking their way through brambles with axe and sword, unaware of the cliff that lay just ahead. And the brambles screamed with human voices they did not hear.
  • Mat, weighing two Aes Sedai on a huge set of balance scales, and on his decision depended.... She could not say what; something vast; the world, perhaps.
  • There had been other dreams, most tinged with suffering.
  • Recently all of her dreams about Mat were pale and full of pain, like shadows cast by nightmares, almost as though Mat himself were not quite real. That made her afraid for him, left behind in Ebou Dar, and gave her agonies of grief for sending him there, not to mention poor old Thom Merrilin.


Book 9 - Winter's Heart

No Dreams in book 9


Book 10 - Crossroads of Twilight

Chapter 20: In the Night

  • "Mat stood on a village green, playing at bowls. The thatch-roofed houses were vague, in the manner of dreams--sometimes the roofs were slate; sometimes the houses seemed of stone, sometimes wood--but he was sharp and clear, dressed in a fine green coat and that wide-brimmed black hat, just as he had been the day he rode into Salidar. There was not another human being in sight. Rubbing the ball between his hands, he took a short run and casually rolled it across the smooth grass. All nine pins fell, scattered as if they had been kicked. Mat turned and picked up another ball, and the pins were back upright. No, there was a fresh set of pins. The old still lay where they had fallen. He hurled the ball again, a lazy underhanded bowl. And Egwene wanted to scream. The pins were not turned pieces of wood. They were men, standing there watching the ball roll toward them. None moved until the ball sent them flying. Mat turned to pick up another ball, and there were more new pins, new men, standing in orderly formation among the men lying sprawled on the ground as if dead. No, they were dead. Unconcerned, Mat bowled. It was a true dream; she knew that long before it faded. A glimpse of a future that might come to pass, a warning of what should be watched for. True dreams were always possibilities, not certainties--she often had to remind herself of that; Dreaming was not Foretelling--but this was a dire possibility. Every one of those human pins had represented thousands of men. Of that she was certain. And an Illuminator was part of it. Mat had met an Illuminator once, but that was long ago. This was something more recent. The Illuminators were scattered, their guildhouses gone. One was even working her craft with a traveling show that Elayne and Nynaeve had traveled with for a time. Mat might find an Illuminator anywhere. Still, it was only a possible future. Bleak and bloodstained, but only possible. Yet she dreamed of it at least twice. not the same dream, exactly, but always the same meaning. Did that make it more likely to come to pass? She would have to ask the Wise Ones to find out, and she was increasingly reluctant to do that.
  • She was struggling up a narrow, rocky path along the face of a towering cliff. Clouds surrounded her, hiding the ground below and the crest above, yet she knew that both were very far away. She had to place her feet very carefully. The path was a cracked ledge barely wide enough for her to stand on with one shoulder pressed against the cliff, a ledge littered with stones as large as her fist that could turn under a misplaced step and send her hurtling over the edge. It almost seemed this was like the dreams of pushing millstones and pulling carts, yet she knew it was a true dream. Abruptly, the ledge dropped away from under her with the crack of crumbling stone, and she caught frantically at the cliff, fingers scrabbling to find a hold. Her fingertips slid into a tiny crevice, and her fall stopped with a jolt that wrenched her arms. Feet dangling into the clouds, she listened to the falling stone crash against the cliff until the sound faded to nothing without the stone ever hitting the ground. Dimly, she could see the broken ledge to her left. Ten feet away, it might as well have been a mile off for all the chance she had of reaching it. In the other direction, the mists hid whatever remained of the path, but she thought it had to be farther away still. There was no strength in her arms. She could not pull herself up, only hang there by her fingertips until she fell. The edge of the crevice seemed as sharp as a knife under fingers. Suddenly a woman appeared, clambering down the sheer side of the cliff out of the clouds, making her way as deftly as if she were walking down stairs. There was a sword strapped to her back. Her face wavered, never settling clearly, but the sword seemed as solid as the stone. The woman reached Egwene's level and held out one hand. "We can reach the top together," she said in a familiar drawling accent. Egwene pushed the dream away as she would have a viper. She felt her body thrash, heard herself groan in her sleep, but for the moment she could do nothing. She had dreamed of the Seanchan before, of a Seanchan woman somehow tied to her, but this was a Seanchan who would *save* her. No! They had put a leash on her, made her damane. She would as soon die as be saved by a Seanchan! A very long time passed before she could address herself to calming her sleeping body. Or maybe it only seemed a long time. not a Seanchan; never that!Slowly, the dreams returned.
  • She was climbing another path along a cliff shrouded in clouds, but this was a broad ledge of smoothly paved white stone, and there were no rocks underfoot. The cliff itself was chalky white and as smooth as if polished. Despite the clouds, the pale stone almost gleamed. She climbed quickly and soon realized that the ledge was spiraling around. The cliff was actually a spire. No sooner did that thought occur than she was standing on top of it, a flat polished disc walled by mist. Not quite flat, though. A small white plinth stood centered in that circle, supporting an oil-lamp made of clear glass. The flame on the lamp burned bright and steady without flickering. It was white, too. Suddenly a pair of birds flashed out of the mist, two ravens black as night. Streaking across the spire-top, they struck the lamp and flew on without so much as a pause. The lamp spun and wobbled, dancing around atop the plinth, flinging off droplets of oil. Some of those drops caught fire in midair and vanished. Others fell around the short column, each supporting a tiny, flickering white flame.And the lamp continued to wobble on the edge of falling. Egwene woke in darkness with a jolt. She knew. for the first time, she knew exactly what a dream meant. But why would she dream of a Seanchan woman saving her, and then of the Seanchan attacking the White Tower? An attack that would shake the Aes Sedai to the core and threaten the Tower itself. Of course, it was only a possibility. But the events seen in true dreams were more likely than other possibilities."


Book 11 - Knife of Dreams

Prologue: Embers Falling on Dry Grass

  • "I have the Talent of Dreaming. I've learned to tell the true dreams, and to interpret some of them. I dreamt of a glass lamp that burned with a white flame. Two ravens flew out of mist, struck the lamp, and flew on. The lamp wobbled, flinging off droplets of flaming oil. Some of those burned up in midair, others landed scattered about, and the lamp still wobbled on the edge of falling. It means the Seanchan will attack the White Tower and do great harm."


Book 12 - The Gathering Storm

No Dreams in book 12


Book 13 - Towers of Midnight

Chapter 3: The Amyrlin's Anger

  • Thirteen black towers rose in the distance beneath a tarlike sky. One fell, and then another, crashing to the ground. As they did, the ones that remained grew taller and taller. The ground shook as several more towers fell. Another tower shook and cracked, collapsing most of the way to the ground—but then, it recovered and grew tallest of all. At the end of the quake, six towers remained, looming above her.

This would probably be the forsaken with six remaining - Cyndane Demandred, Graendal, Mesaana, Moghedien and Moridin would be the tallest.

  • She was looking down at a nest. In it, a group of fledgling eagles screeched toward the sky for their mother. One of the eaglets uncoiled, and it wasn't an eagle at all, but a serpent. It began to strike at the fledglings one at a time, swallowing them whole. The eaglets simply continued to stare into the sky, pretending that the serpent was their sibling as it devoured them.
  • She saw an enormous sphere made of the finest crystal. It sparkled in the light of twenty-three enormous stars, shining down on it where it sat on a dark hilltop. There were cracks in it, and it was being held together by ropes. There was Rand, walking up the hillside, holding a woodsman's axe. He reached the top and hefted the axe, then swung at the ropes one at a time, chopping them free. The last one parted, and the sphere began to break apart, the beautiful globe falling in pieces. Rand shook his head.

Book 14 - A Memory of Light

Chapter 5: To Require a Boon

  • "Egwene strode around a frozen pillar of glass in her dream. It almost looked like a column of light. What did it mean? She could not interpret it."
  • "The vision changed, and she found a sphere. The world, she knew somehow. Cracking. Frantic, she tied it with cords, striving to hold it together. She could keep it from breaking, but it took so much effort..."