The Hunter's Dream: Bloodborne's Hub and Its Secret Origin
The Hunter's Dream is the misty workshop where every Bloodborne hunter levels up, buys gear and wakes after death. It is also a prison made by a Great One. Here is what the game says about how it began, who keeps it and how it ends.
The Hunter's Dream is the quiet, moonlit workshop where Bloodborne's hunter rests, levels up and wakes after every death. Gehrman welcomes the hunter on the first visit: "Welcome to the Hunter's Dream. This will be your home, for now." It looks like a refuge, but the game ties its making to a Great One, and the usual reading is that it exists to keep hunters hunting. (Bloodborne)
How the Dream began#
The origin is in one item and two notes, and the timeline places it, by inference, in Byrgenwerth's day. The Third Umbilical Cord from the Abandoned Old Workshop says: "Every Great One loses its child, and then yearns for a surrogate. The Third Umbilical Cord precipitated the encounter with the pale moon, which beckoned the hunters and conceived the Hunter's Dream." The Source of the Dream trophy calls that workshop "the source of the Hunter's Dream". (Bloodborne)
In the Lecture Building, a note names who did it: "The nameless moon presence beckoned by Laurence and his associates. Paleblood." Another in the same room reads "Three third cords." Most players take the Great One behind the Dream to be the Moon Presence, the boss of the secret ending. (Bloodborne)
Gehrman, the Doll and the little ones#
Gehrman is its oldest prisoner. He tells the hunter the place "was once a safe haven for hunters. A workshop where hunters used blood to enhance their weapons and flesh." Asleep in the garden, he pleads: "Oh, Laurence... Master Willem... Somebody help me... Unshackle me please, anybody... I've had enough of this dream." (Bloodborne)
The Doll looks after hunters: "Hello, good hunter. I am a doll, here in this dream to look after you." She explains the messengers too: "Ah, the little ones. Inhabitants of the dream, they find hunters like yourself, worship and serve them." Of the graves outside she says: "Over time, countless hunters have visited this dream. The graves here stand in their memory." (Bloodborne)
A small hair ornament found in the Abandoned Old Workshop stirs something in her. Given it, she says: "I feel... a yearning, something I've never felt before... Tell me hunter, could this be joy?" After the hunter frees the Orphan of Kos, she notices Gehrman sleeping calmly for once. (Bloodborne; Bloodborne: The Old Hunters)
How the Dream works#
Hunters who die wake here. The workshop holds the tools to repair and strengthen weapons, the messengers sell supplies, the Doll turns Blood Echoes into strength, and the headstones carry hunters back to the waking city. A note left inside says the only way out: "To escape this dreadful Hunter's Dream, halt the source of the spreading scourge of beasts, lest the night carry on forever." (Bloodborne)
The Dream also reaches into the Nightmare of The Old Hunters. A note on an empty bath reads "This bath appears linked to the nightmare, but there are no messengers," and another explains that the Eye of a Blood-drunk Hunter "beckons hunters to the Hunter's Nightmare." (Bloodborne: The Old Hunters)
How the Dream ends#
After Mergo's Wet Nurse dies at the end of the main story, the workshop is on fire. The Doll says "Dawn will soon break, this night and this dream will end. Gehrman awaits you, at the foot of the great tree." Gehrman offers mercy: "You will die, forget the dream, and awake under the morning sun. You will be freed from this terrible Hunter's Dream." (Bloodborne)
Accept, and the Yharnam Sunrise trophy reads "You lived through the hunt, and saw another day." Refuse and beat Gehrman, and the Moon Presence claims the hunter as the Dream's new keeper: "Captivated by the Moon Presence, you pledge to watch over the Hunter's Dream." With three cords consumed, the hunter kills the Moon Presence instead and becomes "an infant Great One". All three are covered in the endings explained. (Bloodborne)
What the game never confirms#
The Dream's purpose is never stated. The most common reading is that the Moon Presence wanted a surrogate child in Gehrman, and later in the hunter, and that the Dream exists to send hunters after other Great Ones, in line with the note "Hunt the Great Ones". Who left the escape note, and why the Doll looks like Lady Maria, are also open. The resemblance is obvious on screen, but no text explains it. (Bloodborne; Bloodborne: The Old Hunters)
Frequently asked questions
- What is the Hunter's Dream in Bloodborne?
- The hub world where the hunter levels up with the Doll, buys from the messengers and returns after death. In the story it is a dream made by a Great One, the Moon Presence, that binds hunters to the hunt.
- How was the Hunter's Dream created?
- A Third Umbilical Cord says it "precipitated the encounter with the pale moon, which beckoned the hunters and conceived the Hunter's Dream." A note credits the summoning to Laurence and his associates.
- How do you escape the Hunter's Dream?
- A note says to "halt the source of the spreading scourge of beasts". After Mergo's Wet Nurse dies, Gehrman offers to free you. Accepting gives the Yharnam Sunrise ending.
- Who is in the Hunter's Dream?
- Gehrman, the first hunter, the Doll, and the small messengers the Doll calls "the little ones". The graves outside are memorials to past hunters.
Sources
- GameBloodborne, FromSoftware, 2015
- GameBloodborne: The Old Hunters, FromSoftware, 2015 (expansion)
Spotted a factual error or a primary source we missed? Email a correction. Every flagged claim gets reviewed.
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