The Nightmare in Bloodborne: Dreams, Nightmares and the Hunters' Curse
Bloodborne's nightmares are dream worlds where Great Ones live and where blood-drunk hunters end up. There is more than one of them: the Hunter's Nightmare, the Nightmare of Mensis, the Nightmare Frontier. Here is what the game states about how they work, and what is fan theory.
In Bloodborne, "the nightmare" means the dream worlds that lie beside waking Yharnam. Great Ones live in them, scholars tried to reach them, and hunters who go drunk with blood are said to be taken into one forever. The game names several: the Hunter's Nightmare of The Old Hunters, the Nightmare of Mensis and the Nightmare Frontier. It never gives a single rule for how they all work. (Bloodborne; Bloodborne: The Old Hunters)
What does the game say the nightmare is?#
The broadest statement is on the Moon rune: a transcription of "moon" as spoken by the Great Ones inhabiting the nightmare, who are "sympathetic in spirit" and often answer when called upon. The Mensis Cage says it lets its wearer contact the Great Ones of the dream, and that to an observer it looks like what delivered Mensis to their harrowing nightmare. The Living String says Mensis retrieved an immense brain, a real Great One, from the nightmare. (Bloodborne)
So in the game's own words, the nightmare is a place where Great Ones live, and people can reach it, at a cost.
The Nightmare of Mensis and the Nightmare Frontier#
The Nightmare of Mensis is where the School of Mensis ended up. Mergo's Cord says the cord granted Mensis audience with Mergo but resulted in "the stillbirth of their brains". Micolash, who hosts this nightmare, cries that they "shall not abandon the dream", and says on death that he is waking up and will forget everything. (Bloodborne)
The Nightmare Frontier connects to the Lecture Building and holds the Great One Amygdala. The game says little about it in text. (Bloodborne)
The Hunter's Nightmare#
The Old Hunters is built around this one. Simon the Harrowed greets the player with the plainest description in the game: this is the Hunter's Nightmare, where hunters end up when drunk with blood. Later he asks if the player knows why hunters are drawn to it. Because, he says, "it sprouted from their very misdeeds". (Bloodborne: The Old Hunters)
The item text agrees. The Eye of a Blood-drunk Hunter says a hunter who goes drunk with blood is taken by the Nightmare, to wander forever in an endless hunt, a fate "no hunter can escape". The Old Hunter Garb says the hunters disappeared one day, and Yharnamites began to whisper of the hunters' sin: drunk with blood, every last one passed on to the Nightmare. (Bloodborne; Bloodborne: The Old Hunters)
Inside are some of the game's founders. Laurence's skull "only exists within the Nightmare". Ludwig lies in the Underground Corpse Pile. Lady Maria guards the Astral Clocktower, and Simon says she hides the real secret. (Bloodborne: The Old Hunters)
The curse of the Fishing Hamlet#
Past Maria is the Fishing Hamlet. Dying in a hut there, Simon says the village is the true secret, that it feeds the Hunter's Nightmare, and asks the player to end it. "So our forefathers sinned?" he asks, and says hunters can't carry that weight forever. (Bloodborne: The Old Hunters)
The hamlet's priest names the crime. He mutters about Byrgenwerth's "blasphemous murderers", prays for atonement "by the wrath of Mother Kos", and asks for a curse of blood on them and their children and their children's children. The Accursed Brew is a villager's skull that was forcibly searched for eyes. On the shore lies Kos, and her child, the Orphan of Kos. (Bloodborne: The Old Hunters)
Killing the Orphan ends it. The priest says the sweet child of Kos has returned to the ocean. Back in the Hunter's Dream, the Doll says she can hear Gehrman sleeping calmly for once, and wonders if something has eased his suffering. (Bloodborne: The Old Hunters)
What fans infer about nightmares#
- The most common reading is that the Hunter's Nightmare is the curse of Kos, laid on the hunters who killed her people and desecrated her body. The priest's words and Simon's support this strongly, but the game never shows the curse being cast. (Bloodborne: The Old Hunters)
- Many players think nightmares are stacked in layers, with the Hunter's Dream, the Hunter's Nightmare and the Nightmare of Mensis linked to each other. This rests on level design, not text. (Bloodborne; Bloodborne: The Old Hunters)
- The Hunter's Dream is often called a nightmare too, held together by the Moon Presence. The Third Umbilical Cord says the cord led to an encounter with the pale moon, "which beckoned the hunters and conceived the Hunter's Dream". It never calls the dream a nightmare. (Bloodborne)
Frequently asked questions
- What is the Nightmare in Bloodborne?
- The game uses "the nightmare" for dream worlds inhabited by Great Ones and for the place blood-drunk hunters are taken. Named examples include the Hunter's Nightmare, the Nightmare of Mensis and the Nightmare Frontier.
- What is the Hunter's Nightmare?
- It is the setting of The Old Hunters. Simon the Harrowed calls it the place hunters end up when drunk with blood, and says it sprouted from the hunters' own misdeeds. The Fishing Hamlet at its heart is, in his words, the true secret.
- Is the Hunter's Dream a nightmare?
- The game treats the Hunter's Dream separately. Its creation is tied to the Third Umbilical Cord and the pale moon, and it acts as a refuge for hunters. Whether it is a kind of nightmare is debated.
- How do you end the Hunter's Nightmare?
- By killing the Orphan of Kos in the Fishing Hamlet. The Fishing Hamlet priest then says the child of Kos has returned to the ocean, and the Doll senses that Gehrman is sleeping calmly.
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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