Lore: In-universe, does Tamriel even exist?

[ZeroCore]

Long story short: this is gonna get lore-heavy.

 

In case of TL;DR: In the Elder Scrolls Universe, all existence is described as being a "shared dream" between Anu and Padomay. Is this the case, and all of reality in the Elder Scrolls universe is just one huge dream being had by two people?

 

 

In long:

 

From what I understand, the "interplay between Anu and Padomay" is what "created" the Elder Scrolls universe, and all beings within said universe are in fact merely shards of consciousness of Anu or Padomay depending on whether one (anyone in particular from Daedric Prince to common beggar on the street) is Padomayic or Anuic in origin.

 

My question now is this: does existence in the Elder Scrolls universe depend on Anu and Padomay's continued "dreaming" and if they happen to be "woken up" from said dream, would TES universe just end and everything in it die?

 

It's a rather depressing thought to think that everything in The Elder Scrolls, even within the context of its own universe isn't even real. This seems more along the lines of Lovecraftian horror rather than an epic, sword-and-sorcery tale.

 

If it was all just an illusion, then every endeavor, struggle, and tear shed by every being, from said peasant beggar on the street to the highest Daedric Prince, is pointless because it will eventually all end for EVERYONE and thus there will be no future for them. Unless their "reality" now exists independent of Anu and Padomay by some means, then what they know as existence isn't even real, and neither are they.

[MidbossVyers]

What is existence? People value innocence, but isn't even that just life's greatest illusion?

[Querpo]

Depending on the sources the dream may come from Anu and Padomay (this is more or less the official canon version) or an entity known as the Godhead, the idea comes from Michael Kirkbride's texts from the Imperial Library. The Godhead is an entity and Aurbis is his dream, though it is universally acknowledged that he will never wake up because the history of the Elder Scrolls isn't meant to have an ending, it is a never ending cycle.
The concept of CHIM revolves around the idea of the universe being a dream, to put it in simple terms: It is to realize you are inside of a dream, therefore you are nothing. But at the same time you actively manage to identify as separate entity inside that dream whilst also acknowledging being part of it. By reaching this conclusion you achieve a state of enlightenment, like having a lucid dream (This is why Vivec is considered to be one of the most powerful beings in the Elder Scrolls universe). On contrast to this is the idea of zero-summing: Confronting the idea of everything being a dream and realizing you are nothing, so you are erased from existence, this is believed to be the cause of the disappearance of the Dwemer.
If you're interested in a more deep and developed explanation of this, googling "Elder Scrolls CHIM" or "Zero-sum" should do it.

[ZeroCore]

Depending on the sources the dream may come from Anu and Padomay (this is more or less the official canon version) or an entity known as the Godhead, the idea comes from Michael Kirkbride's texts from the Imperial Library. The Godhead is an entity and Aurbis is his dream, though it is universally acknowledged that he will never wake up because the history of the Elder Scrolls isn't meant to have an ending, it is a never ending cycle.

The concept of CHIM revolves around the idea of the universe being a dream, to put it in simple terms: It is to realize you are inside of a dream, therefore you are nothing. But at the same time you actively manage to identify as separate entity inside that dream whilst also acknowledging being part of it. By reaching this conclusion you achieve a state of enlightenment, like having a lucid dream (This is why Vivec is considered to be one of the most powerful beings in the Elder Scrolls universe). On contrast to this is the idea of zero-summing: Confronting the idea of everything being a dream and realizing you are nothing, so you are erased from existence, this is believed to be the cause of the disappearance of the Dwemer.

If you're interested in a more deep and developed explanation of this, googling "Elder Scrolls CHIM" or "Zero-sum" should do it.

 

I already had about a 5 days of long conversation on this with others, in many different places across chatrooms, reddit, and other locations. It all comes down to this; no one has any real concrete answers.

 

Is Anu the Godhead or is Anu an entity that came from the Godhead?

 

Is the Godhead sentient and alive or just a source of energy that coalesced into Anu?

 

Are Anu and Padomay brothers or is Padomay just an offshoot of Anu after he realized his limitations?

 

Can one achieve CHIM and then AMARANTH and become just as real as Anu is, a powerful entity subsisting off of energy from the Godhead?

 

The best answer I've gotten is "maybe" to everything. All else just dissolves into bickering back and forth.

[Querpo]

Im afraid you'll never get a concrete answer because that is the point. This has been a problem of the Elder Scrolls franchise ever since Daggerfall came out:

We cannot claim the Godhead exists with certainty because he's never been mentioned ingame or official sources. Everything is speculation and theorycrafting until Bethesda finally makes a mention in one of the games whether it be ingame books or a line of dialogue, etc... Until then, the unofficial texts of the Imperial Library are there to serve as source of answers for stuff that would otherwise have no explanation in the lore. Even if Michael Kirkbride is responsible of most of the metaphysics and lore, he's no longer working at Bethesda and therefore they're free to change or ignore whatever piece of lore they want, though they seem to respect most of his work since Heimskr's speech is part of Michael's text "The Many Headed Talos".

Anu and Padomay as far as i know were born as polar opposites, think of them as the Yin and Yang, their interaction birthed Aurbis.

And as for the CHIM and AMARANTH question: "Maybe" is the most logical answer since theoretically it could happen but we can't be sure until we're provided proof.

[Rethrain]

The way I see it, they give nods towards Kirkbride when they want, while not explicitly telling us what's what and being vague, I don't believe Beth will ever get a definitive answer for us on these accounts. If I were them I'd keep people guessing, makes for a better debate, and attracts more attention and wonder.

[morogoth35]

No it is not literally a dream. The dream is just the word that is used when talking about the very deep lore concepts of reality, but it's not a dream and there is no dreamer, everything in TES universe is real and does exist. There is a topic on the tes wiki about this and there is one comment that explains and breaks this down really well, I will quote it here but it is not my words, you can find the original comment here: http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Thread:766860

 

 

 

The commentors who began this discussion are a total joke. Its clear that the terms 'Godhead' and 'dream' are skyrim-age talk for something modern man uses today, like 'simulation' or 'fractal'. It doesn't literally mean there is a being dreaming all of the universe into existence. The Kalpas are not him "waking up"; they are the literal act of Alduin 'eating' and ending the world... another metaphor that probably means he uses a type of magic Akatosh gives to him once the 'time' is right.

Godhead is skyrim speak for 'reality'. Just like how outside of the real life universe in which we live, there are likely other universes and a greater reality outside of our boundries. The 'dream' is skyrim speak for a process. Anu and Padomay are NOT beings, with any sort of personification. They are forces/laws of nature, like how gravity is in our universe. Anu "gave birth" (more Skyrim speak, he didn't literally birth it) to even more concepts by creating a form of 'his' force that WAS personified: Anuiel so that 'he' could become an 'actor' within the universe. Padomay, as the exact opposing force, that will always have an exact opposing reaction, did the same and gave birth to Sithis. And for those who have said here that Sithis has no personality, and is more like a force, you have clearly missed all the bits in The Elder Scrolls where Sithis has literally communicated with people, and acted within Mundus. Anuiel, the personification of a force, eventually creates Akatosh and time itself to stablize the universe (how could that possibly be a dream mate?) and as a result Sithis creates Larkhan to impose limitations on time and the power Akatosh can have. By all accounts, Akatosh's persona is arrogant, everlasting and self preserving. Larkhans persona is self less, sneaky and bastard on trickery. It's more than likely that Larkhan never failed the CHIM; as he clearly still acts within Mundus, including the creation of sovngarde in the form of Shor. Instead his death was most likely mere trickery so that he could continue his destiny of shadowing Akatosh without being stopped.

Now that all that is ironed out, and its blatantly obvious this talk about Godheads and Dreams is purely imagery so that the developers weren't forced to right down "The [Godhead] Laws of the Universe are created in such a way as to create continously cascading and evermore complex laws of nature and entropoy, which eventually lead to the creation of Anu and Padomay, in which [the dream] ultimately creates God beings that make a whole rich universe from nothing"... The CHIM is not yet fully understood, or even fully fleshed out by The Elder Scrolls developers/people.

What we know is that Larkhan (a being that came from Sithis) created Nirn after 'seeing a Tower' [more skyrim speak] that showed him the universe could be perceived in a way that ultimately gave you power over it, just as how knowledge and confidence manifests as power in the world. Gods cannot ever achieve CHIM because the insight of being a mortal, knowing what its like to be in a constant state of decay, and being able to truly appreciate things like love [as a prime example they use], provides a specific point of view that allows the being access to understanding 'The Towers' secrets. Being able to 'create a dream of your own' is more skyrim speak for 'creating a will that gives you powers over all aspects of creation' and not just the limited potential over time like Akatosh would have. 'The Tower' is only accessible, in a metaphoric sense, after the being has died. This seems directly linked to the Kalpa, where after someone dies they aren't erased, they simply wait for the next Kalpa with no memory of the last cycle (simplifying here, because obviously changes in the time line may prevent people from being born entirely). Instead of being locked into the timeline to enjoy another Kalpa they successfully interact with The Tower and utilize CHIM and essentially escape the cycle; the dream of the aedra and daedra alike.

To answer the OP directly, CHIM is only accessible by extremely exeptional people, because of their ability to see the universe differently. This understanding is basically a correcting mechanism, to prevent someone naive from gaining the powers of CHIM. Once its achieved, the user of CHIM can do anything to the universe... anything. Which is why the correcting mechanisms and the convoluted metaphors are essential. Even with all that potential power, Tiber Septim (Talos) still barely uses it because of his exceptional traits and resistence to corruption. If you put Akatosh in that seat, he would do much worse than just create Alduin. What Talos has done with CHIM so far is to "effectively erase the jungles of Cyrodiil retroactively from all history", meaning IF this Kalpa ever ends it won't even be in the next cycle, or the next infinite cycles after that.

To put it in a physical experience... You die or have an experience that sends you to 'The Tower' (skyrim speak remember) which you need to view as more of a ... feeling... like when you look up at a scyscraper... but this one is so vast and head spinning that it encompasses the entire universe. If you aren't prepared, and your perception isn't yet ready to stop your head spinning, to stop you from going mad, or to stop you from realizing how little and close to 'nothing' you are, you collapse like a dying star and experience the 'Zero Sum'. If you can maintain your 'individuality' and absorb what 'The Tower' (all of the universe) is [which is more like a feeling than a physical object] then the power within goes to YOU as an individual and you gain access to CHIM; a concept only granted by successfully passing that experience.

A lot of these fantasy guys get caught up in debating what 'Godhead' *could* mean, and they never even consider that it might just be imagery, or contextual language to the environment you're in. The Elder Scrolls universe isn't just 'a dream'... it's no where near as dumbed down as that. It can just appear that way to people who think of it in a literal sense instead of making it contextually appropriate. The most interesting thing here is that there are clearly some preexisting conditions in the universe that were made even before Anu and Padomay, the primordial forces. Those conditions being the CHIM, and powers/concepts able to change everything in the universe. What ever made the tower an accessible experience, that only allows exceptional and compassionate mortals through, clearly has an enormous amount of compassion and responsibility. Larkhan was the first to ever see The Tower, and seeing as he was able to 'walk away' from that (without going Zero Sum) and try and create Nirn after, its more than likely he used his personality of trickery to fake his own death with the power of CHIM. The intention Sithis had when creating Larkhan was to impose the concept of limitations on the universe... and so, who else would be better to control CHIM and those who see The Tower?

Edited July 12, 2018 by morogoth35