An idea I have been playing around with recently is the possibility that magic is synonymous with consciousness. That is to say the very act of thinking produces a magical effect. The effect is in proportion to the imaginative capacity of the individual and so usually very, very small. But a skilled dreamer can produce vast and impressive magics. For example, an old woman skilled in "the old ways" who suddenly cannot recall whether she did the washing-up (but really dreads doing it) enters the kitchen to find it all tidy and clean. On the other hand, a powerful mage sits cross-legged before the gates of a citadel and dreams of a bull, a giant bull, rearing its head before lowering it and charging. It leaps over him, its haunches thick as trees, and batters the gates down to the cheers of the army behind him.

Imagination and dreams are not limited to the individual. Large-scale hysteria can produce similarly impressive effects. A horde of a hundred thousand crazed goblins, fearing the very worst, look up into the sky which darkens above them. As they begin to scream, the darkness descends from the clouds and opens its hideous mouth to douse them in flame.

I suppose I am considering a world in which matter and thought are intimately linked, and the way one thinks about things affects how they are. In short, a world carved by dreams.

Now my question is this. In such a world there will be very powerful mages who have studied themselves and their dreams and become exceptionally skilled at warping reality. Such people are often unstable. When they finally go mad or die, it is likely that a small area of the world around them will implode and go crazy. What kind of results would follow? One might think of these results as curious areas of "wild magic", suitable for building into a dungeon for a ``what the…?!?!’’ effect.

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