How long do Sylvari spend in the Dream?

[Bellbirds.1679]

We know Sylvari aren't 'born' and 'grow up' as humans do, but rather awaken fully grown and do not age, with the Dream serving as their preparation for the world, so sort of like a 'childhood', but how long, in human waking world years do they spend in this Dream? Did all Sylvari that ever will be become concious in the Dream at the same time as each other but awaken at different times or does a Sylvari spend a certain length of time in the Dream before awakening, with their conciousness beginning whenever the Pale Tree chooses to create a new individual?

[Tiffany.8216]

I would assume each sylvari spends the same amount of time in the Dream(similarly to how humans are pregnant for 9 months) but of course we don't know for sure. However, if that theory IS correct, we still have no idea how long that is; given that Mordremoth's Blighting Trees started producing immediately, it's clear that the Pale Tree could have made sylvari soon after it was first planted instead of waiting 250ish years. But, given that sylvari are sentient and sapient and most Mordrem are not, it may be that sylvari just need that long in the Dream, and the Pale Tree started developing each generation of sylvari a long, LOOONG time ago.

 

On the other hand, we know that after the Shadow of the Dragon attacked the Tree in S2 she stopped producing sylvari, but then started again in S3 - were the Dreams of the unawakened sylvari simply interrupted? Did they become traumatized or something? Or does it NOT take that long and the Pale Tree just decided not to start making sylvari until early 1300s? 

 

We don't know any of this lol. I'm just guessing. I'd take the stopping in S2 and starting sometime between HoT and S3 as the biggest clue we have, honestly.

[Bellbirds.1679]

@Tiffany.8216I'm not sure I agree with the 9 months theory. Humans take 9 months to form a human infant, weighing only a few pounds. The Pale Tree produces, at awakening, Sylvari that are mentally and physically fully adult. I imagine it would take at least a 4-5 years for a Sylvari to be ready to awaken, assuming that the Pale Tree is able to speed it up to a rate faster than human gestation, if not a full 18 years living in the Dream to allow for full physical and mental development.

Alternatively, why not base it on the growth rate of irl trees? We know Sylvari are woody with sap, so perhaps it could take decades for a Sylvari's physical body to grow in its pod, while the Sylvari spends that time concious in the realm of the Dream.

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

One thing to understand is that Sylvari aren't technically individual plants, but more like fruits, which is also why they can't reproduce. This means the time to create one would be less similar to  plant growing and more similar to a fruit growing, and because dreamscapes tend to have a different time reference than the physical world, its possible that they only grow for a few months to years at a time to fully mature while being in the Dream for a lifetime.

 

The simple answer is we don't really know. What we do know is that the Sylvari player only experiences the very last part of their Dream in the tutorial mission, long after they've already learned speech, basic combat and so on. And there are references to the player's Dream later on which aren't covered in that mission. Though I imagine Sylvari don't consciously experience the dream until their physical body (particularly their mind) reaches a certain stage of development, as its established later with Trahearne they do need physical bodies to access the Dream.

 

When they return to the Dream when they die, its not their spirit returning (we know they go to the Mists due to Seiran), its their thoughts, feelings, memories and experiences being distributed to it.

[The Greyhawk.9107]

11 hours ago, Tiffany.8216 said:

I would assume each sylvari spends the same amount of time in the Dream(similarly to how humans are pregnant for 9 months) but of course we don't know for sure. However, if that theory IS correct, we still have no idea how long that is; given that Mordremoth's Blighting Trees started producing immediately, it's clear that the Pale Tree could have made sylvari soon after it was first planted instead of waiting 250ish years. But, given that sylvari are sentient and sapient and most Mordrem are not, it may be that sylvari just need that long in the Dream, and the Pale Tree started developing each generation of sylvari a long, LOOONG time ago.

 

On the other hand, we know that after the Shadow of the Dragon attacked the Tree in S2 she stopped producing sylvari, but then started again in S3 - were the Dreams of the unawakened sylvari simply interrupted? Did they become traumatized or something? Or does it NOT take that long and the Pale Tree just decided not to start making sylvari until early 1300s? 

 

We don't know any of this lol. I'm just guessing. I'd take the stopping in S2 and starting sometime between HoT and S3 as the biggest clue we have, honestly.

The Pale Tree stopped producing more sylvari because it had been grievously injured in the attack by the Shadow of the Dragon, the Tree seemed to be slipping in and out of a coma during that time period.

Its also unlikely that the Pale Tree could have started producing sylvari back when it was a sapling and needed to mature before being capable of spawning her children, whereas the Blighted Trees were force-grown to maturated by the awakened Mordremoth in a much shorter period of time. 

[Tiffany.8216]

13 hours ago, Bellbirds.1679 said:

@Tiffany.8216I'm not sure I agree with the 9 months theory. Humans take 9 months to form a human infant, weighing only a few pounds. The Pale Tree produces, at awakening, Sylvari that are mentally and physically fully adult. I imagine it would take at least a 4-5 years for a Sylvari to be ready to awaken, assuming that the Pale Tree is able to speed it up to a rate faster than human gestation, if not a full 18 years living in the Dream to allow for full physical and mental development.

Alternatively, why not base it on the growth rate of irl trees? We know Sylvari are woody with sap, so perhaps it could take decades for a Sylvari's physical body to grow in its pod, while the Sylvari spends that time concious in the realm of the Dream.

nonono! I wasn't saying it takes nine months, that was my example for why I would assume the sylvari each take the same amount of time.

 

but I like your theories, those are good ones XD

[Tiffany.8216]

5 hours ago, Hannelore.8153 said:

One thing to understand is that Sylvari aren't technically individual plants, but more like fruits, which is also why they can't reproduce. This means the time to create one would be less similar to  plant growing and more similar to a fruit growing, and because dreamscapes tend to have a different time reference than the physical world, its possible that they only grow for a few months to years at a time to fully mature while being in the Dream for a lifetime.

 

The simple answer is we don't really know. What we do know is that the Sylvari player only experiences the very last part of their Dream in the tutorial mission, long after they've already learned speech, basic combat and so on. And there are references to the player's Dream later on which aren't covered in that mission. Though I imagine Sylvari don't consciously experience the dream until their physical body (particularly their mind) reaches a certain stage of development, as its established later with Trahearne they do need physical bodies to access the Dream.

 

When they return to the Dream when they die, its not their spirit returning (we know they go to the Mists due to Seiran), its their thoughts, feelings, memories and experiences being distributed to it.

Wait, Sieran? We see a memory of her in the Domain of the Lost, but that's different. The argument for sylvari going to the Mists is that the sylvari player was in the Domain of the Lost, but that could easily lead right back to the Dream. Of course nobody knows, but it's still a valid theory.

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

Unfortunately there is, as far as I know, utterly zero direct indication for the gestation period of sylvari, let alone how long sylvari experience the Dream during this period.

Given that they're basically free willed mordrem, I imagine it's at least on par to mordrem, but to counter that, mordrem do not appear to have a connection to the Dream (sole exception being the Shadow of the Dragon and the Smothering Shadows. Mordrem can be formed within days, so we can assume a bare minimum of the same for that. The entire plot of Heart of Thorns takes 43 days according to Justiciar Bauer's journal, and in less than those 43 days, Logan and Zojja clones who were fully sapient and capable of speech were formed. We don't know how long it took for Logan and Zojja to be carted off from Verdant Brink to Dragon's Stand, but it wasn't in one day, so let's say it took approximately 40 days. This is our probable absolute minimum gestation period for intelligent sylvari/mordrem.

If we assume that the Pale Tree had "miscarriages" with all growing sylvari during The World Summit attack (S2E4) and didn't begin producing new fruit until she regained consciousness (S2E7, 2.5 months later). We got confirmation in Notes from Rata Novus that new sylvari were being born weeks after Mordremoth's death. How many weeks is unclear, but we know from aforementioned Conspiracy of Dunces journals, that Season 3 began 17 Zephyr 1329 AE, while Mordremoth died 74 Zephyr 1328 AE - or in other words about 10.5 months apart. The comment of sylvari being born comes from Entry #8, while we have a confirmed 17 entries. The contents of Entry 17 roughly align with Savant Valis' entry for 70 Phoenix, 1328 AE - 86 days after Mordremoth's death. If we assume that's accurate, and that the entries are roughly equidistant, then we're looking at about 5 days per entry - so 40 days after Mordy's death for Entry #8 aka news of newborn sylvari hitting Taimi.

In addition, the time from S2E7 and HoT beginning would have been about a month, as ANet was still doing their silly perfect-syncing at that point (now it's just a 'rough syncing') and E7 launched December 2nd, so S2E7 events would begin be late (~62) Colossus 1327. With 31 Zephyr 1328 being marked as the day the Pact Fleet fell (aka S2E8 finale), we're looking at an approximate 60 day gap from Pale Tree waking up barely, to destruction of the fleet, add in the 43 days of HoT campaign, the 1 day gap between S2 and HoT, and then the educated guess of approximately 40 days after Mordy's death for Entry 8.

Time would have passed for news to reach her since she was in isolation until that point and newborn sylvari could have begun as soon as Mordremoth died, so there's definite room for error there, but it means we're looking at approximately 143 days - or 4.5 months Tyrian time - as our most likely estimate for gestation period.

However, there's a chance that's wrong, and for all we know the entries 7 to 17 were done in rapid succession leading right up to the beginning of S3E1, in which case we're looking at ~60+1+43+346-or-351 (again depending on if that interview is canon, despite finding it a silly an illogical statement I'll consider it canon ant take 351) in which case we're looking at no more than ~455 days or 14.5 months (depending on whether you go with nonsensical interview comments or not) as our probable absolute maximum gestation period between when the Pale Tree regained consciousness and the start of Season 3.

Bit of a gap between "most likely" and "maximum time", though, but there's too little dating in Taimi's journals to be really accurate - too little dating about the time-skip between HoT and S3 in general.

Still, I'd argue an about 5 month period in general is most likely for how long it takes for sylvari to go from "beginning to form" to "born" (or awakened as sylvari call it).

There's then the question of how much of this time the sylvari in question experience the Dream but, quite frankly, this is impossible to answer or even guess. But it's very likely that, since sylvari bodies are made as adult from the get go, that remains true while in gestation too and there's no "rapid growth from infant to adult in the pod" scenario, just as we see the Mordrem Guard grown fully-grown in the CGI HoT release teaser. So we can guess it's pretty close to the same, if not exactly the same.

7 hours ago, Hannelore.8153 said:

its established later with Trahearne they do need physical bodies to access the Dream.

I don't think he ever establishes this (do you remember where this was said?). Rather, what I recall established is that entering the Dream isn't a physical experience, and our bodies would be "left behind".

1 hour ago, Tiffany.8216 said:

Wait, Sieran? We see a memory of her in the Domain of the Lost, but that's different. The argument for sylvari going to the Mists is that the sylvari player was in the Domain of the Lost, but that could easily lead right back to the Dream. Of course nobody knows, but it's still a valid theory.

I think @Hannelore.8153 was referring to Seiran's departing words in The Battle of Claw Island:

Magister Sieran: I've always wondered what it would be like to go to the mists. It'll be an adventure...

But this isn't really proof the sylvari go to the Mists. Rather, by 1325 AE, it was still debated what the fate of sylvari was post-mortem. In the Grove there's a Warden who believes sylvari return to the Dream in contrast to this.

Our very first encounter with the soul of a sylvari is when the Pact Commander dies in Path of Fire - until then, we didn't even have proof that sylvari even had souls, since there were zero sylvari ghosts. Since then, we've only met two sylvari souls: an unnamed lost spirit and Countess Zohrell, our first sylvari Lunatic Courtier.

Edited November 8, 2021 by Konig Des Todes.2086