In The Word for World is Forest, toward the end, Leppenon asks Selver whether or not Athsheans are killing Athsheans. Selver responds that once a god introduces "...a new way to do a thing, or a new thing to be done..." whatever it may be, one cannot take it back from existing in the world. He says that the new thing was brought across "the bridge between the dream-time and the world-time." I think his answer provides a clearer understanding of what dreams are capable of. Initially I took dreams to be vehicles for predicting the future. But it seems much deeper than that. By considering Selver's response to Leppenon, I think that dreams also present possibilities that can be made into reality, since Selver says that things are taken from the dream-time to world-time. It seems to be a possibility because Athsheans can control their dreams. I interpret "control" to mean that they can literally form their own dream or that they can decide whether they will act out their dream in the world-time. So once the concept of killing was introduced--I think the first time for Athsheans may have been when Selver attacked Davidson--the Athsheans were then capable of killing. What I find most interesting about Selver's response is that he says that things cannot be undone. I interpret that to be like you cannot "unlearn" something.

And just like language having layers of meaning, the concept of Athshean dreaming seems to have many layers of meaning.