How to Enter the Sleeping Worlds

[Evello]

How exactly does one get into the Realm of Sleep? How did Sora and Riku get there? The game begins with them on the Destiny Islands, after Yen Sid's magic transformed them into their younger form. But is this in the Realm of Sleep or is it just normal Destiny Islands? And is it in the past or present? Braig says very clearly and unmistakably that Sora was "able to go back in time to just before your home became a Sleeping World", I'm assuming in order to ride the destroyed Destiny Islands into the Realm of Sleep. However, YMX specifically told Sora:

"To move through time, you must leave your body behind."

I assumed Sora and Riku still had bodies since they traversed both real and dream worlds over the course of the adventure with no problem. But then I wondered, are they going heart-only style like Sora in CoM? What would that mean? Is Roxas back, then, along with a Riku Nobody? Or did Yen Sid just use a magic plot exception and transported them back body and all.

To make things worse, Sora and Riku open a keyhole of sleep in the Destiny Islands. If the world was awake how is that possible? That seemed to indicate that it was sleeping. But if it's sleeping how did they get there? Or were Sora and Riku riding it into the Realm of Sleep and then the Keyhole appeared?

Furthermore, why did Xehanort's Heartless have to go to the Destiny Islands on that night? If the scene on Destiny Islands is in the past, it makes sense, since Young Xehanort needs to get to the entrance of the Realm of Sleep, but can only travel to places/times later incarnations of Xehanort have been to. However if the Destiny Islands scene is in the present, it really makes no sense at all. And if it's in a dream I don't have a clue what to make of it.

tl;dr: Does anybody understand how Sora, Riku, and Xehanort got into the Realm of Sleep?

 

[Key Wielder]

Ansem SoD, having given up his body, was able to travel back in time to the time when the Destiny Islands fell into sleep. Being at that threshold allowed him to enter the realm of sleep, as well as all the others who carried his heart. That's why he says, "This world has been connected."

Sora and Riku are more difficult to explain. Mr. Nomura has already stated that they took their bodies with them, so they can't really have traveled through time. My guess is that Yen Sid was able to use magic to recreate the islands in their dreams, and that is the way they were able to return to their world in the past without actually moving through time. That is pure conjecture on my part, though; I don't think we've quite gotten an answer as to just how Yen Sid sent them "back" to that point in time.

 

[Shoxir]

They just had to add time travel... wouldn't it have been easier to just have everyone jump in the DeLorean, go back in time, and then put them to sleep? Maybe then Xehanort wouldn't have been able to interfere. Surprisingly this would make more sense than what we were given lol

 

[HeartofTwilight]

is there a source for Nomura saying that they took their bodies with them? Because sending just their dream consciousnesses back in time might be an answer....

 

[padlock]

IT doesn't make any sense, whatsoever. Sora and Riku are shown to enter the sleeping worlds by being asleep (when we see their bodies at the Mysterious Tower, but at the end Sora physically travels to Traverse Town, a place that as Joshua described, doesn't even really physically exist.

All of the places they travel to in the game are supposed to be the dreams the sleeping worlds are having, even though we know Destiny Islands has been restored. Not to mention, Where exactly are these worlds? Their own "sleeping Realm"? A "time cocoon" somewhere in the "In-Between Realm"?

What exactly are Sora and Riku there for anyway? The Destruction of Ansem triggered the return of many worlds, yet some remained asleep. But how does waking up these world "grant the power" of being able to unlock hearts? Don't they already have these powers from the beginning of the game, unlocking the worlds hearts as the go along?

I dunno, I have more quibbles. I have seen your posts around the spoiler section Ragnell and I must say I am inclined to agree with you that this one has enough holes, even without the Time travel.

 

[Youniquee]

IT doesn't make any sense, whatsoever. Sora and Riku are shown to enter the sleeping worlds by being asleep (when we see their bodies at the Mysterious Tower, but at the end Sora physically travels to Traverse Town, a place that as Joshua described, doesn't even really physically exist.

Sora didn't travel there physically...he probably left his body behind somewhere then travelled to the Realm of Sleep.

 

[Key Wielder]

IT doesn't make any sense, whatsoever. Sora and Riku are shown to enter the sleeping worlds by being asleep (when we see their bodies at the Mysterious Tower, but at the end Sora physically travels to Traverse Town, a place that as Joshua described, doesn't even really physically exist.

Mr. Nomura said in a Famitsu interview that they took their bodies with them.

— When both of them are in the reality parts, they don’t return to their original bodies. Why is that?

Nomura: It’s because of Yen Sid’s magic that they’ve taken their old forms. If they didn’t return to Yen Sid’s place, their bodies wouldn’t return back to normal. Incidentally, their new outfits were thanks to Yen Sid’s magic as Sora suspected.

If you mean when we see them asleep at the Mysterious Tower at the end, it is because Riku was diving into Sora's sleep/heart, not the realm of sleep.

 

[ShardofTruth]

I think nobody can really answer this question, I asked it myself here and on some other forums but there there is just not enough evidence brought up by the game or the interviews to formulate a good answer.
It's not clear what Yen Sid was trying to do (and how he did it) and what changed when Xehanort interfered. The Destiny Islands from the past and the completly different Traverse Town (if it's not the real one, why should it have a keyhole) is completely mind boggling.

I understand that KH3D came up with questions that will be answered in future games, but I feel that even things that should be clear by now (mostly how time traveling and the Sleeping Worlds work) are not very clear at all. We should start a question catalogue, translate it to Japanese and sent it to the Famitsu, so they can make another interview.

 

[gelandporn]

Yeah, as usual, the more you examine these plot elements the more they tend to unravel.

The best we can establish based on current knowledge is that:
- Sora and Riku did have their bodies in the Sleeping Worlds, just transformed into their younger selves by Yensid's magic.
- Sora and Riku did not have their bodies in Sora's dream. Remember, it's essentially a dive to the heart, just like Sora's in the original KH, so a physical body isn't needed. On the other hand, the Sleeping Worlds are on physical plane of existence. Even if there are cases where it creates things which don't actually exist there (inhabitants that were not on the destroyed world, like Jiminy), it is still the place where consumed worlds and their inhabitants end up.
- Sora and Riku time traveled back to when Destiny Islands was consumed by darkness, so that they could unlock its Sleeping Keyhole as it fell asleep and plunge into the Sleeping Worlds. This is made pretty clear by what both Yensid and Xigbar say.

There are still issues with this, the biggest of course being that it blatantly contradicts the rules of time travel established in this very game. How can Sora and Riku retain their bodies from time traveling? I've heard several different theories on this, and each one has its flaw:

- Maybe they didn't retain their body, and they just "possessed" the bodies of their younger selves. This poses several problems. First, we see quite clearly in the Mysterious Tower cutscenes that Riku and Sora's bodies are gone, they're not sleeping there. Second it contradicts what Nomura said about Yensid's magic. And third, it would kupo up the timeline. Stealing KH1 Sora and Riku's bodies would prevent them from going on their journey in KH1, and would create a paradox. That can't happen.

- Maybe they didn't retain their bodies and went to the Realm of Sleep as hearts, in a state of existence similar to what Sora was in during the events of CoM. This also contradicts the first two points in the previous theory, but it also raises other questions. Like, why would they even need to be in their KH1 forms if that were the case? Applying the same logic to Ansem SoD, that's basically suggesting that, when he traveled back to inform YMX, if he were to take on a physical form, he himself would look like... YMX. Which obviously isn't the case. So this idea renders the younger transformations unnecessary.

- Maybe since they had both lost their bodies in the past, this allows Sora and Riku to time travel. This one makes more sense than the other two, but it's still... not really that logical. Sora became a heartless and Riku's heart was ejected from his body in KH1. This could technically allow them to meet the requirements of the no-body rule, just in a different way than we thought. But, I don't know, it doesn't add up. With the way YMX words it, he makes it sound as though the disposal of the body must first come during the act of time travel itself, not during some time in the past. And this makes sense. Your body anchors you in the present, getting rid of the vessel could potentially allow you to transcend it. But without the body disposal being a part of the time traveling process itself, it just seems like some arbitrary requirement with no real reasoning behind it.

- The last idea, and the one which I personally believe, is that they simply found a way to bypass the no-body rule. Yensid's magic transformed them into their KH1 selves, right? So this would presumably happen before the actual time travel occurred. Now, why would he do that? Perhaps so that they could keep their bodies. And the best way I can reason that this would be allowed to happen is that, by putting their bodies back into the state they existed in at that time, they can "fit" back into that time without having to ditch their bodies. Put another way, if time is a fluid puzzle, we as puzzle pieces are constantly changing so that we can no longer fit into the puzzle as it once was. To fit into that old puzzle, we can get rid of our entire puzzle piece, or transform it so that it can fit as it once did. Of course, the biggest obstacle for this theory is that no such exception to the rule was ever referred to, and you'd figure that'd be a pretty dumb thing to leave out.

But hey, there were a lot of things that were idiotically left out. It would have helped tons if Nomura had simply included a scene of Yensid actually changing them into their KH1 selves, and sending them back in time. Instead we're left to glean what happened from various bits of dialogue and interviews.

And there are more issues if you stop to think about them. For example, Sora goes into the Sleeping Worlds and RIku goes into Sora's dreams. Does that not, by what I described earlier, mean that Sora's physical body was traveling through the Sleeping Worlds while Riku's body /slept/ in the Sleeping Worlds and he metaphysically traveled through Sora's heart? Then how the hell did Riku physically get to TWTNW, his body should be back in the sleeping Destiny Islands? Or hell, how does the Organization get into Sora's dreams?

 

[Marx15]

- Maybe they didn't retain their body, and they just "possessed" the bodies of their younger selves. This poses several problems. First, we see quite clearly in the Mysterious Tower cutscenes that Riku and Sora's bodies are gone, they're not sleeping there. Second it contradicts what Nomura said about Yensid's magic. And third, it would kupo up the timeline. Stealing KH1 Sora and Riku's bodies would prevent them from going on their journey in KH1, and would create a paradox. That can't happen.

Except it wouldn't create a paradox. YX explains that eventually you will return to your right time and your memory of what you experienced will be erased.
So if KH1 Sora and Riku's bodies are in fact the ones they had in the first game, they would've returned to KH1 time after they left the RoS. And to KH1 Sora and Riku, it would be like nothing new happened,

Also, Sora and Riku could simply be sleeping in another room.

 

[gelandporn]

Except it wouldn't create a paradox. YX explains that eventually you will return to your right time and your memory of what you experienced will be erased.
So if KH1 Sora and Riku's bodies are in fact the ones they had in the first game, they would've returned to KH1 time after they left the RoS. And to KH1 Sora and Riku, it would be like nothing new happened,

Also, Sora and Riku could simply be sleeping in another room.

He says that in relation to the people who are pulled out of their time and put into another. They get placed back in the exact instant they left from and have no recollection of the events. Makes sense. But this isn't applying to going back and changing things that already happened.

If KH2 Sora and Riku are possessing the bodies of KH1 Sora and Riku when the Islands are being swallowed, guess what happens? Sora doesn't get a Keyblade and go to Traverse Town, Riku doesn't go to Hollow Bastion and meet Maleficent, etc. Their bodies are being occupied there, and at that particular time they were doing things that were critical to the timeline. They cannot intervene in these events because they are destined to happen, and possessing their bodies at that time and doing other shit with them is intervening.

KH1 Sora and Riku's bodies are physical vessels, they can't occupy more than one space at the same time. We can't have Sora and Riku possessing them from the future and them going about their destined path at the same time.

And they're very, very, very clearly not in another room, unless their bodies ran off on their own to TWTNW.

As an aside, there's more problems for ya: Why didn't Sora and Riku forget their time traveling shit (which would basically mean they went into the Sleeping Worlds for nothing lol) and at what point did they actually get back into the present (ie how is it that they can enter the Sleeping Worlds in the past and exit into the present)?

 

[Marx15]

He says that in relation to the people who are pulled out of their time and put into another. They get placed back in the exact instant they left from and have no recollection of the events. Makes sense. But this isn't applying to going back and changing things that already happened.

If KH2 Sora and Riku are possessing the bodies of KH1 Sora and Riku when the Islands are being swallowed, guess what happens? Sora doesn't get a Keyblade and go to Traverse Town, Riku doesn't go to Hollow Bastion and meet Maleficent, etc. Their bodies are being occupied there, and at that particular time they were doing things that were critical to the timeline. They cannot intervene in these events because they are destined to happen, and possessing their bodies at that time and doing other shit with them is intervening.

KH1 Sora and Riku's bodies are physical vessels, they can't occupy more than one space at the same time. We can't have Sora and Riku possessing them from the future and them going about their destined path at the same time.

And they're very, very, very clearly not in another room, unless their bodies ran off on their own to TWTNW.

As an aside, there's more problems for ya: Why didn't Sora and Riku forget their time traveling shit (which would basically mean they went into the Sleeping Worlds for nothing lol) and at what point did they actually get back into the present (ie how is it that they can enter the Sleeping Worlds in the past and exit into the present)?

I never thought of it that way.....

And I forgot about that first thing you mentioned....

 

[Memory Master]

And this utter confusion is another reason why they shouldn't have introduced time travel into the series. It would have been much simplier for Yen Sid to have put Riku and Sora to sleep and then in their dream they connect their dream to the dream of a sleeping world (Traverse Town) thus creating a portal into the realm of sleep in the real world. Sora and Riku wake up and jump into the portal and enter the realm of sleep.

I believe the concept of using sleep of the heart to connect or reach certain things would have been a much better idea to explain alot of things they explained using the time travel concept. Kind of how in the real world some believe it is easier to connect to the spiritual realm in sleep than when awake.

 

[Evello]

And there are more issues if you stop to think about them. For example, Sora goes into the Sleeping Worlds and RIku goes into Sora's dreams. Does that not, by what I described earlier, mean that Sora's physical body was traveling through the Sleeping Worlds while Riku's body /slept/ in the Sleeping Worlds and he metaphysically traveled through Sora's heart? Then how the hell did Riku physically get to TWTNW, his body should be back in the sleeping Destiny Islands? Or hell, how does the Organization get into Sora's dreams?

I agree with pretty much everything you said, I just figured I should point out that it was my understanding that Sora did not actually travel through the Sleeping Worlds (except the Grid). The way the game put it, I assumed Sora was traveling through the Sleeping Worlds' dreams. I might be incorrect in this, but I imagined that Sora was in the worlds' dreams and Riku was in turn in Sora's dreams. Except for the Grid, that is, which Xehanort outlined as an exception since data does not dream. So in that world Sora was in the actual Sleeping World itself, while Riku remained in Sora's dream.

As for Riku's body, he entered Sora's dreams body and all (in the ending, Riku's body disappears as he enters Sora's dream, so I assume it worked the same earlier). I have no clue what happened when Sora woke up and Riku Dropped asleep, though. Sora would then no longer have dreams for Riku to be inside. So... maybe he was just inside Sora's heart? Or maybe his body was just in some sort of limbo. No idea. Sora really doesn't have that problem, since the Sleeping Worlds never woke up while he was still in their dreams.

Regarding how the Organization entered Sora's dreams, I would just chock that up to the whole "dreams are connected" shtick. Just like how Riku affecting Sora's dreams in turn affected the Sleeping Worlds' dreams. All the dreams are tied together, and Xehanort and co. must have just found a way to move through that connection into Sora's dreams.

And yeah, the time jump is a further hole in the logic of how they got to DI. Are we expected to believe that Sora and Riku slept for the better part of two years waiting to unlock the Keyholes in the present? Wouldn't they age, like Sora did while asleep after CoM? Or did the events of DDD take two years, and Yen Sid's magic kept them young? Either explanation is sketchy, since nothing of either was shown in-game.

 

[Villen]

I think a lot of these problems will be adressed in the next entry of the series. Nomura isn't dumb, his problem is just that he does not plan ahead but usually he adresses the inconsistencies, I don't think he will just leave those holes. It's just like in KH1 where it was established that the villain was ansem but in KH2 wasn't anymore so the story can keep on going.

 

[HeartofTwilight]

I understand that KH3D came up with questions that will be answered in future games, but I feel that even things that should be clear by now (mostly how time traveling and the Sleeping Worlds work) are not very clear at all. We should start a question catalogue, translate it to Japanese and sent it to the Famitsu, so they can make another interview.

If that is even a remote possibility of actually getting answers on this, I vote we do it. There clearly isn't enough in game or in the materials we have.

We'd have to get the phrasing down right, though.

Did YS send Sora and Riku back in time to DI in their magically transformed bodies? How did he bypass the law of time travel that you need to leave your body behind?

If Sora and Riku got into the RoS through time travel, how come they still remember their adventures?

Any others?

 

[iLeen]

If that is even a remote possibility of actually getting answers on this, I vote we do it. There clearly isn't enough in game or in the materials we have.

We'd have to get the phrasing down right, though.

Did YS send Sora and Riku back in time to DI in their magically transformed bodies? How did he bypass the law of time travel that you need to leave your body behind?

If Sora and Riku got into the RoS through time travel, how come they still remember their adventures?

Any others?

Nomura definitely said that Sora and Riku went back in time to DI in their bodies. He did not state how this was doneXD

Sora and Riku weren't on DI for long, but ended up in the Realm of Sleep shortly after. Maybe in the RoS, time doesn't flow naturally, because it's happening in a dream, so all that time traveling things don't count.

As for the next question, Sora and Riku traveled to the past, meaning their present time is considered as the future. And since they are in their bodies, it must mean they're experiencing the flow of time, and therefore know what is going on (what they learned, what is happening, etc.). Then they travel back to the future (haha), or present time, and voila. Yeah...I dunno where my explanation is going. I've been trying to figure all this time traveling stuff out since the Japan release, and I still got nothingXD

Now I'm wondering...if YX traveled to the future, and then must go back to the past from before he time-traveled, does he come back aged as a few days/weeks that he grew when time traveling or does he return to his age from before his time-traveling? (e.g. let's say he was 17 years old when Ansem SoD popped up before him and told him to time-travel. Then YX time travels and turns 18 [exaggeration. I'm pretty sure a year didn't pass]. When he returns to his normal time [aka the past], is he 18 or is he 17 again?). I'm thinking the latter because he time-traveled as a heart and probably returned to the past (his present time) at the exact moment he left for time-travel, therefore he shouldn't have aged.

I think this is what I was getting at earlier about Sora and Riku remembering everything because since they need to go back to the FUTURE instead of the PAST to be in their normal present day times, they return as aged people instead of returning at the same age as when they first left. Also, Sora and Riku returned a few days later (from start of exam to end of exam) so they had to have aged as if they were in the present time the whole time (because it would be like Sora and Riku are 15/16, age to 16/17 [exaggeration again], and then return to 15/16 while traveling to the future, which wouldn't make any sense). Does this make sense at all? Maybe someone who can understand all my nonsense can reword this better.

 

[HeartofTwilight]

Youngnort's explanation of time travel seemed to imply that as soon as you go back to your own time you forget about the time travel, though he WAS talking about going back into the PAST not the FUTURE, so it is possible that it is different and 'nort just didn't mention that.

I guess there is also the possibility, as iLeenAgainstWall that the RoS acts as a kind of interupt on the time travel. Sora and Riku went PAST -> RoS/Dreams -> present. The first part of their time in the RoS was actually in the past - DI, but the rest was implied present sleeping worlds. But even on Traverse Town, Riku can remember remember the events in the past RoS.

This would me that the rules of past and present in the RoS are more fluid - the line between a Sleeping World that has reawoken (DI) and one that has not or is something all together different (whatever the heck Traverse Town is...) is not so hard to cross, as long as you are already in the RoS.

We are also asked to consider the RoS an at least psudeo physical place - unlike Sora's heart at the end, apparently, from what people are saying, we are supposed to take it that Riku and Sora were their Physically.

I guess there is the possibility that they DID forget the events outside the flow of time and the Ros - the brief few seconds on DI before the world became a sleeping world, but that wouldn't have any real effect on the plot. Or, as postulated, you get to keep the memories going forward in time, just not back. And Youngnort doesn't say anything because it isn't relevant to the situation he is directly addressing, as as far as we know, none of the Norts went BACK in time to get there. ("My most future self" says "the future is beyond me."

As for their bodies getting into the past, I guess that leaves us with Yen Sid being able to break the rule (as Merlin can in KH2), the body morph somehow breaking the rule, as gelandporn suggested, or the fact that both Sora and Riku at some point in the past either gave up or lost their bodies. That last one kind of makes sense, because when the King asks to go and help, Yen Sid says that he cannot enter the RoS to help them - ie, the time travel, ride into the sleeping worlds thing won't work on Mickey. (even though he was in several worlds before they fell into sleep - maybe not right before, but before - and you can jump forward with the rules of KH time travel...)

That would make his transformation of their bodies entirely for the sake of Keyblade re-mastery, but I guess that is a reason.