On dream travellers

Lee Berman · 13 Feb 2011, 02:18 · from 2011-February.txt.gz

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From: severiansola at hotmail.com (Lee Berman)
Date: Sat, 12 Feb 2011 21:18:12 -0500
Subject: (urth) On dream travellers
Message-ID: <SNT123-W35660B5AC6F3F16C0009D5CFD10 at phx.gbl>

>> Maybe it was the dream-travel tech equivalent of an aquastor?

>Andrew Mason: I wondered that. I don't think it can be exactly the same, because
>Severian spends much of his later life as an aquastor, and I'm fairly
>sure he digests. But Malrubius' remark that he is solid, despite being
>just a dance of particles, because every body is just a dance of
>particles, is surely relevant to dream-travellers as well.

Yes, Barbatus explains that:

"What you call eidolons are not ghosts, but beings maintained in existence by
some external energy source. What you call matter is all, in actuality, merely
bound energy.  The only difference is that some is held in material form by its
own energy.

and

"...when you cam here, you had lived a long time...During all that time you breathed
ate, and drank matter that was not unstable, converting it to your body's use. Thus
it became a substantial body".

So, yes, eidolons can eat and digest. Severian digesting is actually essential to him 
becoming "real".

Dream travellers may be able to produce deadly swords and viable sperm but they can't
eat and digest and become part of the world/time/universe they have travelled to.

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