History ComicBook / TheSandman1989

** Most of Gaiman's characters have had very limited interaction with the main DCU since the comic ended, because DC has to pay him a royalty to use them (though there have been some, such as the [[Franchise/JusticeLeagueOfAmerica JLA]] knowing Daniel, time traveler Walker Gabriel being buddies with Hob Gadling, and Death appearing to Luthor shortly before the ComicBook/{{New 52}} reboot). However, Gaiman also used many obscure pre-existing DC characters, such as Cain, Abel, and Destiny, and these can be used with impunity.

* AmbiguouslyAbsentParent: No explanation is given as to why Alexander Burgess's mother is not around.

* AndIMustScream: In issue #1, Dream curses the son of his kidnapper to live in an endless cycle of dreams where he believes he's just awoken, only to discover himself in a nightmare, only to seemingly awake again, and so on.

* DeepSleep: A mysterious disease starts making people sleep uncontrollably, putting them in vulnerable positions at the mercy of their caretakers. In Unity Kinkaid's case, she was raped while sleeping, and her baby was adopted out. [[spoiler:The spinoff short story anthology reveals that the Nazis euthanized one woman who was trapped in the sleeping sickness]].

* DiscOneFinalBoss: Roderick Burgess. The first issue appears to set him up as the BigBad, or at least as a major antagonist. Then it turns out that the first issue spans ''70 freakin' years''. As Dream points out, patiently waiting a human lifetime is easy for the Endless, and even if he hadn't figured out how to escape, he could've simply waited for the building in which he was imprisoned to crumble to dust. By the time Dream gets free, Roderick has died of old age, and his son Alex is a harmless, senile old man. Dream leaves Alex in a permanent nightmare and never sees him again. [[spoiler:He wakes up at the end of ''The Kindly Ones'' when Dream dies, as with his death there was nothing keeping him in the nightmare anymore. He even attends Dream's funeral and meets the new one, who doesn't seem to hold a grudge.]]

** Although it wasn't Alex Burgess' decision to summon or capture Dream, it ''was'' his choice to keep him imprisoned after Roderick's death in fear of this. Ironically he just made things much worse for himself, as thanks to him Dream's captivity lasted more than twice as long as it otherwise might have.

* DreamWithinADream: The main character being the Lord of Dreams, this comes up a lot. Most notably, this is the FateWorseThanDeath he inflicts upon Alex Burgess.

* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: Early issues were more overt horror stories set in the proper DC universe, with appearances by many staple DC heroes and villains. As the series went on, it grew into a more complex kind of fantasy, and Gaiman more or less excised the DC references, though he would toss one in every so often.

* EroticDream: Morpheus once borrowed the vehicle that someone was dreaming about having sex in the back of. Rose also gets one in ''The Kindly Ones'', which Abel [[ThePeepingTom drops in on]] her having sex in a dream to get some cheap entertainment before she catches him. This is also discussed by Rose with Dream.

* GentlemanWizard: Roderick Burgess is a villainous version, a venerable old British mage who also imprisons Dream for about seventy years, and who was originally planning to catch Death instead.

* IWantMyMommy: A PlayedForDrama example when it is mentioned that Ellie, one of the victims of the sleeping sickness, calls for her mother one of the times she briefly wakes during the time that Dream is imprisoned.

* MistakenForDisease: While Dream is imprisoned in the opening issue, the disruption to the Dreaming results in random people around the world either suffering permanent insomnia or (more commonly) gradually lapsing into coma-like states. Not knowing what to make of it, doctors believe this pandemic to be the result of a disease, eventually labelling the condition ''Encephalitis lethargica'' or "Sleepy Sickness."

* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: Roderick Burgess, leader of the Order of Ancient Mysteries, is a ''rival'' of Aleister Crowley. You know, like [[Film/CitizenKane Charles Foster Kane]] was a rival of Randolph Hearst. In one of the spinoff novels, Burgess is a rival of both Crowley and Mocata, the Crowley {{Expy}} from ''Literature/TheDevilRidesOut''.

* TheOathbreaker: Roderick Burgess, upon realizing that his [[TheStarscream second-in-command]] has stolen his mistress ''and'' a good chunk of his cult's treasury: "As this blood is shed, so spills your blood, Ruthven Sykes, adept of the 33rd, whose secret name is Ararita... Traitor and Oath-Breaker." [[YourHeadAsplode Cue skull implosion.]]

** To other DCU, Vertigo, and Gaiman characters:
*** First of all, the [[ComicBook/SandmanMysteryTheatre original Sandman]], who's mentioned by Dream. Also, his helm in ''Preludes & Nocturnes'' seems [[https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/thesandman/images/0/0e/Yelmo_de_Sue%C3%B1o.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20171203224230&path-prefix=es like a gas mask]] as the Golden Age superhero.
*** One panel in ''Worlds' End'' shows a character wearing [[ComicBook/{{Watchmen}} a bloodstained smiley-face pin]].
*** If you look closely at a scene in ''The Kindly Ones'', there's a copy of ''Literature/GoodOmens'' by the bed.

* AlwaysSaveTheGirl: In ''Sandman: Overture'', Morpheus reveals that [[spoiler:he did this with the first Vortex, unwilling to take an innocent life to save thousands.]] This almost led to TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt and [[spoiler:having to kill the Vortex when its powers drove it half-mad.]] In the present, Morpheus subverts this, having learned from his mistakes, and he [[spoiler:plans to kill Rose to prevent {{History Repeat|s}}ing.]]

** This is Morpheus' primary dynamic with pretty much all of his family members. Desire, in particular, spends nearly the entire series trying to get him killed, and calling his relationship with his son an estranged one is putting it lightly -- after their first argument, they spend several thousand years avoiding each other. ''Overture'' reveals [[spoiler:that his relationships with his parents are just as messed up]].

*** Dream as he appears in [[ComicBook/TheSandmanOverture Overture]] looks an awful lot like Creator/BenedictCumberbatch.

* {{Retconjuration}}: We actually see this power in action [[spoiler: at the end of Overture, where a thousand beings dream the same dream at once, enabling Dream to correct a mistake he had made millions of years ago.]]

These days, new readers usually consume the series via ten oft-reprinted trade paperbacks, each containing an entire storyline or a series of related short stories. For more information on the individual arcs, collected in the following trade paperbacks, see [[Recap/TheSandman1989 the Recap page]]:
* ''Preludes and Nocturnes'' (Issues 1-8): In the early 20th century, an [[UsefulNotes/{{Britain}} English]] occult sect attempts to imprison Death with a summoning ritual, but mistakenly snares Dream instead. Following seven decades of imprisonment in the waking world, Dream must avenge his kingdom and retrieve his scattered relics of power.
* ''The Doll's House'' (Issues 9-16): Dream is forced to enter the waking world to track down a trio of rogue nightmares, and must get to the bottom of a mysterious "Dream Vortex" that threatens to tear apart the Dreaming. Along the way, he crosses paths with a young woman named Rose Walker, who gets caught up in a labyrinthine world of secrets after discovering the family that she never knew.
* ''Dream Country'' (Issues 17-20): A collection of four unrelated one-shot stories. A frustrated writer looks for inspiration in the supernatural; a cat recalls a fateful encounter with Dream; a young Creator/WilliamShakespeare pays back a debt to Dream with a trippy performance of ''Theatre/AMidsummerNightsDream''; a burned-out superhero looks to Death for respite from her tortuous existence.
* ''Season of Mists'' (Issues 21-28): Dream is drawn into a perilous game of supernatural intrigue when he decides to confront his old enemy Lucifer Morningstar, the Lord of Hell, in a bid to rescue a past lover condemned to his kingdom. Things then proceed to go in directions that ''none'' of the participants quite expected.
* ''A Game of You'' (Issues 32-37) : Trying to put her life back together after a failed relationship, a young woman named Barbie (first introduced in ''The Doll's House'') rediscovers the world of her old childhood fantasies in a most unexpected way, and is unwittingly caught in the middle of a struggle against a deadly being known as "The Cuckoo."
* ''Fables and Reflections'' (Issues 29-31, 38-40, 50, and ''The Sandman Special'') : A series of stories about mortal encounters with the Endless, spanning from medieval Arabia, to Renaissance-era UsefulNotes/{{Italy}}, to post-Revolution UsefulNotes/{{France}}, to mythic UsefulNotes/{{Greece}}, to [[UsefulNotes/TheRomanEmpire Ancient Rome]]. It includes the tragic tale of Dream's last meeting with his estranged son: the legendary Greek bard Orpheus.
* ''Brief Lives'' (Issues 41-49): Dream pairs up with his unpredictable younger sister, Delirium, for a road trip into the waking world to seek out their long-lost brother: the rogue seventh member of the Endless, Destruction.
* ''Worlds' End'' (Issues 51-56): After being caught in a "reality storm," two mortal humans are forced to seek refuge at an inn at the End of the Universe, where they're treated to a night of storytelling by a procession of supernatural creatures. Heady meditations on death, deception, hope, and urban alienation follow.
* ''The Kindly Ones'' (Issues 57-69) : Lyta Hall, a woman whose life was changed forever by a fateful encounter with Dream, turns to some unlikely supernatural allies when her infant son mysteriously vanishes. As Dream confronts enemies on all sides, every character introduced in the series thus far (major and minor) confronts their destinies.
* ''The Wake'' (Issues 70-75): In the wake of a momentous battle, the denizens of the Dreaming come together for some sober reflection as they confront the uncertain future of their world.

* AluminumChristmasTrees: The "sleepy sickness" that mysteriously inflicts people around the world once Dream is imprisoned, making it so people fall into a coma-like state they never or barely wake up from? [[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encephalitis_lethargica A real disease]], that in fact had a pandemic starting around the time Dream was captured in the comic and ending in 1927. The actual scientific name of the disease is name dropped in one panel, though if you didn't know about its existence it'd be easy to think that both the disease and the name were invented from whole cloth for the story.

* AndThatLittleGirlWasMe: "The Hunt" ends with the InUniverse narrator suggesting to his granddaughter that the story was about how he met her grandmother.

* ArabianNightsDays: One story features this version of Baghdad, which Caliph Harun al-Raschid finds so wonderful that he is haunted by the knowledge that it will someday end. He calls on Morpheus to preserve it forever, [[spoiler:and he obliges by [[RealityWarper changing it]] into [[TheMagicGoesAway a more mundane version of the city]], but causing the "Arabian Nights" Days version to live on in stories and dreams]].

* AsianSpeekeeEngrish: {{Invoked}} when a Chinese friend of Joshua Norton feigns a stereotypical accent around tourists to [[ObfuscatingStupidity disguise his wisdom and loyalty to the American Emperor]], and to keep junkies from asking him for opium.

* ContinuityNod:
** Merv Pumpkinhead first appears in a background cameo in ''Preludes and Nocturnes'', when he's shown driving the bus in the Dreaming that Dream uses to get to the Justice League's old warehouse. Much later in the series, after Merv has been properly introduced as one of Dream's retinue of assistants, he mentions that he briefly "drove a bus" during Dream's absence.
** In Issue #40 'The Parliament of Rooks', Cain remarks upon himself, Abel and Eve all being together, ''"Just'' like the old days. And we've even got an audience. Let's tell stories." All three characters were originally [[HorrorHost Horror Hosts]] of their own respective anthology series, before Gaiman incorporated them into the world of ''Sandman''.

* CrazySane: Emperor Norton, as depicted in "Three Septembers and a January", is a man overwhelmed by hopelessness, lust, and insanity that only manages to live with himself once he comes to believe he is the Emperor of the United States. From there, he begins to develop a code of honor, a group of loyal friends, and a livable income that supports him until Death takes him to move on.
-->'''Delirium:''' His madness... His madness keeps him sane.\\
'''Dream:''' And do you think he is the only one, my sister?

* DeliberateValuesDissonance: Haroun al-Raschid in issue #50, ''Ramadan,'' is a wise and capable ruler. He also has a harem filled with enslaved concubines and prepubescent boys, a dungeon where prisoners are tortured as part of the 'king's mercy,' and oubliettes holding captives who have long been forgotten.

* EtherealChoir: The audiobook chapter adapting "Thermidor" has Orpheus first singing alone before being joined by a chorus of the other beheaded people in the background (this was only seen in a comic panel in the source material). The sight and sound are so chilling it freaks out Johanna's captors, allowing her to escape.

* GodhoodSeeker: Subverted in an issue focusing on Augustus Caesar. One day, while disguised as a beggar and accompanied by a dwarf actor assisting him, Caesar discusses his legacy of making Rome the most powerful empire on Earth, and says his destiny is to become a god after his death. When the dwarf remarks that it's good to be a god, Augustus simply asks him "Is it?" After his death, the dwarf recounts how Augustus forbade expanding Rome further, eventually dooming it, and his ulterior motive for doing it may have been to undo his godhood.

* HistoricalDomainCharacter: Many, including Creator/WilliamShakespeare, UsefulNotes/{{Augustus}} Caesar, Emperor Joshua Norton, UsefulNotes/MaximilienRobespierre, and Haroun al-Rashid, to name only some of the ones who had entire issues that revolved around them.
* HistoricalVillainUpgrade: "Thermidor" gives one to Robespierre and Saint-Just. Gaiman {{lampshaded}} this in ''The Sandman Companion''.[[note]]page 146[[/note]]
--> ''"I also remember the joy of leafing through my old Encyclopedia Britannica, the eleventh edition, and reading an article on the French Revolution [[HistoricalVillainUpgrade by someone who hated Robespierre]]; and then reading [[HistoricalHeroUpgrade the biographical entry, which was written by someone who idealized Robespierre]]. I loved the [[FlipFlopOfGod cognitive dissonance]]. After the story was published, one reader sent me his high school thesis pointing out [[CriticalResearchFailure how Robespierre was a great man]] and so on...I [[ShownTheirWork could have written something]] about how Robespierre was a great man too, but that wasn't the tale that I was telling; I needed a story in which he wasn't."''
* HistoricalFiction: This is frequent, but the sixth collection ''Fables & Reflections'' is particularly laden with it, including encounters between the Sandman and "Emperor" Joshua Norton, Robespierre, and Augustus Caesar. The final story, "Ramadan", plays with the contrast between the historical figure Haroun al-Rashid and his better-known ''Literature/ArabianNights'' alter ego. [[spoiler:Apparently the literature version was real until he sold Morpheus the golden age of Baghdad in "Ramadan".]]

* ImmortalitySeeker: Hob Gadling, who becomes immortal by just refusing to die. It helps that Morpheus talks Death into humoring him. Played with in "Ramadan", as Haroun el-Rashid wants his ''city'', or at least its memory, to live forever. So far, it's worked.

** In "August", the Emperor Augustus says "That will not last" about the names of the months July and August, named after himself and Julius Caesar. Considering what happened to other (admittedly later) emperors' attempts to change the names (Nero and Domitian come to mind), this would not have been an unusual sentiment.

* KingIncognito: The story "Avgvst" is about the Roman emperor Augustus and his confidant, the dwarf Lycius, disguising themselves as beggars and anonymously panhandling in the market square. It's initially assumed to be a case of him eavesdropping on his people to learn the state of the Empire.[[spoiler: It turns out that Dream told him to do it because it's a place where "the gods cannot see him think", and it's here where he ultimately decides against [[UsefulNotes/JuliusCaesar Caesar's]] dream of a Rome that would last for 10,000 years, choosing to instead limit the Empire's expansion so that it would eventually collapse. It's implied he does this as revenge for Caesar sexually abusing him and deciding his fate for him as a young man]].

* LoveCannotOvercome: Calliope left Dream because, while they had a happy marriage, she's upset with how he treated their son Orpheus. This is detailed in "The Song of Orpheus": the myth of Orpheus played out, OrpheanRescue and all, which left his son's head intact and immortal. Dream then decided to set his son's head on an island, with human guardians.
* LoveMakesYouEvil / LoveMakesYouCrazy: Desire likes to lay this on people.

* ManOfTheCity: In the story "Ramadan", the Caliph of Iraq is highly proud of Baghdad, the splendid capital city of his empire. He knows that its splendor won't last forever, so he makes a bargain with Dream, sacrificing the material wealth of Baghdad if Dream will ensure that the idealized memory of the city will live on in people's dreams forever.

* OurWerewolvesAreDifferent: You don't become a werewolf, you're born one, and they're apparently a very insular, reclusive race of people who rarely associate or marry outside of their line.

* ShapedLikeItself: In "The Hunt", a character tells a fairy story in which one of the strange objects the hero accumulates is a small bone carved into the shape of a small bone. The character hearing the story lampshades this, to which the teller replies that it was carved into the shape of a ''different'' small bone.

* ThinDimensionalBarrier: "Soft places" are spots where reality is weak, leading to easier inter-dimensional travel and time working oddly. There is one in the Desert of Lop in China (a real place).

* TooHappyToLive: Orpheus and Eurydice, though this was of course a ForegoneConclusion.

* UnspokenPlanGuarantee:
** Subverted; the plans for what would happen if Dream were captured or killed in Hell are never needed. (Though it's speculated that the plans he would have used if he fell in Hell are the same that came into place during his confrontation with the Kindly Ones.)
** Similarly, the details of the plan with Orpheus in Thermidor are unspoken, and they are executed perfectly.

* TheyFightCrime: Matthew and the Corinthian have a very brief episode of this in ''The Kindly Ones''. It even gets {{lampshade|Hanging}}d:
-->'''Matthew''': It was like a bad TV show. 'He's a reincarnated serial killer — his partner's a bird. They're cops.'

** In ''The High Cost of Living,'' someone says they would like to die between two virgins at the moment of orgasm, via elephant crushing. In ''Endless Nights,'' someone does exactly that. This comes up occasionally in other places too; it's more of a RunningGag.
** Also in ''Endless Nights'', Despair talks with Rao ([[Franchise/{{Superman}} Krypton]]'s sun) about her plan to create the ultimate being of despair. Namely, for an unstable planet to host life and [[LastOfHisKind leave a single survivor]] when it dies. Apparently she thinks that the life on that world would be more beautiful, because at any time it could be destroyed. Franchise/{{Superman}} is NOT in the throes of Despair though, so it looks like her plan backfired. In the same issue, the green sun and Dream's alien girlfriend represent the sun and a resident of Oa, which form the background of the ComicBook/GreenLantern stories. If her developing energy powers and her role as a protector of the planet are any indication, she may be one of the founders of the Corps.

* EarthIsYoung: This Verse goes for the postmodern Type D version. Time, history, and reality are all very relative concepts, and what says that an act of creation can't be retroactive anyway?
** Putting together evidence from ''Season of Mists'', "The Parliament of Rooks", ''Brief Lives'', and ''ComicBook/{{Lucifer}}'', it appears that in this Verse the fossil record is true, if incomplete, but the Garden of Eden plot and the war in Heaven happened -- 10 billion years ago, before Earth was even formed.
** Abel says as much in ''Fables and Reflections'', indicating that their Biblical backstory did not happen on Earth. Cain likewise states that ''none'' of them, including the Endless, [[StarfishAliens looked remotely human]] at the time.
** Averted in a more straightforward manner in ''Endless Nights'', where Sol, the personification of our Sun, plays a minor role. Oa, the home of the [[Franchise/GreenLantern Guardians of the Universe]], already has sentient beings, but Sol says explicitly that none of his planets have life yet. The conclusion reveals that this has been a bedtime story from Sol to young, lifeless Earth.

* LifeWillKillYou: An overarching theme and motif of "The Sound of Her Wings." As something of a DayInTheLife episode for Death, the issue features many, many minor characters who all meet mundane ends, such as electrocution, car accidents, and even [[spoiler:Sudden Infant Death Syndrome]]. It's demonstrated again in ''Brief Lives'', where a man who's been alive for 15,000 years dies because of a random construction accident.
--> '''Death:''' You got a lifetime. No more. No less.

* TheOlderImmortal: This shows up in multiple fashions in the franchise, but the most prominent example is the Endless themselves, who in order of age are Destiny, Death, Dream, Destruction, the twins Desire and Despair, and Delight/Delirium. They are either as old as or only slightly younger than the current universe, and predate all known deities and immortal figures.

* WhenIsPurple: The TropeNamer. In ''Death: The Time of Your Life'', Death uses this as part of a rhetorical argument about why the universe isn't fair.

* CrazyHomelessPeople
** A group of them set out to rescue Delirium from her own head in ''Endless Nights''.
** One appears in ''The Kindly Ones'' as a RecurringExtra. [[ChekhovsGunman It turns out]] that Delirium's lost dog was with him this whole time. He declines a reward from Delirium for returning him, but asks if the dog can visit from time to time.

** In ''Endless Nights'', the embodiment of the star Mizar puts forward a rather more positive interpretation of Destruction:
--->'''Mizar:''' His is the process that fuels all the stars. Without him, all would be lifeless and dark.

* MindScrew: Delirium's story in ''Endless Nights'', although of course this goes without saying. The art by Bill Sienkiewicz certainly doesn't help.

* MundaneSolution: When some people try to hide from Death by blocking her out with a magic gate in ''Endless Nights'', she asks a passing, off-duty soldier for help. The soldier, not knowing who she is or what is going on, but smitten with her after seeing her for the first time as a young boy, tears the gate down with brute force.

* PowerBornOfMadness: In Delirium's chapter of ''Endless Nights'', Daniel, Matthew, and Barnabas need to assemble a team of CrazyHomelessPeople to rescue her from whatever inner world she's created for herself, suspecting that anyone sane wouldn't be able to handle it. Each of them sees their particular hallucinations and paranoias coming harmlessly true and [[SpiritAdvisor enabling them to easily navigate Delirium's world]], and it's implied that doing so helps them come to terms with their mental illness and function better in society afterwards.

* CoinsForTheDead: In the spinoff comic ''Death: Time of Your Life'', we see her spending her day as a mortal in the 1990s. At the end of the day, the mortal version of Death dies, and a sorcerer who had been trying to capture her, (and, it's implied, end his own immortal life) places a pair of coins over her eyes in respect.

These days, new readers usually consume the series via ten oft-reprinted trade paperbacks, each containing an entire storyline or a series of related short stories. The series has spawned a number of SpinOff series by both Gaiman and other writers as notable characters from the books tell their tales.

For more information on the individual arcs, collected in the following trade paperbacks, see [[Recap/TheSandman1989 the Recap page]]:

The series also had more spinoffs than we can sensibly list here. The following series have articles on this wiki:
* ''ComicBook/TheBooksOfMagic''
* ''ComicBook/HouseOfMystery''
* ''ComicBook/{{Lucifer}}'', possibly the most successful in its own right.
* ''Literature/TheSandmanTheDreamHunters'', initially a {{novella}} before getting a comic book adaptation
* ''ComicBook/SandmanMysteryTheatre'', a mystery/noir series focused on Wesley Dodds, Creator/DCComics' [[LegacyCharacter first character]] to bear the name "The Sandman". Not directly related to this series, but it was launched after the success of Gaiman's ''Sandman'' revived interest in its namesake.
* ''ComicBook/TheThessaliad''
* ''ComicBook/ThessalyWitchForHire''
* ''ComicBook/TheSandmanOverture'', a {{Prequel}} to the series.
* ''ComicBook/LockeAndKeySandmanHellAndGone'', a {{crossover}} with ''ComicBook/LockeAndKey''.

Adaptations of the comic and other media based on it include:
* A 2019 animated short, "WesternAnimation/DCShowcaseDeath" (written by J. M. [=DeMatteis=][[note]]notably the author of stories such as ''ComicBook/KravensLastHunt'' who had previously adapted Creator/AlanMoore's ''ComicBook/ForTheManWhoHasEverything'' for ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague''[[/note]]), would be featured on the extras of ''WesternAnimation/WonderWomanBloodlines'', the first adaptation of Sandman into another medium.
* ''AudioPlay/TheSandman2020'', an audio drama adaptation of the first three volumes of the comic, was released on Audible in 2020. Apart from featuring Neil Gaiman himself as the narrator, it boasts quite an [[AllStarCast impressive voice cast]], including but not limited to Creator/JamesMcAvoy as Dream, Creator/KatDennings as Death, Creator/MichaelSheen as Lucifer, Creator/AndySerkis as Matthew the Raven, Creator/TaronEgerton as John Constantine, and Creator/RayPorter in several other roles. Act II, adapting volumes 4 and 5 plus most of the short stories in volume 6, was released in 2021. Act III, adapting the last bit of volume 6 and volumes 7 and 8, was released in 2022.
* The comic's portrayal of ComicBook/{{Lucifer}} got a [[Series/Lucifer2016 TV series]] on Creator/{{FOX}}, beginning mid-season in 2016, starring Creator/TomEllis. It later moved to Netflix for its final three seasons.
* The Dead Boy Detectives, who originated in an issue of ''Season of Mists'' before becoming recurring Vertigo characters, appear in [[Recap/DoomPatrol2019S3E03DeadPatrol a season 3 episode]] of ''Series/DoomPatrol2019''.
* After years in DevelopmentHell, ''Series/TheSandman2022'', the comic's live-action adaptation, got off the ground as a TV series for Creator/{{Netflix}}, with Allan Heinberg (''ComicBook/YoungAvengers'', ''Film/WonderWoman2017'') as showrunner, premiering in August 2022, with the first season fully adapting the first two volumes and half of the third. This version has a SettingUpdate to the 2020s for the stories set in the series' present day, as one of the changes made is Dream escaping from his imprisonment in 2021. Creator/TomSturridge plays Dream, while Creator/GwendolineChristie plays Lucifer, putting it in a different continuity from the Ellis-starring show.

The collected trade paperbacks. For more information on the individual arcs, see [[Recap/TheSandman1989 the Recap page]]:

* BrokenAesop: Invoked. The Kipling-quoting "Indian Gentleman" tells his companions a tale he hopes will "prove" that women are inherently evil in "Hob's Leviathan." But, as Hob and Jim [[LampshadeHanging point out]], the sum Aesop of the story seems to be more along the lines of "men and women are ''both'' capable of deeply hurting each other."

* CosmicHorrorStory: "A Tale of Two Cities", the first story in ''Worlds' End'', is consciously told in the style of a [[Creator/HPLovecraft Lovecraftian]] ghost story (it even [[ShoutOut uses the word "cyclopean"]]). The EldritchAbomination that it reveals is of a particularly surprising, and unsettling, nature: [[spoiler:the city itself, whose dreams he winds up trapped in, and by extension ALL cities. "I fear what will happen when the cities wake up" indeed. ]]

* InnBetweenTheWorlds: ''Worlds' End.'' The World's End inn is one of four where people lost in spatial-temporal abnormalities and supernatural creatures with more control over their destinations eat, drink, and share stories. It passes the time.

* InsistentTerminology:
** The Endless expressly point out that they are not gods.
** Boss Smiley informs Prez that "[he's] not God, [he's] not the devil, [he's] just Boss Smiley."

* RealityIsUnrealistic: Weird in-story example; when the other characters object to a seemingly miraculous magical event in Cluracan's story and ask how it's possible, he responds: "How should I know? I didn't make it up, I lived it."

* SatanicArchetype: Along with the actual Satan, there's Boss Smiley, who repeatedly appears to MessianicArchetype Prez Rickard and tries to tempt him into serving him. He even offers Prez dominion over the Earth while standing on a hill, a direct parallel to the third temptation in [[Literature/TheFourGospels the Gospel of Matthew]].

* StevenUlyssesPerhero: Prez is short for ''president'', and sure enough...

* UnaccustomedAsIAmToPublicSpeaking:
** Cluracan insists at length that his story is dry and dull and that he almost shouldn't bother telling it in the first place, then goes on to tell a swashbuckling adventure story about how he deposed a tyrant.
** Destiny drops this bit during ''The Wake'' (and then Desire lampshades it by quoting the line verbatim), but in his case it's a subversion, since as it turns out he really isn't much of a speaker at all.
* UnreliableNarrator: Each of the stories in ''Worlds' End'' is offered by its teller as ostensibly true, but it's anyone's guess how trustworthy the teller is. Cluracan in particular seems unreliable, and he's deliberately coy about his adding and removing bits of his story to make it flow better; the only thing he outright admits to making up is a random sword-fight with the palace guard in order to spice up the narrative. At the same time, in the story Cluracan is still an amoral ditz and a drunk who gets himself in trouble, requires Dream to save him, and dethrones the ruler out of revenge rather than duty, none of which is out of character.

* ''Literature/TheSandmanTheDreamHunters''

* AsianFoxSpirit: ''The Dream Hunters'' is a fairly traditional kitsune romance, with Morpheus and other Sandman characters making cameos.

* {{Baku}}: Baku make an appearance in ''The Dream Hunters'', grazing on bad dreams as background fauna.

[[folder: Z]]
* ZenSlap: In ''Dream Hunters'', a young monk decides to take a fox to a nearby village, hoping that he'll find a doctor to see why she can't wake up. He is stopped by an old man who hits his head with a stick for deserting his temple and "meddling in the spirit's affairs"; but, when the monk insists on helping the fox, the old man grudgingly gives him a paper strip, telling him to sleep with that under the pillow. The strip will take him to the realm of dreams, where the spirit of the fox is. After this, he disappears, making the monk suspect that the mysterious old man was [[https://religion.fandom.com/wiki/Pindola_Bharadvaja Binzaru Harada]], a former disciple of Buddha that is forced to wander the living world as an old man doing good as a punishment for having misused his powers when he was alive.
[[/folder]]

* GiveMeBackMyWallet: [[DisproportionateRetribution ...or you'll suffer]] [[FateWorseThanDeath nightmares worse than death.]]

* GodsNeedPrayerBadly: Bast is getting older and weaker due to so few people believing in her anymore. This seems to be less of a problem for the Norse gods, who have found other power sources and even have modern followers. [[Myth/JapaneseMythology The Japanese gods are doing great these days]] and are apparently somehow receiving 'prayer' from veneration of Godzilla and Lady Liberty, amongst other icons, in addition to their direct worship. Pharamond, a Babylonian god, was long ago convinced by Morpheus to "diversify" and survive his dwindling worship by putting his talents to work in a more mundane capacity. Ishtar, a LoveGoddess, works as a stripper, gaining power from the sexual worship of her clients. From what's said of the Judeo-Christian God, it's implied that He doesn't require this. Considering that He ''exists far apart from the Universe,'' it's no stretch that He'd outlast the Endless themselves, though in ''ComicBook/{{Lucifer}}'' it's implied that He's neither the FIRST nor the LAST Creator.

* TheOlderImmortal: This shows up in multiple fashions in the franchise, but the most prominent example is the Endless themselves, who in order of age are Destiny, Death, Dream, Destruction, the twins Desire and Despair, and Delight/Delirium.
* TheOmniscient: Destiny, supposedly. Like everything dealing with the Endless, this is not as simple and straightforward as it appears (although he plainly doesn't think so).

* CensorshipBySpelling: In ''Brief Lives'', Delirium wants to tell her sister that she's worried about Dream without him knowing, so she spells out his name. Or tries to. It ends up with too many Ms in it, and he's not fooled anyway.
* CerebusRetcon: The series ''is'' a part of Franchise/TheDCU, and especially in its first few arcs wasn't shy about brutally [[{{Deconstruction}} deconstructing]] lighthearted Silver Age concepts in ways you'd normally expect from the likes of Creator/AlanMoore or Creator/GarthEnnis. Special mention goes to ''The Doll's House'', which twists [[ComicBook/InfinityInc Hector Hall]] (DC's last, more conventionally superhero-y Sandman) into [[spoiler:the DeadAllAlong fantasy of the horrifically-abused Jed Walker (himself a remnant of an even earlier, even more lighthearted Sandman series)]].

** In ''Brief Lives'', Jill Thompson began by drawing her own apartment for Etain of the Second Look, and wound up just being told to draw herself as the side character.

* InconspicuousImmortal: In ''Brief Lives'', the more "human" immortals among the cast prefer to live simple lives, even if they were born ''[[TimeAbyss before the Earth first congealed from gas and dust]].'' One of them, Bernie Capax, spends his current lifestyle as a rather bland-looking lawyer, carefully hiding the fact that he's old enough to remember a time when mammoths walked the Earth and that he possesses a safety deposit box full of fake passports just in case he has to move on in a hurry.

* MinorInsultMeltdown: One arc has Dream and Delirium try to find Destruction. Never easy company in the best times, Delirium wears thin on Dream's patience, along with the general destruction (lowercase "d") their quest is causing. Though he doesn't insult her, he basically tells her the whole quest was his idea of a lark, he didn't really want to find Destruction, and he's not going to help her look anymore... all in a polite yet cold manner. Delirium knows her extreme struggles with clearheadedness, to say the least, make her odds of finding Destruction (her favorite sibling) alone next to nil, this being why she got Dream to come with her in the first place, so she hides inside her realm crying and closes the portraits leading into it. Death gives Dream one of her most severe dressing-downs in the series and gets him to go and apologize, which he does despite the risk Delirium could drive him permanently insane. It all turns out for the best, and they reconcile.

* OffScreenBreakup: Thessaly and Dream apparently had a bad one sometime between the events of ''A Game of You'' and ''Brief Lives''. Morpheus is moping about it at the start of ''Brief Lives'', leading to Mervyn's snarky comment under EnvironmentalSymbolism above.
-->'''Morpheus:''' She... has decided she no longer loves me.

* PaintedTunnelRealTrain: In a scene in ''Brief Lives'', a worker in Dream's palace is seen pasting up wallpaper with a picture on it depicting a corridor lined with books. When he's done, Dream comes down the corridor that was just put up.

* ASimplePlan: Cited almost verbatim when Morpheus assures Lucien that his roadtrip with Delirium is "completely straightforward" and that nothing could go wrong. Just the phrase "roadtrip with Delirium" should be enough to indicate how naive that is.

* SmallRoleBigImpact: Ruby, the chauffeur who drives Dream and Delirium in ''Brief Lives.'' She dies in a fire due to a lit cigarette, but it's heavily implied her death (and others) are the results of Dream and Delirium's search for Destruction. Dream feels guilty enough about her death that he resumes the search after initially abandoning it, which leads him to [[spoiler:seek his son the oracle's assistance finding Destruction, who [[ICannotSelfTerminate asks for death]] [[WhoWantsToLiveForever in return]]. This not only breaks Dream emotionally, but sends the Kindly Ones after him, leading to his death.]]
* SoleSurvivor: Tiffany is the only one to make it out of the club in ''Brief Lives.'' Desire gives her a coat and the [[Literature/MobyDick "And I alone am escaped to tell thee ..."]] line.

* StylisticSuck: Destruction's awful poetry... and art... and sculpture. He himself just couldn't care less: he's just happy to ''create'', never mind the quality of the result. He finally does find a creative endeavor he's pretty good at: cooking... which is loaded with irony because cooking is inherently destructive to the ingredients.

* TimeAbyss:
** The Endless, of course.
** ''Brief Lives'' mentions that there are "only" around ten thousand humanoids on Earth who remember the sabre-toothed tiger, a thousand who remember the first {{Atlantis}}, five hundred who remember the [[{{Precursors}} lost civilisations that pre-dated the dinosaurs]], and maybe seventy who are older than the planet itself.

In 2018, it was announced that a line of {{shared universe}} ''Sandman'' comics would begin as part of ''The Sandman'''s 30th anniversary, called ComicBook/TheSandmanUniverse. Though not writing any of the new titles himself, Gaiman serves as a creative consultant, and helped select each of their creative teams. Despite Vertigo's eventual retirement as an imprint in 2019, it was confirmed that the Sandman Universe will continue to run as DC titles.

''The Sandman'' is a ComicBook series written by Creator/NeilGaiman and drawn by a revolving group of artists, chronicling the story of [[TheSandman the King of Dreams]] and his family of fantastic {{anthropomorphic personification}}s of cosmic powers. Described as "a story about stories," ''The Sandman'' was a comic series that could tell any tale, in any time period, in any style or setting. Historical figures were common, as were allusions and homages to many classic works of fiction, such as the ''Literature/ArabianNights'' and the plays of Creator/WilliamShakespeare. The series lasted for 75 issues, from January 1989 to March 1996, with a one-shot special in November, 1991. A {{prequel}} mini-series, ''ComicBook/TheSandmanOverture'', was released in 2013, the original series' 25th anniversary, and was written by Gaiman with art by J H Williams III.

* BrownNote: [[LoveDeity Ishtar's]] "True Dance" taps into her LivingAphrodisiac powers and is [[SexGoddess so unbelievably hot]] that it causes all men who see it to experience {{Forced Orgasm}}s until they [[OutWithABang die of arousal]].
--> "And Shep Cayce, who hasn't had an erection in a dozen years, is ejaculating violently - again, and again, and again: and now he's coming blood and he ''doesn't care''."

* MesopotamianMonstrosity: In one episode, Morpheus has brief dealings with the Babylonian LoveGoddess Ishtar, who has been reduced to dancing in a modern strip club. Where else could a rather dark SexGoddess find [[GodsNeedPrayerBadly mass worship?]] She doesn't appear to be a monstrosity — she ''appears'' to be an exceptionally talented exotic dancer — until she gets [[DrivenToSuicide suicidally depressed]], and chooses her own way to go.

The collected trade paperbacks:

* BittersweetEnding: Each arc can be counted as having one:
** "A Game Of You" is one of the saddest arcs in the series. Barbie finds out that [[spoiler:she had to return to her dreamworld the Land not to save it from the Cuckoo, but to let the Cuckoo destroy it. When Dream kindly releases her from the Cuckoo's thrall, and reveals that her friends broke the rules in their attempt to rescue her, she's ForcedToWatch him turn it into a barren wasteland and summon her former dream friends into the palm of his hand. Only a barren island remains. When Barbie gets a boon from him, and she learns that she can ask Dream anything within his power, she chooses not to ask him to kill the Cuckoo or restore the land, but get her human friends back to Earth, because otherwise they'll be stuck on the barren island forever. Dream smiles and tells her it was the right decision. The Cuckoo is allowed to go, but she's left to fend for herself in the Dreaming, and that path won't be easy. Barbie then wakes up in the middle of a hurricane, learning that a homeless woman died protecting her body, and Wanda was killed when their building collapsed. She attends the funeral, admitting that she didn't learn much from her dream, except to try and go out into the real world to make something of what she had to leave behind]].
** ''The Wake'' ends with this for the overall comic. [[spoiler:"The King of Dreams is dead. Long live the King of Dreams".]] For context, [[spoiler:Dream allows the Kindly Ones to kill him after they use Hippolyta's MamaBear vengeance to breach the Dreaming. It's implied that he either orchestrated his death or foresaw it with killing Orpheus, and is fine with the decision, as it means that Daniel Hall becomes the new Dream. Hippolyta has to go on the run from a bunch of unknown deities and at least one known demi-mortal that want her head for killing Dream; and Daniel, while giving her eternal protection, also silently exiles her from the Dreaming, so they won't reunite for this arc, though he hints that things may change in the future. But Rose is pregnant, and her brother Jed is recovering from the childhood trauma of his foster relatives abusing him.]]

* BuryYourGays:
** For all that her portrayal was sympathetic and ahead of its time, [[spoiler:Wanda is killed off at the end of ''A Game of You'']]. Even more sadly, it happens because [[spoiler:she was denied the ability to walk the female-only Moon's Path, making it look like the moon itself was calling her a man]]. However [[spoiler:despite the fact that she's buried under her dead name, she's shown after death as a beautiful woman, getting a happy ending of sorts]].
** Averted with both [[spoiler:Hazel and Foxglove]] in ''Death: The Time of Your Life''. [[spoiler:Hazel and Foxglove at different points offer their lives for the baby's, but Foxglove's bodyguard Endymion/Boris insists on staying.]]

** The woman who doesn't like dogs in ''A Game of You''.

* DueToTheDead: When Barbie attends [[spoiler:Wanda's funeral, she leaves a comic book (one that Wanda used to describe the experience of gender dysphoria to Barbie) on her grave, and crosses out Wanda's deadname with her favorite "tacky pink" lipstick, writing WANDA over it in big letters instead.]]

* {{Expy}}: In ''A Game of You'', there are frequent references to a fictional comic book character called "[[BizarroUniverse Weirdzo]]", a dimwitted, imperfect clone of a superhero named [[ComicBook/{{Superman}} "Hyperman"]], who lives on a cube-shaped version of Earth and speaks in opposites.

* GrowingUpSucks:
** Delirium was once Delight, an innocent child. She's the Endless equivalent of a moody teenager in the present, and putting herself together is hard.
** Barbie is forced to grow up in ''A Game of You'' so that [[spoiler:the Land can end and the Cuckoo can leave]]. In a nutshell, she only came back to invoke [[spoiler:TheBadGuyWins]]. What's worse is that this process started in ''Doll's House'' and left her in a stagnant state during the events between the books. [[spoiler:Dream said it ought to have happened sooner, if not for Rose's interference]].

* NobleBigot: Wanda's aunt Dora from ''A Game of You'', who stayed in contact with her and talks with her, even though she prays for "him" to repent "his" wicked ways and considers "him" a sinner. [[spoiler:She's the one who invites Barbie to Wanda's funeral and talks with her about what happened when Barbie woke up after the hurricane. When Barbie is recalling what happened when she first saw Wanda in a body bag, screaming for the paramedics to get her out, Dora doesn't correct her calling Wanda "her" and holds her hand.]]

** Nuala warns Barbie about what's going to happen in ''A Game of You'' before [[spoiler:she returns to the Land with the Porpentine's help]].

* ShootTheShaggyDog: Barbie's dream quest in ''A Game Of You''. [[spoiler:Everyone in the Land dies, TheBadGuyWins, and Dream is perfectly willing to let her friends stay on a barren piece of land for eternity, even though they came to save her.]]
** Thessaly's quest in the same book is somehow even worse. She goes to help Barbie and kill the Cuckoo. To do so, Thessaly incurred a high debt to the Furies [[spoiler: that she had to pay by protecting Lyta, ensuring Morpheus's death. Oh, and this causes the hurricane that killed Wanda and countless other people. However, not only was her action completely ineffectual, but she was almost instantly under the Cuckoo's sway, and Barbie had to use her boon to get everyone out]]. Everything would have been much better for everyone involved if she had just stayed home and drunk a cup of tea.

*** In ''A Game of You'', Barbie notes a race of creatures carrying a walled room across the Land. They are once referred to as the [[ComicBook/DoomPatrol Room Patrol]].

* SparedByTheAdaptation: ''Possibly'' with Maisie Hill's transgender grandchild in the Audible adaptation of ''A Game of You,'' as all references to them running away and being found murdered are cut. Maisie still tells Wanda about the grandchild, but never mentions their final fate, so it's possible they never died in this version.

* WholePlotReference: Barbie's dream world initially seems like a vague, wide-reaching reference to ''Literature/TheChroniclesOfNarnia'', with the talking animals, tons of pretentiously-named objects, PurpleProse, and whatnot. [[spoiler:"A Game Of You" then becomes a far more ''direct'' plot reference to ''Literature/TheLastBattle'', with Dream filling the role of Aslan (famously straight down to the same imagery), Barbie in the role of Jill, and "The Cuckoo", who is actually a facet of Barbie's psyche, as a combination of Shift the Ape and the White Witch. In [[CanonDefilement perfect Gaiman tradition]], it also shifts the narrative around a bit, in that Cuckoo has a good reason for what she does and ultimately "wins", to some degree, and Barbie survives her ordeal rather than going to Heaven and isn't quite sure what lesson to take from it all.]]

* YouRemindMeOfX: Wanda helps rescue Maisie from the hurricane in ''A Game of You'', getting her to the apartment complex where Barbie is sleeping. They start to talk about their lives while waiting out the storm, and Wanda reveals she is trans. Maisie instantly becomes motherly, talking about her grandchild who is also trans. She says that she wishes she knew where her grandchild was since they ran away a few years ago, despite their family being completely supportive of them.

* AlwaysABiggerFish: In "Season of Mists," Dream notes that as powerful as he is as one of the Endless, he's still not in Lucifer's class, and thus under normal circumstances Dream wouldn't dare meet Lucifer in single combat.

* ArtifactOfDeath: Lucifer hints to Morpheus that the key to hell could be this. This turns out to be far more important in the series than probably anyone guessed at the time.
--> '''Lucifer''': Perhaps it will destroy you, perhaps it won't. But I can't imagine it will make your life any easier. (''disappears with an EvilLaugh'')

* AsTheGoodBookSays: In the "Season of the Mists" series, Lucifer Morningstar quotes the book of [[Literature/TheBible Genesis]] when he spares Dream's envoy from torture. The {{God}} of ''Literature/TheBible'' promised sevenfold vengeance on whoever would slay Cain (Dream's envoy).

** In ''Season of Mists'', the Lords of Order try to bribe Dream with the dreams collected by the [[ComicBook/JusticeLeagueInternational Grey Man]].

* DestructiveRomance: Sigyn and Loki. At first she seems like a standard LoveMartyr, eternally toiling to shield her ungrateful cheating husband from the snake's venom dripping on him. But when they're alone again, she tells Loki how happy she is that he's home, and smiles--implying that, in a twisted sort of way, she ''enjoys'' having him trapped here, with only her for any kind of relief.

* EvenMoreOmnipotent:
** In ''Season of Mists'', the demon Azazel taunts Morpheus with having his former lover inside of his body (basically Alien Geometries), and threatens that he can kill her before Morpheus can attack him unless he hands over the key. Morpheus then calmly puts him in a jar and stuffs him in a box for a few centuries to stew in his juices. He reveals that since Azazel was inside of Morpheus' domain, and his former lover also benefited from the SacredHospitality he offered to all guests, his own Reality Warping spectacularly trumped Azazel's.
** While Lucifer never does show his full powers, he is treated as being as far above Morpheus as Morpheus was above Azazel in the previous example. It's explicitly stated that he could take on the entire rest of Hell and win.

* InWhichATropeIsDescribed: Every single chapter title in ''Season of Mists''.
-->''"In which a Family reunion occasions certain personal recriminations; assorted events are set in motion; and a relationship thought long done with proves to have much relevance today."''
* IronicName: St. Hilarion's BoardingSchool is [[BoardingSchoolOfHorrors not a place conducive to humor]], except possibly the SlasherSmile and LaughingMad variety.

* KillTheMessenger: This is simultaneously invoked and averted in ''Season of Mists'' in regards to Cain delivering Morpheus' message to Lucifer. Lucifer tries, but Cain has his biblical Mark, and thus cannot be touched without inviting the wrath of God.

* MarkOfShame: Cain's mark is a minor plot point in ''Season of Mists''. Lucifer notes that it was very clever of Morpheus to send Cain to announce that he would be coming to Hell to meet with Lucifer, since the mark means that he can't be harmed (any other messenger would've been killed messily).

** Azazel, among many, as Morpheus stuffs him in a bottle near the end of ''Season of Mists'' and leaves him in a trunk. Many of the evil forces sealed in the Dreaming end up being released during ''The Kindly Ones'', although the worst of the worst were apparently kept in a more secure can.

** During the chapter in ''Season of Mists'' set in the BoardingSchoolOfHorrors, one character mentions "[[Music/TheWall the happiest days of our lives]]".

* CatsAreMagic:
** A cat prophet claims giant cats once ruled the world in an alternate timeline.
** Cat!Dream is quite mystical and magical, obeying no one's orders but his own.

* DrivenToSuicide:
** Element Girl, of all people. She's happy she gets to die, although it's implied that she could have turned her life around if she wanted to.
** Possibly [[spoiler:Morpheus]] as well. It's implied he sought death because [[spoiler: he wanted to make up for all the wrongs he'd caused in his life, but was unable to change enough to actually execute on it. Thus, Dream saw his only option as being to kill himself and let someone different take the reins.]]

** In ''A Dream of a Thousand Cats'' (a short story in the third book), the universe-as-we-know-it has [[{{Retconjuration}} always existed]] -- but there used to be another universe where Earth was [[CatsAreMean ruled by giant cats that used humans as slaves and toys to hunt]]. At some point (when [[WhenIsPurple doesn't matter]]), humans managed to share a dream that [[RetGone wrote the old reality out of existence as if it had never been]] and created the world as we know it.

* FaerieCourt: King ''Au''beron and Queen Titania rule over the fairies. They are the in-universe inspirations for the Oberon and Titania from ''A Midsummer Night's Dream''.

* LaserGuidedKarma:
** Erasmus Fry, after enslaving the muse Calliope, raping her for inspiration for nearly sixty years, and then selling her into further slavery when he believed he didn't need her any longer, ends up committing suicide after begging his publishers to bring a book of his back into print.
** The man who acquires Calliope from Fry, Richard Madoc, is cursed by Morpheus to receive an endless bombardment of story ideas.

* NotHelpingYourCase: In "Calliope", Dream, once he's free, confronts Richard Madoc about keeping the muse prisoner and raping her. Madoc, who at this point has gotten years of success due to literal MuseAbuse, at first tries to deny that he's imprisoned Calliope. When Dream gives him a DeathGlare, he claims that he needs her for the ideas. Unsurprisingly, Dream gives him a TheReasonYouSuckSpeech and [[BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor an abundance of ideas]] until Madoc's compelled to free her.

* {{Retconjuration}}:
** The world as we know it was created from another one that was [[CatsAreMean ruled by cats]]: when enough humans dreamed of a new world at the same time, the old one was gone as though it had never existed. Or else ItWasAllADream. Or [[AlternateUniverse both.]]
** Dream suggests to a cat that it could get enough beings to share its dream of a world ruled by giant cats that hunt humans for fun, which would in turn make it reality. The implication is that the above example only existed because of Dream's suggestion. Yes, this is [[MindScrew as paradoxical as it sounds.]]
** We actually see this power in action [[spoiler: at the end of Overture, where a thousand beings dream the same dream at once, enabling Dream to correct a mistake he had made millions of years ago.]]

* ShakespeareInFiction: Dream inspires him, and asks for two plays (''A Midsummer Night's Dream'' and ''The Tempest'') to be written in return.

* VillainProtagonist:
** Richard Madoc in "Calliope", who rapes Calliope repeatedly to tap her for inspiration for his stories.
** Dream himself sometimes comes very close to this, with his frequently cruel actions and BlueAndOrangeMorality.

* ArbitrarySkepticism: John Constantine initially dismisses Dream as a myth, despite all the supernatural shit he deals with on a daily basis.

* DeathMontage: "The Sound of Her Wings" shows Death going on her rounds and helping out everyone who dies that day: an old man reciting his prayers, a baby in a crib, a comedian onstage, and a boy playing soccer. As she puts it, they all get a life, but length doesn't matter.
* DeathOfAChild: In "The Sound of Her Wings", [[spoiler: with an actual infant, no less. One of the people Death claims that day is an infant who randomly dies from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome]].

** Dr. Destiny, the Justice League villain, has nigh-omnipotent power over peoples' dreams. In "24 Hours", he also has the Dreamstone, which gave him enough mind control powers to make an entire diner full of people mutilate, rape, and eat each other over the course of a single night. When Morpheus, the creator of the stone and Anthropomorphic Personification of dreams shows up to reclaim it, the stone has been so completely corrupted that he can no longer use it, and Doctor Destiny manages to drain part of Dream's life force with it.

* GottaCatchThemAll: Morpheus quests to recover his artifacts of power for most of ''Preludes and Nocturnes''.

* HappilyEverBefore: Discussed in "24 Hours."
--> All Bette's stories have {{happy ending}}s. That's because she knows where to stop. She's realized the real problem with stories--if you keep them going long enough, they [[ForegoneConclusion always]] [[DownerEnding end]] in [[{{Foreshadowing}} death]].

* ImperfectRitual: Dream is trapped in an inescapable magic circle for seventy years before his captor's son (now in a wheelchair) accidentally runs over part of the circle, ending the spell.

* JackUpWithPhlebotinum: A former girlfriend of [[ComicBook/{{Hellblazer}} John Constantine]] swipes an artifact that he has, thinking that it's drugs. It turns out to be Morpheus's Bag of Sand. This is a '''very bad thing''', as it basically turns her life into a ''literal'' living nightmare

* MeatMoss: Dream and [[Characters/HellblazerJohnConstantine John Constantine]] find a room where the walls are covered with the gooey remains of a body, probably the father of Constantine's ex-girlfriend Rachel.

* NeverSplitTheParty: In ''Preludes and Nocturnes'', Morpheus and ComicBook/JohnConstantine go into a dark house. Constantine is thinking "Movies. Old dark house. Horrible menace on the loose. 'Let's split up.' Muffled screams in darkness..."
-->'''Constantine:''' Uh... We'll stick together, won't we?
-->'''Morpheus:''' Of course.

* NonIndicativeFirstEpisode: ''Preludes And Nocturnes'' is dubbed the prototype for the series in the introduction, and its DarkerAndEdgier style is worth mentioning. The series as a whole is a dark epic fantasy, with occasional horror elements. The first volume, however, is horrific enough to be a ''Franchise/{{Hellraiser}}'' movie.

* SayYourPrayers: In "The Sound of Her Wings", Death comes for an old Jewish man, Harry. They have a friendly talk until he realizes who she is and that she's come for him. He then recites the Sh'ma, a prayer that Jews are traditionally supposed to say as their last words before dying.
-->'''Harry's Ghost:''' It's good that I said the sh'ma. My old man always said it guaranteed a place in Heaven. If you believe in Heaven...

* ShrugTake: In ''Preludes and Nocturnes'', one guy has this reaction when a nude Morpheus bursts in, steals his popcorn, and runs out.

* AdoptionAngst: In the ''Doll's House'' story arc, Miranda Walker is at first in denial after being told that she was adopted and her benefactor Unity Kinkaid is her biological mother.

* AttemptedRape: Although the series is generally pretty light on [[RapeAsDrama falling back on rape as the default threat for female protagonists]], Rose has to go through two of these in ''The Doll's House.'' Eurydice is also a victim of AttemptedRape, but that's just the [[Myth/ClassicalMythology source material]].

* BigSisterInstinct:
** Rose towards Jed Walker during ''Doll's House''. [[spoiler:She's horrified on learning how he was abused by relatives, and is relieved when Gilbert finds her brother alive but unconscious in the Corinthian's truck.]]
** Death and Desire act this way towards Delirium, with the former chewing out Dream for mistreating "[[AffectionateNickname Del]]" and the latter helping her get home from the mortal world.

** "A Doll's House" features Unity Kinkaid [[spoiler:giving up her life to save her granddaughter, Rose, by taking her place as the vortex. She dies shortly after reuniting with her daughter and granddaughter, but never meets her grandson Jed. Gilbert also returns to the Dreaming and resumes his place when Dream forgives him, promising Rose that [[PlatonicDeclarationOfLove he loves her]] and that whenever she likes, she can visit him in life or in death. Rose wakes up with a niggling sense that she broke up Barbie and Ken's marriage by interfering with their dreams, and mourns losing her friend Gilbert, who has since given up his human form to become Fiddler's Green again. She knows now that there's magic in this world, or "weird shit" as she puts it, and that makes human lives meaningless. To cope, Rose insists to herself that her dream was just a dream because Gilbert wasn't meaningless and her little brother is safe now. On the other hand, Gilbert rescued Jed and restored him to his sister and mother, ensuring the kid has an undoubted happy ending. Dream also saves the world by undoing a generation of serial killers that the Corinthian inspired, allowing their would-be victims to sleep more easily at night.]]

** The serial killer the Bogeyman, who appears in ''The Doll's House'', [[spoiler:and is revealed to be an impersonator who's a writer for a magazine]], originally appeared in Alan Moore's ''ComicBook/SwampThing'' run. If you read that, it won't come as a surprise that [[spoiler:the man appearing in ''The Sandman'' is an impostor]].

* DoubleMeaningTitle: There are many examples, as Gaiman is fond of this sort of word-play.
** ''The Doll's House''. It can be seen as an allusion to Jed Walker's mind, which is used as a metaphorical "playground" for Hector and Lyta Hall, who are being manipulated like "dolls" by Brute and Glob. The plot also features Rose staying at a boarding house owned by a cross-dresser (who goes by "Dolly" in a drag show) and where two of her housemates are named Ken and Barbie. An actual physical doll's house appears as a minor prop in some scenes.
** ''The Wake:'' Each chapter in this last part plays with a different definition of the word: a wake (eulogy) for the dead, the wake (aftermath) of a disaster, to wake from sleep, and so forth.

* DreamsVsNightmares: Played with in the "Doll's House" arc, in which Dream chases down a bunch of sentient dreams and nightmares that got loose during his confinement. On the one hand, his capture of Brute, Glob, and the Corinthian are unambiguously good things, as they are nightmares who have created terrible problems in the waking world. On the other hand, Fiddler's Green is a perfectly harmless dream who just wanted to experience the physical world, and didn't see the harm in doing so while his master was away. Dream decides not to punish him, but does demand his return.

* FatBastard: One of the serial killers in ''The Doll's House'' is a massively overweight pedophile who abducts children from amusement parks and is shown to be an extreme PsychopathicManchild. He later attempts to [[spoiler: rape Rose, seeing her as a little girl]].

* GodzillaThreshold: When a [[spoiler:fugitive Dreaming denizen]] orders a human to summon Morpheus by calling his name, then you know the stakes are really high, because Morpheus is really powerful and doesn't tolerate rule-breakers. [[spoiler:Gilbert]] does this in ''A Doll's House'' when he spots the Corinthian in the hotel where he [[spoiler: and Rose are staying, ordering her to call the Lord of Dreams if she's in danger while he goes to rescue her brother]]. He's resigned but accepting when he finds out that [[spoiler:she followed his instructions after Fun Land nearly strangled and raped her]].

* RealityWarper:
** In their realms, all the Endless have this power to a nearly unlimited degree. In the mortal world, they're more limited, but still wield enormous power relative to the element of reality they represent.
** In ''The Doll's House'', we learn about the nature of the "Dream Vortex", a person who, for reasons unknown, disrupts the nature of the Dreaming, and can easily destroy it and the waking world. This happened once before, and destroyed an entire ''world'' when Dream didn't stop it in time; he's thus committed himself to never letting it happen again. (The full story of the previous Vortex is told in ''Overture''.)

** Three prominent ones from ''The Doll's House'':
*** The title is reminescent of the play ''Theatre/ADollsHouse'' by Creator/HenrikIbsen. Both works are about people who are being manipulated by other people without realizing it, like dolls.
*** The characters of Barbie and Ken are a reference to {{Franchise/Barbie}}. In ''A Game of You'', it's mentioned that Ken left Barbie for a girl called Sindy. Sindy was a [[TransatlanticEquivalent UK-specific girls' fashion doll, like Barbie]].
*** The CoolOldGuy who befriends Rose shares an appearance, personality, and first name with Creator/GKChesterton (one of Gaiman's favorite writers from childhood). [[spoiler:[[GodWasMyCopilot That's because he's a dream.]]]]

** At one point in ''The Doll's House'', a poster for Music/{{The Cure|Band}} can be seen on the wall.

* TakeMeInstead: In ''Doll's House'', Gilbert offers [[spoiler:to die in Rose's place]]. Dream tells him that it's not happening since [[spoiler:Gilbert, aka Fiddler's Green, isn't the Vortex and thus can't fulfill the requirements]]. [[spoiler:Rose's grandmother, Unity Kinkaid, ends up taking Rose's place, since she was meant to be the original Vortex before falling victim to the sleeping sickness.]]

* After years in DevelopmentHell, ''Series/TheSandman2022'', the comic's live-action adaptation, got off the ground as a TV series for Creator/{{Netflix}}, with Allan Heinberg (''ComicBook/YoungAvengers'', ''Film/WonderWoman2017'') as showrunner, premiering in August 2022. This version has a SettingUpdate to the 2020s for the stories set in the series' present day, as one of the changes made is Dream escaping from his imprisonment in 2021. Creator/TomSturridge plays Dream, while Creator/GwendolineChristie plays Lucifer, putting it in a different continuity from the Ellis-starring show.

''The Sandman'' is a ComicBook series by Creator/NeilGaiman, chronicling the story of [[TheSandman the King of Dreams]] and his family of fantastic {{anthropomorphic personification}}s of cosmic powers. Described as "a story about stories," ''The Sandman'' was a comic series that could tell any tale, in any time period, in any style or setting. Historical figures were common, as were allusions and homages to many classic works of fiction, such as the ''Literature/ArabianNights'' and the plays of Creator/WilliamShakespeare. The series lasted for 75 issues, from January 1989 to March 1996, with a one-shot special in November, 1991. A {{prequel}} mini-series, ''ComicBook/TheSandmanOverture'', was released in 2013, the original series' 25th anniversary, and was written by Gaiman with art by J H Williams III.