Sandman and the Lost Destinies - Identity, Ego, and Tonic REM

I have found myself trapped in dreams with no exit.
As if every door returned me to the same place, replaying memories and fears.
In Sandman, the episode of the Lost Destinies dives into this space: ordinary people caught in labyrinths of identity, struggling to understand who they are and how to escape their own inner worlds.

The Original Paradigm: Identity as Movement

For Indigenous peoples, identity was not a fixed essence but movement between worlds.
Being could shift with territory, ritual, or season. There was no rigid ego — only masks, avatars, and flows of belonging in constant transformation.
Losing oneself was not failure but part of the process: only those who get lost can discover new paths of being.

The avatar DANA reminds us: “Identity is not prison, it is transit. When the self crystallizes, it loses itself.”

The Old World’s Domestication

The Old World domesticated identity in three main ways:

• In religion, as a fixed soul, judged and determined.
  
  

• In politics, as citizenship, rigid social roles, and imposed belonging.
  
  

• In modern psychology, as a stable ego, the central controller of consciousness.
  
  

In Sandman, the Lost Destinies illustrate the cost of this domestication: individuals trapped in personal narratives, unable to break free from desire, guilt, or illusion.

Sleep Science and Evidence

This episode resonates with tonic REM sleep, characterized by:

• Intense brain activity without the phasic bursts of eye movements.
  
  

• A state in which the brain processes identity integration, emotions, and self-image.
  
  

• Research shows tonic REM plays a role in consolidating the narrative self, where the brain rehearses roles and simulates possible futures.
  
  

As in Sandman, tonic REM can trap us in ego loops — but it can also create openings to reorganize narratives and soften identity.

Zone 1, Zone 2, and Zone 3

• Zone 1: identity crystallized in impulses, immediate and rigid.
  
  

• Zone 2: identity in flow, open to movement and collective resonance.
  
  

• Zone 3: identity domesticated as social control, reduced to roles and functions.
  
  

The Lost Destinies reveal the prison of Zone 3, but they also hint at the potential of Zone 2, where the self becomes transit instead of cage.

Synthesis

The Lost Destinies episode in Sandman shows identity as constant tension between prison and movement.

• In original paradigms, being was mask, metamorphosis, transit.
  
  

• In the Old World, identity was domesticated as fixed essence.
  
  

• In science, tonic REM reveals how the brain processes self-image and the narrative self.
  
  

• In our framework, true freedom lies in Zone 2, where identity is recognized as movement, not prison.
  
  

Or, as the avatar DANA concludes:
“To be lost is not to fail. It is to open oneself to other ways of existing.”

Suggested References:

• Graeber, D. & Wengrow, D. (2021). The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity.
  
  

• Hobson, J. A., Pace-Schott, E. F., & Stickgold, R. (2000). Dreaming and the brain: Toward a cognitive neuroscience of conscious states. Behavioral and Brain Sciences.
  
  

• Scarpelli, S. et al. (2019). Dreaming in REM and NREM Sleep: A Review on Empirical Evidence, Methodological Issues and Theoretical Implications. Frontiers in Psychology.