What if Yharnam is not merely inspired by this sentiment, but built upon it as literal truth? What if the entire night of the hunt—every encounter, every boss, every blood-soaked street—is the dream of one man, trapped under anesthesia, processing the consequences of his choices?
This theory proposes that the Paleblood Hunter is not simply searching for Laurence, but is Laurence—his consciousness dissociated, amnesiac, and experiencing his own nightmare as a stranger.
In early development, Bloodborne's narrative centered on a different protagonist structure: Laurence was to be the patient—sick, in need of healing—while the player character would be his friend, searching for "Paleblood" to save him. This draft was apparently abandoned.
But what if it wasn't discarded—merely inverted? What if the final game folded this structure inward, turning the patient into the seeker, the friend into the self?
The most compelling evidence lies in the Grand Cathedral encounter with Laurence's skull. When the player touches it, the screen fades to black—and then:
The cutscene is rendered in first-person perspective. You do not watch Laurence speak with Willem—you are Laurence, seeing through his eyes, hearing Willen's voice speak the words: "We are born of the blood, made men by the blood, undone by the blood." You turn away from Willem. You make the choice to leave.
This is not a cutscene about Laurence. This is a cutscene as Laurence—a memory flooding back into the player's consciousness.
Immediately after, the player gains knowledge of the password "Fear the old blood"—the phrase needed to unlock the Forbidden Woods gate. A password the Paleblood Hunter should have no way of knowing... unless they just remembered it.
There exists a fringe but compelling theory that "the player" functions as Oedon within the game's world—the formless Great One described as "lacking any corporeal form." If Oedon represents not an external entity but the player's agency itself, then in this framework:
Gehrman murmurs in his sleep: "Oh, Laurence... Master Willem... Somebody help me..."
He waits for Laurence to return, to fulfill the promise made long ago. But when the Paleblood Hunter arrives in the Dream, Gehrman does not recognize them. How could he? The dreamer does not recognize themselves. Laurence, dissociated and amnesiac, wears the face of a stranger.
In the garden confrontation, Gehrman fights to free the hunter from the Dream—never knowing he is finally freeing the one who promised to return for him. Never knowing it was Laurence all along.
The promise is fulfilled not through recognition, but through action. The endings—whether the hunter accepts Gehrman's mercy, refuses and fights, or transcends into infanthood—all represent different layers of Laurence's consciousness trying to wake, to end the nightmare, to break the cycle.
If the entire game unfolds within Laurence's consciousness under anesthesia, then:
Rejecting the Moon Presence, transcending the hunt, freeing Gehrman—these are all acts of waking. Of Laurence remembering who he is, what he's done, and choosing (in whatever form) to end it.
In a dream where you are the dreamer, you cannot encounter yourself as a separate entity. You can only encounter fragments:
These are not depictions of Laurence. They are Laurence—scattered pieces of identity waiting to be remembered.
The first draft was not discarded. It was folded inward.
The patient became the seeker.
The friend became the self, dissociated.
The search for Paleblood became the search for waking.
Laurence promised Gehrman he would return.
And he did—wearing a stranger's face, speaking with a forgotten voice, remembering only in fragments.
But in the end, he keeps his promise.
He frees Gehrman from the Dream.
He transcends the hunt.
Edinburgh is a mad god's dream.
Yharnam is Laurence's.
"Seek Paleblood to transcend the hunt" appears in the Hunter's Dream, written by an unknown hand. In this framework, it is not an external instruction but the dreamer's own subconscious creating a path to waking—Paleblood as the threshold that breaks the anesthesia's hold.
Flora descends in multiple endings, attempting to bind the hunter to the Dream permanently. If the Dream is Laurence's surgical nightmare, then the Moon Presence represents the mechanism keeping him under—whether that's the anesthesia itself, the Great Ones' influence, or simply the weight of guilt and transformation that refuses to let him wake.
Each ending represents a different outcome of the same fundamental act—Laurence attempting to wake, to end the nightmare, to fulfill his promise:
All paths lead to the promise's fulfillment. All paths free Gehrman—whether by replacing him, releasing him, or transcending the need for the Dream entirely.