Silver says he often forgets what happens in the dreams he visits when he wakes up and that it hasn’t been the most helpful spell thus far. He can only use it when he is asleep and is aware that he is in a dream.
We get an example of Silver being in a dream that he does not realize is a dream in a vignette where he talks about dreaming that he had successfully brewed a potion in class, earning him a compliment from Crewel, only to wake up and realize he had fallen asleep when class began and woke up when it was over.
Silver seems familiar with the darkness that constantly pursues them, saying that he has had many encounters with it.
He says that the darkness will appear in people’s dreams and pull them into a deeper slumber and he has “had many encounters with it,” but presumably it is unique to Malleus’ dreamscapes and not something that always exists in dreams?
The conditions for summoning darkness seem to be fairly flexible, with a happy Sebek unintentionally summoning it when he decides to stay behind in Lilia’s dream forever, Silver’s emotional turmoil summoning it when he realizes the truth of his lineage, and the darkness other times just appearing of its own accord.
Sebek seems to suspect that it is being controlled by Malleus, but this is unconfirmed (“No, there’s nothing to be gained from speculation”).
Silver explains that dreams collapse when a dreamer wakes up, and he has been trying and failing to wake himself up ever since realizing that he was asleep.
Grim asks how it is that someone could wake themselves up and Silver says, “A strong enough shock in a dream—or in a reality—can jolt you awake,” so he has tried bashing his head against walls and punching himself, but to no avail.
Silver tries to wake Sebek up by pointing out how his dream is “too perfect” and contrived to keep them asleep, but in the end it takes the violent shock of Sebek losing a fight to Silver to awaken him.
While violence may be a common way to awaken from normal dreams, Silver says that—in their current state, put to sleep by Malleus—they will not be able to wake up no matter how injured they become, and there is no telling what could happen if any of them were to get badly wounded.
Twisted Wonderland Reference Note 