I suspect this is impossible. Maybe you could open a gateway, but I suspect you would experience the same effect as Perrin did when he tried to enter an open waygate. That is to say, you could not actually enter the gateway.

I realise that gateways and waygates are totally separate, but it is the only even remotely similar thing I can think of.

Here is what happens when Perrin tries to pass through a waygate in a dream:



I suspect a dreamer trying to enter the physical world in spirit-form would experience something similar. You would simply be blocked from entering. Either that, or as others have suggested it would have some horrible result such as death or something.

If you could do it, there would quite literally be two different versions of you in existence at the same time. The "ethereal" you and the real you. That just boggles the mind with all the completely bizarre things that could happen as a result. No, I think it is impossible.

Still, maybe this is something that could be asked of Sanderson, it is an interesting thought and maybe RJ has something about it in his notes, you never know.


This did bring up another idea though. What if you did this in reverse? What if a dreamer entered TAR in the flesh while tired, and then went to sleep while he was in TAR itself? I mean if you are there in the flesh you would presumably carry all your fleshy problems including tiredness so you could go to sleep. But since you were already in the world of dreams, where would you go? Would you go nowhere? Or in this case, would you appear in the same TAR in ethereal form and be able to mess around with your sleeping body (which was also in TAR).