The second and last character seen in The Sandman trailer is, of course, the series’ protagonist, Dream of the Endless. Portrayed by Tom Sturridge, he’s seen as he’s dragged to Earth and imprisoned by Roderick Burgess, setting in motion the events of the main story. He certainly looks… pretty normal, definitely human, while his comicbook counterpart is so pale and “pointy” that his alterity from the human race is immediately evident. Resuming the bio of a being ancient as time itself won’t be easy, especially considering the number of stories about him, but let’s try to take a look to the original Dream.
The (conceptual) son of Night and Time, Dream was the third of the Endless, and came to existence the moment the first creature capable of dreaming appeared in the universe. As all Endless, Dream had a function to fulfill, until all life had vanished and time had ended: he was the source and lord of all dreams, visions, metaphors and stories, everything that was not reality, all the while defining reality by taking away from it what belonged to his kingdom, the Dreaming. Older than gods, to impose his domain over the Dreaming Dream had to slaughter three particularly ancient and powerful deities, and from their remains he crafted his castle, and his own symbols of power: the 
Helm, the Dreamstone and the Sand Pouch. From the very beginning of mankind, Dream was close to them, and he even took from his older sister Death the first four humans, Adam and Eve and their children Cain and Abel, into his realm, so that they could become the embodiment of their stories, archetypes for all stories that would have followed. The meddling of Dream with the mortal world, however, was even more direct sometimes: some 10,000 years ago, he traveled to Africa and, as Kai’ckul, he seduced a powerful queen, Nada. Love between Endless and mortals had dire consequences, and when Nada’s kingdom was destroyed due to her absence, she took her own life in guilt: when Dream offered her a place as queen of the Dreaming, she refused, and the Endless, offended, condemned her soul to Hell. In Ancient Greece he was known as Morpheus or Oneiros, and he had a son with a minor deity, the Muse Calliope… but even with this new family Dream’s pride caused the death of many, and he refused to resurrect his son Orpheus‘ beloved wife, Eurydice, starting a series of events that would have led to a tragedy become legendary in centuries. In the year 6 A.D., Dream indirectly caused the fall of the Roman Empire, helping Emperor Augustus plan the end of Rome‘s excessive power hidden from Terminus and the other Roman gods.
Dream crossed all human history, being present in more ways than any would suspect, shaping reality as he crafted dreams for selected individuals: he saved the magical Baghdad ruled by Haroun al Raschid by incorporating it in the Dreaming in the VIII Century; he befriended one Hob Gadling in an English tavern in 1389 and made him immortal, visiting him once every century from there on; he made a deal with William Shakespeare and, in exchange for the inspiration for his works, he demanded two plays written specifically for him, A Midsummer’s Night Dream and The Tempest. It was around this time, in 1695, that Dream’s younger brother, 
Destruction, called for a family meeting and announced his retirement, quitting his role and disappearing from his siblings’ view, an unprecedented event that deeply changed Dream’s character and perspective over the world. Looking back at his own mistakes, Dream asked for the help of a mortal, Lady Johanna Constantine, to retrieve for him the living severed head of his son Orpheus, kept by Maximilian Robespierre in the post-revolutionary France, and then secured him on a remote island in the Aegean Sea. From there on, Dream limited his interference with the human world, appearing only to meet Hob Gadling and to win from his sister Despair a man, Norton I, giving him the dream of becoming Emperor of the United States of America without letting him fall into the realm of his younger sister. It was at the end of the XIX Century that Dream was called into the most remote parts of the universe to face an existential threat that would have erased the universe before time: Dream saved the universe, but was severely weakened, enough for a charlatan mage, Roderick Burgess, to intercept him on his return to the Dreaming an imprison him in a trap meant for Death. The raging Dream remained prisoner of the magician from 1916 to 1988, a time during which the Dreaming was disrupted, and millions of people suffered from neverending nightmares, waking comas or insomnia. As he finally broke free, Dream had a whole realm to rebuild, and his position to reclaim.
Impossibly ancient, all-knowing and father of all creativity, Dream of the Endless is an unfathomable being, the personification of the idea of dreaming that shapes reality by defining what does not belong to it. Known by many, many names, he is an immortal being who is absolutely omnipotent while in his realm, capable of shaping the Dreaming to his liking and to influence anyone within it; he can teleport everywhere he wants, including other dimensions, and he can summon dreams, nightmares or visions directly in the mind of others; he can cast illusions, and he masters several forms of magic, from healing to telekinesis, from shapeshifting to size alteration, with practically no limit to his actual abilities within his realm, and a few even outside of it. Morpheus, Kai’ckul, the Sandman, whatever his name, Dream of the Endless has been an arrogant and self-absorbed creature, but is now changed: humbled, willing to evolve, deadly serious but (almost) altruistic, he influences the lives of all mortals, shaping their dreams and thus their wake, distributing dread or inspiration, instilling courage or terror, tirelessly fulfilling his role until the end of days.
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