My dreams have contained perfectly readable text too. Don’t take everything you see in an episode of Batman for absolute fact.

@Background Pony #B4A2  
I doubt it’ll be as lazy as you seem to fear but keep in mind that the title of this series is “Moonset.” Nightmare Moon is fated to fall, one way or another.

…oh horseapples

Now this is an interesting development.

@Fragnostic  
You can’t read in dreams  
Lots of people can read in dreams, it just doesn’t get processed the same way normal written language does because different parts of the brain are involved; it’s still a matter of visible symbols and shapes being assigned specific meanings when observed.

So Luna is prisoner of the dream world. Very interesting. I am very curious to see where this goes.

@Fragnostic  

 
Of course I couldn’t – I don’t know how to read hieroglyphics, so I can hardly figure out what they mean.
 
Now, I could dream about myself engaging in the act of reading hieroglyphics. In that case, I would be imagining a situation where I’m successfully decoding the meaning behind hieroglyphic writing. It almost certainly wouldn’t be close to accurate to real hieroglyphics, but I would be reading them – or at least, I would be reading my mental approximation of hieroglyphics.
 
More generally, people have a general idea of what the act of “reading” entails – generally involving sitting down with a book, flipping through the pages and seeing what it says. I can certainly dream of myself engaging in those actions, even if I’m not actually reading anything. If so, I would be dreaming of myself reading.

@Fragnostic  
Your definition of reading is wrong; transferring new information is not a requirement in the least.
 
If you read the same sentence ten times in a row, you are still reading the last 9 times despite not transferring any new information. The difference between reading and just looking at works is comprehension, not a change of knowledge.
 
If her subconscious brain was creating a new book (sensical or not) and she was reading it in her sleep, or she was reading a book she had memorized enough to reproduce in her dreams, it’s still reading.

@NovaQuill  
Point taken. I forgot the first rule of any magic setting… “It’s magic”
 
@Frustration in Excelsis  
That’s still imagining things. By this logic you could read hieroglyphs fluently, which is impossible.  
When reading properly, you are comprehending, meanwhile in what you describe there would be no such thing.  
It would be just repeating and reusing information which is already known.
 
That said, i’ll bow to the simple explanation “it’s magic”. I forgot this is Equestria where the dream realm might allow for things like true reading.

@Frustration in Excelsis  
Very well said.

@Fragnostic  
That depends on how you define “reading”. By the definition you’re using, then you’re correct – you can’t acquire new information in a dream, since everything within it comes from your memory or imagination.
 
If I instead define “reading” as “observing a set of visual symbols encoding a meaning and determining what that meaning is”, then I could certainly read in a dream – I would be reading things I already know or am making up as I go, but I would be reading them nonetheless.

@Fragnostic
 
Yes, but it could also be the brain showing the act of reading, which is a relaxing and pleasant dream.
 
The other option is it’s Twilight Sparkle. If there was ever a pony to invent a spell that would allow a dreamer to read, it’d be her.

@mjangelvortex  
What you’re doing is not reading. Reading involves the transfer of data from the real world to your brain.  
In a dream, you’re cut off from most of the input you receive while awake.
 
What you’re doing is writing directly to your short term memory. You’re inventing. You’re imagining.  
There are no words, only concepts. You can imagine yourself reading, but you won’t be truly reading.

@Fragnostic  
That’s somewhat a myth. While most people can’t read in their dreams, some people can (mostly writers, especially people who write poetry). Speaking from personal experience, I’ve read in dreams multiple times and I do write both as a hobby and as a passion that I wish to make as serious career one day (to be specific, I write fanfiction, original stories, and poems).
 
@Dirty Bit  
@Frustration in Excelsis  
Yeah, this reveal is rather fascinating.

I don’t know if this would count as being a stalker, since she’s in Luna form and not Nightmare Moon form in Twilight’s dream.

@Frustration in Excelsis  

 
Were you surprised? Temporal divergence or no, she’s still Twilight Sparkle.

O cool so the real Luna is still the one looking after dreams, wonder if she’ll try convince Twilight to save Celestia

@FanOfMostEverything
 
Huh. Didn’t even see them.
 
~STL

Luna certainly seems to be taking a potentially romantic interest in Twilight, though Twilight doesn’t seem to share the same feelings. Interesting.

You can’t read in dreams. Even lucid ones.
 
Gonna reserve my opinions till more is revealed, but so far this is not something I’m enthused about.

Interesting little twist we have here…

Well well well, this is an interesting development. I wonder… is this a result of the misfiring Elements causing a literal splitting of Luna’s personality, with Nightmare Moon thereafter keeping Luna submerged? In that case, I wonder if the way Nightmare Moon shifts between clam and tyrannical and her canon coloration and a more Luna-like palette might not be due to the Luna half being able to temporarily gain a greater presence in the whole. Or will Silfoe be going for the Nightmare-as-a-psychic-parasite route? In that case, perhaps the Elements damaged its control over Luna’s personality and gave her the ability to move with some degree of freedom in the dream realm…
 
On another note, I’m a bit surprised that no-one’s called attention to what Twilight’s dreaming about and her choice of oneiric reading matter.

Well, this is interesting indeed. Luna possibly being banished alongside her sister, or she’s quite possibly a prisoner of her own body with Nightmare Moon taking the reins, and yet manages to traverse the dream realm at her leisure.

@Background Pony #B4A2  
Have some faith! Twilight clearly isn’t happy to see Luna.

Why do I suddenly get the disappointing feeling that all the interesting Nightmare Moon x Twi alternate history stuff is just going to be abandoned with a villain redemption and turned in to just another Twiluna thing?