Does Paladin Aura of Protection apply to a Dream messenger?

Question

Short backstory: The party was freed from imprisonment by a cult member who then ran off to make a distraction, to facilitate the party's escape. It's been several in-game months now and the party has managed to re-establish contact via "Sending", only to discover that he is going/has gone insane and potentially is having his mind messed with. They've just leveled up, and in a bid to get more information on the guy, on what's happening to him, and on the cult which they're now fighting, the party Wizard had a fun idea: cast the newly-discovered spell "Dream" to allow for longer communication (including modification of the guy's dream world). The plan is to send in the party Fighter.

However, the target in question is known to have been driven at least partly mad by hostile influences on his mind, and the party suspects (and rightfully so) that entry into his dream and mind might mean they need to struggle against those same hostile influences or at least that his madness would manifest in ways that pose danger. There is also a danger the party hasn't foreseen: entities will attack the party (including Fighter's tranced body) in an effort to stop the dream intrusion.

The question involves the party Paladin: if your body is within the Aura of Protection, do you benefit from the spell? If the party Paladin is holding the party Fighter as the Fighter sleeps, then does the Fighter gain the save-related benefits of the Aura of Protection even though their consciousness is very far away in the mind of the other man (and thus out of range)? It specifies that the Paladin must be conscious to grant the benefit, but the target need not be conscious to accept the benefit (as is the case when the same Aura provides benefits to Death Saving Throws for a downed party member).

TL;DR - If a Wizard casts Dream, sending in a Fighter as the messenger into the mind of a madman, does the Fighter benefit from a physically nearby Paladin's Aura of Protection bonus to saves as long as their body is in range? Or must the body of the spell's target (and thus the messenger's consciousness/essence) also be within range?

Answer 1

This would have to be ruled by the DM

The attacks on the messenger, and the saving throws he may have to make, are all homebrewed. The spell Dream contains no mention of saving throws to the messenger.

Answer 2

The fighter is within range of the paladin

The fighter "enters a trance state, acting as a messenger. While in the trance, the messenger is aware of his or her surroundings, but can't take actions or move." The fighter doesn't go anywhere and is therefore still within range of the paladin.

I'm somewhat confused as to why you think the fighter is going to need it though. Dream is usually case somewhere safe and secure and the fighter should be in no danger. However, if they want to cast it ona battlefield, more fool them.

Other planes of existence are infinitely far away

Since the primary way of traveling from plane to plane, even using the Transitive Planes, is through magical portals that link planes together, the exact relationship of different planes to one another is largely a theoretical concern. No being in the multiverse can look down and see the planes in their arrangement the same way as we look at a diagram in a book. No mortal can verify whether Mount Celestia is sandwiched between Bytopia and Arcadia, but it's a convenient theoretical construct based on the philosophical shading among the three planes and the relative importance they give to law and good.

Since no matter how far you walk, you never enter another plane of existence, they are infinitely far away. Even the border Etherial which has a 1:1 correspondence with the Prime Material plane is still infinitely far away from it.

Whether a portal short-circuits this depends on the nature of the portal:

Some portals function like doorways, appearing as a clear window or a fog­ shrouded passage, and interplanar travel is as simple as stepping through the doorway. Other portals are locations - circles of standing stones, soaring towers, sailing ships, or even whole towns - that exist in multiple planes at once or flicker from one plane to another. Some are vortices, joining an Elemental Plane to a very similar location on the Material Plane, such as the heart of a volcano (leading to the Plane of Fire) or depths of the ocean (to the Plane of Water).

A fighter on one side of a portal might be within range of a paladin on the other side. Or not. It depends on the portal.

Answer 3

I think the Astral projection case is clear - "Your astral form is a separate incarnation". The spell then explicitly says that anything that happens to your astral body doesn't affect your physical body, and while it doesn't outright say it presumably the reverse is true.

Comparing to Astral projection, it seems that Dream doesn't create a new fighter-like entity, it just grants the messenger new capabilities. The messenger is still in the original room (otherwise, being aware of their surroundings would not make sense). As such, the messenger would be affected by anything that happens in the room - they would get hurt by a Fireball cast in the room, healed by Prayer of healing cast there, and would benefit from a nearby paladin's aura.

Note that the dream messenger is not an actual entity, and I do not believe there would be no way to target it RAW (how would you fight a dream?). The DM is free to homebrew something that can do something like that, but it should be noted that it doesn't really make sense to talk about RAW in that situation. Do whatever makes sense for your campaign.