He and his friend Hugo start stealing from a local junk merchant named Merlin, following in his thieving mother's footsteps.

Conventional artwork is deemed base and pointless in comparison with this new trend, and priceless paintings wither away on the streets, and hordes of people buy small "dreams" to cure insomnia and illness.

He awakens violently in his bed to find that he has produced a small ectoplasm that his museum assigned nurse, Marianne quickly whisks away.

After angrily condemning the harsh, uninspired carelessness of the scientists, David later visits his lover, a widowed baker named Antonine, who buys his small ectoplasms, "trinkets," to cure her insomnia.

David also visits Soler Mahus, the greatest dreamer the world has ever known, whose power was drained after producing such enormous ectoplasms that filled plazas and stopped wars.

Soler Mahus is left rambling and emaciated from over exertion, and he warns David that one must never block themselves from their dreams, because it poisons the world the imaginary characters live in.

Eventually, the world begins to bloom with many plants, which causes David to assume that his physical body has died and given his dream one more burst of energy as it decays into nothingness.

The emphasis on the health benefits of the ectoplasms and the large market for trinkets and baubles seems to be a further critique of the consumerism found in art consumption.