Fluff transitions into dream sequences

[Pinjata]

Heya guys,

My party will encounter a cleric of Bahamut. Cleric basically wants to show them "things will go south, unless you guys do something". ATM the idea is for a cleric to encounter PCs in their camp and tell them, he had a dream to bring them a certain stone. The moment party will lay their eyes upon the stone, nothing will really change, but for them, world will be reset to a situation, that will take shape, as it will be two years from their current time. The city they have departed, will be flooded with refugees, most of city will be burnt down and there will be talks of BBEG tearing world apart. Disease, violence, riots. Three sessions later, they will appear in same camp again, with things unchanged. I think this will be really cool. I might have a few more events like this and I wonder, what are some cool ideas for reality transitiong into "dream sequence"? For now I have cleric showing them the stone, but - do you guys have some more fluff ideas for me on how to pull this off? How to make a fluffy transition from reality to dream sequence?

thanks :)

[Hellpyre]

Is this going to end up with the PCs gaining something outside of the dream. Investing 3 sessions of time for nothing would really rub a lot of parties the wrong way. If you do decide to ultimately go with it, make it very clear that they're falling into a dream. I can't help much with the fluff though. I don't ever remember dreams.

[Calen]

Done right it could be a fun and memorable experience for the players.
I see pros and cons for telling the players that you are in a dream world and just hinting at it.

Making it three sessions long might be a bit much.

Skip over travel, let the players accomplish unusual things, have things happen slightly differently from how they usually do in your world. Condensing things would avoid the "we wasted our time" thought and if done right would sell the idea that the players are in a dream.