Hera promised Hypnos the Grace Pasithea as his bride if he would put Zeus to sleep during the Trojan War. Their union produced the Oneiroi — Morpheus, who takes human form in dreams, Phobetor, who appears as beasts and serpents, and Phantasos, who fashions visions of earth, water, and stone.
⚠ Hesiod's Theogony 212 names the Oneiroi as children of Nyx alone; Ovid's Metamorphoses 11 attributes them to Somnus (Hypnos).
Hypnos commands the Oneiroi — Morpheus, Phobetor, and Phantasos — dispatching them through the gates of horn and ivory to deliver dreams to sleeping mortals and gods.
The Oneiroi number a thousand, but three stand above the rest — Morpheus, who takes human form in dreams, Phobetor, who appears as beasts and serpents, and Phantasos, who fashions visions of earth, water, and stone.
The River Lethe flows past the cave where Phantasos and the other Oneiroi dwell with their father Hypnos. In Ovid's Metamorphoses, Lethe's murmuring waters maintain the perpetual drowsiness of the dream realm.
Pasithea, one of the Charites promised to Hypnos by Hera, is sometimes named as the mother of Phantasos and the other Oneiroi in variant traditions.
Thanatos and Phantasos are closely related — Thanatos is the brother of Hypnos and thus Phantasos's uncle. Sleep and Death dwell together, and the Oneiroi inhabit the space between them.
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