Dream Eater (Spirits)

The Dream Eaters are a species of creature introduced in Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance. As their name suggests, they reside in the Realm of Sleep, where they consume dreams. Dream Eaters fall under two major categories, Nightmares, which eat good dreams and plant bad ones, and Spirits, which only eat bad dreams. Spirit Dream Eaters serve as recruitable allies that Sora and Riku can collect.

Story
Following the defeat of Ansem, Seeker of Darkness at Sora's hands, a portion of the worlds attacked by the Heartless remain submerged in sleep. Though this means the Heartless cannot reach them, they are instead plagued by Dream Eaters, entities produced by the darkness present in these specific worlds and who seek the worlds' keyholes.

Design
Like the Heartless, and Nobodies before them, the Dream Eaters come in a variety of sizes and shapes, although they appear to have a much higher range of color schemes than their predecessors, and often resemble animals. Each Dream Eater is adorned with an emblem which signifies whether it is a Spirit or Nightmare.

Dream Eaters are characterized by having colorful appearances. Spirits have lighter, pastel colorations and have round, yellow or green eyes whith little black pupils.

The symbol of the Spirit Dream Eater is also present on the back of Riku's new outfit, although this has yet to be explained.

According to the April 2012 issue of V Jump, Recipes are involved in raising Spirit Dream Eaters. The February Special Trailer also depicted the Kingda Nyan as a "Rare Spirit", although it is not yet known what this implies.