Making Him Incompetent At Everything - Tumblr Posts
I've noticed that some fans within the Sandman are laboring under the mistaken conclusion that Dream doesn't understand certain aspects of human culture, and that this is somehow a shortcoming that he not only has but comes into conflict with. This is mistaken on two counts.
1. Humans aren't the only intelligent species across the universe. There are thousands, stretching from the birth of the first star to death of the last, and his purview is over all of them. He is THE Dream of the Endless, embodiment of all that is not and will never be, and has rather a lot of cultures to be keeping track of considering the number that exist even within one species. So there's a lot to sort through in that facsimile of a noggin any time a character refers to some charming aspect of life, but he sorts through it with such promptness and ease (because that's his job) that we forget he's sorting through anything at all. Now, we can go into the blurry mechanics of aspects/facets/manifestations of a greater whole and how those exist separately yet as one being, but while it's an interesting path to stroll at a different time, that's not what we're here to do.
2. I touched on it before, but Dream does know this stuff somewhere in the vast web of minds that he consists of. Sometimes he acts like he doesn't for his own sanity (so to speak), sometimes for the sake of the individual trying to relate things to him, and sometimes because it's more Dramatic. He knows culture and etiquette and invention, he utilizes this knowledge to be the most politest little gentleman but he also uses it to be a cunt. If there is something he's said that's in poor taste, consider what is going on from Dream's perspective. Is he mad? Is he scared? Is he feeling petty? The answer is probably yes to one of these. When he's upset, he is extraordinarily insensitive because most of his energy goes to not committing horrifying atrocities barely conscienable by the waking mind seeing as how he is a cunt. When he's scared he puffs himself up and acts a cunt. When he's feeling petty he is, you guessed it, intentionally being a cunt. If he doesn't seem to know a certain taboo, he either doesn't care enough to, or does and is intentionally breaking it.
FINALLY!! Sometimes he does know and doesn't grasp for... reasons unclear. For example: he knows about chimneys, but doesn't grasp their significance. Or when people use colloquial phrases and he takes it as literally as possible. He understands humans, just not the experience.
TL;DR—Dream knows what everyone is talking about. He just doesn't care or is being intentionally obtuse when he doesn't seem to, for the most part, and when not applicable he still knows and just doesn't fully grasp it. He is very smart insomuch that intelligence can be measured among endless, he's just also very naive and petty.