Concept: Worlds (Dream World)

The hidden safe-haven of our main character.

The Dream World is a strange place, to say the least. With the combination of a few ideas I've seen in the past, coupled with an entirely new play-style and graphical overhaul here, the Dream World is one of the most complex ideas I've had for this game. See, in Reality, all stat boosts, status effects, etc. work in a real-time fashion. Like I said, it's similar to Xenoblade Chronicles, where fights begin by getting close to enemies and starting fights. These fights involve attacks that take time to use, have cooldowns, all  of that. However, the Dream World is completely different.
Energy and Stamina work similarly to a character's Magic Meter/MP/whatever in most RPGs, instead of throwing you down and causing issues when they deplete in Reality. Here, your battles are caused by random encounters you find while traveling. Don't worry, they'll be shadows of creatures. Approach them and you'll start the battle. In the Dream World, all equipment and items have the same stats, but everything works a little differently. Say you've got a Regeneration spell that gives Health every few seconds. In the Dream World, that's changed to give you a bit more Health every turn of combat instead. The Dream World's status ailments are enhanced or worsened for balance reasons.
Similarly, weapon attack times are changed to effect Speed in the Dream World, changing the order of attacks. This will be made obvious in menus and in battle, where the turn order is placed on everyone.
Another major difference is Party Members. Because you're fighting inside the main character's head, essentially, every Party Member can fight at once, instead of having to be switched out. This greatly changes how battles will pan out, and instead of being rushed over to the closest resting place when you run out of Health (or being forced to run and find an Inn), a Game Over is instead caused by everyone running out of Health.

Oh, no. I just realized something about Abilities...
But that's for later.

Finally, probably the biggest difference is how the story works here. Upon finding a new Party Member or Aspect, the player has to go into the Dream World to "activate" them. But that won't be the only reason to head to the Dream World. You're able to head into the Dream World most of the time when you rest at an Inn. When you do this, some things might change. The first thing is being able to freely access the Aspect Amplifier, as well as being able to enter a sort of "Training Room." (Possibly.)
The Training Room will allow you to test out different Abilities and such in both Reality and Dream World scenarios. You won't gain experience or Abilities like this, but it's good practice for learning how things work.

Also, a word of warning about the Dream World: Dreams tend to mimic Reality. So having a great day, not passing out, winning a lot of battles... That'll be nice.
But start screwing up, taking a lot of damage, getting negative status effects, and overall doing poorly?
Well, you know the opposite of Dreams... right?

-Josh