“The Dream Masters” is episode six (originally shown as episode five) of season three of Sliders.
The Sliders are relaxing when a pair of bicycles nearly clip them, despite such being banned in the area. One of the cyclists crashes into someone who roller-skates, who starts going off at him until the cyclist raises his hand and shows a pentacle drawn on it. At that point, the roller-skates starts begging not to be hurt; he’ll do anything. The cyclist tells him to drop dead and touches his face; a pentacle is briefly seen there. The man ends up collapsing and choking; the cyclist smiles at Wade. When Rembrandt arrives with a police officer, she starts calling an ambulance, then when she sees the cyclist, calls for a meat wagon instead. Better list it as a suicide.
The Sliders tell the cop she needs to talk to the cyclists; she asks how stupid they are and if they’re trying to get someone else killed. Leave the park, now. They’ve been warned. The cyclist shows the pentacle to Wade; she shows him her fist. He says he can’t wait to sleep with her and she uses said fist. Quinn intervenes and the man says he’ll take care of Quinn later. And he’ll see Wade in her dreams.
Wade is doodling the pentacle on a napkin in a bar when the server asks if she’s crazy and snatches it away. You’ll never know what will set off the Dream Masters; they got his last cocktail waitress. Nobody can stay awake forever and they enter your dreams and create nightmares. Wade briefly sees the man from the park watching her, but he’s gone when the others look. Wade doesn’t want to sleep. The professor will stay with Wade whilst Rembrandt and Quinn find the Dream Masters. Rembrandt suggests leaving town, but it’s too long until they slide; if the Dream Masters can invade someone’s dreams, running won’t help. All that happens when they see the Dream Masters is they get threatened.
Wade wants a coffee, but has to head to the bar to get one. The Dream Master is there; he says it’s not often a woman defies. He finds it stimulating, and touches her leg. The symbol briefly shows there. Wade, somehow, starts dreaming and cuts herself in the dream. The others wake her up; there’s blood on her hand but no wound.
The professor suggests it could be stigmata induced by a psychotropic substance. Yes, it’s possible Wade could have bled to death. He thinks Wade was administered the drug in the bar, and a hypnotic suggestion planted. It’s 30 hours until they slide, so they need to keep Wade awake. They start arguing over how to help Wade until she reminds them they were going to see the police.
They find the same cop as before, and her partner, but she doesn’t want to write down a complaint against the Dream Masters. She does end up giving them something; the address of a shelter that helps victims of the Dream Masters. Quinn asks why she’s helping, when no-one else will, and the professor realises she’s been a victim of the Dream Masters too. Back at the hotel, the Dream Master is dosing a coffee heading up to Rembrandt and Wade with something.
At the shelter, Dr Lujan explains to Quinn and the professor what’s known about the powers of the Dream Masters. They are most powerful during REM sleep, and her husband experimented with drugs to block that, but people need REM sleep. There are a number of people at the shelter, effectively in comas, some of whom went up against the Dream Masters and were punished. One being her husband.
So, there’s a rather small group of people who everyone is terrified off and won’t dare cross. And they want to kill Wade in her dreams. It seems that a university professor discovered how to enter other people’s dreams, and he and his students set themselves up as petty gods. With an emphasis on petty. In order to defeat them and save Wade, the others will need to fight the Dream Masters in their dreams.