Armando Valente was a college student on a scientific team that sent a remote actor (a "waldo" through a mysterious rift in spacetime. Valente was guiding the waldo when an enormous energy surge fed back through the virtual-reality relays. The energies fried Valente's body below the neck, and fused his neural patterns in with the waldo. As the patterns started degrading, the team's surgeon transplanted his brain and upper spinal column into the waldo, keeping the mental patterns from degrading.
Armando can no longer dream, himself. He has to enter and explore other people's dreams, now.
All the mechanical powers -- creating little machine servants, reshaping reality with the molding power -- are "somnifactors", strange mechanical golems that reflect the images he sees while visiting people's dreams.
