Every night, all human dreams are played out in Nightopia and Nightmare, the two parts of the dream world. In Nightopia, distinct aspects of dreamers' personalities are represented by luminous colored spheres known as Ideya. However, the evil ruler of Nightmare, Wizeman the Wicked, is stealing this dream energy from sleeping visitors, in order to gather power to take control of Nightopia and eventually the real world. To achieve this, he creates numerous beings called Nightmaren, including two acrobatic jester-like, flight-capable beings called NiGHTS and Reala. However, NiGHTS rebels against Wizeman's plans, and is punished by being imprisoned inside an Ideya Palace, a gazebo-like container for dreamers' Ideya.