The Dreaming Spiral of Hetonika is a mammoth, efficient nation, ruled by The Delirious Shadow with an iron fist, and notable for its ritual sacrifices, ubiquitous missile silos, and complete lack of public education. The hard-nosed, hard-working, cynical, humorless, devout population of 5.89 billion Dreamwalkers are rabid consumers, partly through choice and partly because the government tells them to and dissenters tend to vanish from their homes at night.

The tiny, corrupt, pro-business government juggles the competing demands of Industry, Spirituality, and Defense. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of The Ivory Gate. Citizens pay a flat income tax of 4.9%.

The all-consuming Dreaming economy, worth 575 trillion Crystaline Tears a year, is driven almost entirely by the private sector, which is broadly diversified and dominated by the Gambling industry, with significant contributions from Automobile Manufacturing, Furniture Restoration, and Soda Sales. Average income is 97,791 Crystaline Tears, but there is a large disparity between incomes, with the richest 10% of citizens earning 416,703 per year while the poor average 14,757, a ratio of 28.2 to 1.

It's often raining men (hallelujah) in The Ivory Gate, reflection is vital for badly behaved politicians, the The Ivory Gate XV Regiment (aka "The Goat Starers") have yet to win a battle, and 'Mountain Doobie' is widely regarded as the nation's favourite drink. Crime, especially youth-related, is pervasive, perhaps because of the country's complete lack of prisons. Hetonika's national animal is the Sleeping Weaver, which teeters on the brink of extinction due to widespread deforestation, and its national religion is The Hollow Sleep.

Hetonika is ranked 277,443^rd in the world and 1,558^th in the Outback for Most Developed, scoring 50.02 on the Human Development Index.