Here is my wild, wild theory.
It is based on two quotes, one from GW2 and one from GW1.
In guild wars 1, there is a chain from Eye of the North. Remember that Eye of the North was the last expansion for GW1. If any lore in GW2 is based in GW1 it is likely from Eye of the North.
There is a very peculiar and important Asura studying the Eternal Alchemy. He has you go collect 6 cyphers from 6 facets. One facet for each human god.(Sound familiar? Eternal Alchemy from Omadd’s machine’s vision?)
Once you do, you get a cypher that leads you to a location where you fight the facets as dragons and once you defeat them, you get a mysterious ghostly figure who tells you:
“An offering to those who seek”
“Beyond the mists beyond the dreams”
“On distant shores of a land unwaking”
“Answers there lie in waiting”
Now on to GW2. In GW2, there’s a weird out of place dude named Malyck. We gather he has no recollection of The Dream and is not spawned from the Pale Tree. During one quest, we talk to a seer who is more in touch with the dream than any other living being save perhaps the pale tree and maybe the firstborn.
“A distant shore—and darkness. A root, a cave…you. You are the seed. What Ronan knew and never told still lingers in the Dream.”
Ok, what do we see from both of these? Distant shores. But what distant shores? The GW1 quote says distant shores of a land unwaking. Perhaps from the sylvari’s dream?
We know that The Dream came before the Sylvari. From the GW2 quote, describing a distant shore, a cave, and a seed, mention of Ronan, it sounds like the dream remembers from before the Pale Tree was planted too.
Based on the GW1 quote, here’s my interpretation of the Pale Tree’s vision. We’re actually seeing inside the dream. We see the forest with the sylvan face, perhaps this forest is a gateway, the gateway to a far-off land, “beyond the dreams”.
Mordremoth wants to get to this place. Its sure to be full of magic.
But what is the place?
I really don’t have anything to go on. A wild hunch, it could be where the Mursaat were able to escape to. Maybe they are still alive there. Maybe this land is the source of Tyrian magic, and the first eternal alchemy vision we had really was of Mordremoth reaching the core of the eternal alchemy and not of Zhaitan’s magic returning to Tyria. Maybe the reason in the Sylvari intro, Mordremoth has projected his minion into the dream, and perhaps the source of the corruption is that Mordremoth is trying to breach the dream to get to this place.
One other wild speculation with very little evidence. The Pale Tree was most likely taken by Ronan from a place in the physical world of Tyria. If Ronan was there, and it was a place The Dream remembered, the reference to the far shore and the cave in the GW2 was likely where Ronan found the Pale Tree.
We know that the Mursaat city that Saul D’alesso found was on The Isle of Janthir, it would certainly count as a distant shore. If Ronan was battling the White Mantle, perhaps he visited that shore. Perhaps he took a Mursaat creation, a guardian of their world, the Pale Tree, when he was there.
Neither quote actually links to the Mursaat though, its just we know they were skilled at escaping the world in to their own place, we know that they were behind the White Mantle that Ronan was fighting. And we know that they had a city across Janthir Bay, but nothing has actually given evidence of their involvement at all.
You know, in GW1, when we get the quote, we’ve just collected cyphers from the different aspects of the gods, maybe the city beyond dreams is the hiding place of the gods? Or maybe their original homeland, or the homeland of the humans.
And who is the mysterious phantom? Maybe the avatar of another guardian of the dream?
Would be so epic.