Haypasia's dialogue in Sumeru Archon Quest Act 1 reminded me of an obscure french movie about a man who cannot dream. I'm tweaking.

There is a french movie called "la Cité des enfants perdus" (the City of Lost Children) and it is about a man who cannot dream, so he kidnaps children to experiment on and steal their dreams. However, the children only give him nightmares. The protagonists have to save those children, and that's basically the gist of it. The movie is critically acclaimed, and it is often seen as an allegory for children's innocence being taken away once they grow old. The movie is on my top 10 best movies of all time, despite how unknown it is. But it is said to have inspired Bioshock, which Genshin also has references to.

But the dream thing wasn't in Bioshock as far as I know, yet Genshin's Aranara lore and the sages harvesting dreams thing is so similar to that movie, it's almost creepy. The movie is so unknown and underrated that there's no way the devs have watched it unless they're dedicated cinephiles or francophiles. Or maybe?

Sorry for my weird far out theorizing, I couldn't help it. Maybe it's just me.