As evil as dreams are portrayed in this game, these are not the dreams they mean.
The only trigger that exists for Infected Crossroads in the randomizer is gaining a Dreamer item. It’s not really an inventory item, but it shows up in your inventory in the randomizer, so I counted it anyway. It’s a requirement to beat the game and if I didn’t do it this way, there wasn’t any counter for doing the task required at all! Except for the boss counter that I totally forgot about until later. I hope I got the number right.
A few spots throughout the game are gated with either a shadow gate or acid. The Queen’s Gardens is another. However, bypassing a shadow gate requires far more effort than just getting Isma’s Tear, which locks some things by itself, so I thought Isma’s Tear was the more prudent to gather for the first ending. I’m clearly doing far more here than just getting an any% unplanned speedrun, but now that I’m ready for the first ending I feel like I may as well go right for it. Everything that’s not gathered along the way can wait until the next section.