So what happened in this game?

So then why are all these humans so obsessed with either becoming or communicating with great ones? I don't get what they're getting out of all this effort and sacrifice.
What's the big deal? It seems like way more trouble than its worth. Yharnam should have just focused on continuing the industrial revolution and ignored the healing church as soon as the first beasts started popping up.

Dreams in BB Are metaphorical references to other planes of existence. Thet aren't actually dreams like when youre sleeping, you dingus.

To add to this, it's all suggested - never really laid out clearly - that the gods aren't all on the same side. In fact, the Moon Presence seems to be cultivating the Hunters who pass through the Dream to kill off the other Great Ones - namely in the game being Ebrietas, the brain thing in the Nightmare, and the Wet Nurse. The Hunter's Dream is essentially cultivating assassins for the Moon Presence without them knowing about its role.

As for Eileen and all them, dunno the specifics, but the graveyard in the Dream seems to suggest that Gehrman's racked up an impressive body count as steward/slave of the Dream; to add to that, the Doll can be seen tending lovingly to one of the graves now and then when you warp back to the Dream, as if others have been in the player's role and presumably accepted their deaths (or gave up after Gehrman hammered them too many times).

As for why people aren't dead in Yharnam, I think the Yharnam that you play in isn't the waking world; the Yharnam we fight in is a dream Yharnam (and thus the Hunter's Nightmare in teh DLC is thus a Yharnam-inside-Yharnam Inception-style)

I know what lovecraftian dream means. It's still not any more meaningless.

Logically speaking, ascending into a Great One is probably not the smartest move, but a lot of people like Micolash only see BIG HIGHER BEING WITH EYES ON THE INSIDE and want to turn into one. They'll impart knowledge and favors for people, and they're responsible for granting blood to Yharnam, which is a magic cure-all, booze, and gives them increased lifespans, so it's definitely tempting for people who don't know the downsides of what comes with the Great Ones

I used to read Word Up! magazine

This one's a little clearer - the Church has a vise grip on Yharnam. The DLC clears that up a bit more with the experimentation facility, but the fiery fate of the lower city (That's now populated by beasts solely) suggests that the Church covers up anything that goes wrong in order to preserve its power base. When Lawrence "secedes" from Byrgenwerth, he goes to the Church - and the Church grows heavily in power, surpassing Byrgenwerth and leaving the college in the dust. The Church Hunters led by Ludwig then also surpass Gehrman's hunters, and the Church thus can control both the inflow of godly information (what they learn) with its effects (the beast scourge), rallying people to fight the beasts when it gets too bad both to cull them and to keep everyone unified against a common foe (evident in the nutjobs in the streets, and the dude inside his house down the back alley who freaks out when you talk to him and starts praising the church)

No, you literally teleport between pocket dimensions. That's what the entire game is about.

To ascend humanity, they want power and immortality. And the only reason why Yharnam is prosperous is because of selling blood, their greed was too high to stop it.
That's the story's main point, greed is bad.

What was the deal with gherman and Maria?
What was his curious "mania", what's the relation to the doll?

Ignore those other guys.

A long time ago some people dug a hole and found alien/god blood and a the knowledge to contact them. Those people became obsessed with the blood because it gives you power, knowledge, and heals you, so they contracted with the alien/gods. The alien/gods need surrogates to give birth to baby alien/gods. Alien/gods really want children, but they also want to deny other alien/gods from having them. The alien/gods don’t mean to hurt people, but along with the benefits the blood also transforms you. The group that found the blood in the first place form a secret society that eventually splinters and passes blood to almost everyone in Yarnham. This really fucks up the place.

One AG, the moon presence, feels a bit bad about the whole blood monster disease situation that all the other AGs have created, but he also wants to abort the Fetus of Formless Odeon, Mergo. He creates the hunter’s dream to help people fight the seemingly endless monsters, but also wants someone to kill Mergo.

After you do the fifth dimensional trimester abortion one fo three endings happen.

You let Gerhman kill you, the moon presence releases you from the dream, and you go about your life.

You fight Germ and take his place as MP’s adopted kid.

You eat a bunch of aborted babies and are to much of an AG for the MP. And then you were the squid.

Gerhamn had a hardon for her but never made a move (apparently for the obvious teacher-student creepy factor). Dude was also lonely as fuck once the Church Hunters passed him by and left him as a rusting antique, so he prayed to the gods for "company." The Moon Presence was the god that answered, by sparking life within the doll in the Dream to give him a "living" replica of the object of his passion that would never leave him.

Of course, Gehrman go the short end of the stick in every other way on that deal, but hey.

Okay so from what I understand, dreams are sort of dimensions held up exclusively by Great Ones, and by Micolash, who is the host of the Nightmare of Mensis. The Moon Presence is trying to gain power by killing other old ones and taking their blood echoes, using hunters to do so. Whenever their role becomes too much for them or they start to question too much, he removes them from the Hunter's Dream.

The main dreams in the game are Yharnam from the newborn, Mensis, the Hunter's Dream, and the Fishing Hamlet, which is being maintained by the orphan. This is pretty much only going off the fact that killing these enemies gives you "Nightmare Slain" for the victory screen.

All fiction is made up you know, it’s all meaningless

Was Kos a human woman who managed to ascend similar to the Hunter?
Her humanoid features can't be a coincidence

I don't think appearances matters; Rom seems to have ascended from a human, and yet Rom is a fuck ugly puffy spider

Rom kinda failed to properly ascend though and got stuck with a dead brain

Honestly Rom was something that kinda threw me for a loop. Great bodies of water are a bulwark against sleep, so says one of the runes, and Rom is essentially the guardian on the Moonlit Lake who, when killed, exposes the Blood Moon...yet nothing really points to Rom being chosen to guard the moon's descent or how that came to be or whatnot.

Idk. Sorta got that but there was some definitely blanks in my interpretation

Rom became that way through Kos. The notes seem to imply that Rom deliberately was holding the moon back.

Rom was being used to hold back " All manner of otherworldly rituals"
She protected yharnam from the mensis rituals and great ones descending to yharnam.
That it Why the hunters are needed by the MP. It its tormented by mergos cries (mensis did this to draw great ones, who are compelled to seek surrogate children) so it utilized hunters to become strong and silence mergo
I believe willam learned about the umbilical chords and intentionally ascended rom for this purpose. To protect against mensis and the choirs efforts. I believe he lost his facilities/mind in the process.

Rom was ascended by Kos
Micolash talks about this in the "Grant us eyes, as you once did for Rom", which was directed at Kos (or as some say, kosm)