This film was made and completely funded by Columbia College Chicago as one of six "Practicum" films in Spring 2006.

Executive Producer Bruce Sheridan wrote a good amount of the final screen story, but goes uncredited. Keene Hudson wrote the original feature length screenplay "ID Merchants", which shares the core characters and story elements he compressed down to "Dreamworld", most of which Chait and Wadsworth wanted to film but couldn't due to time and budget constraints. Chait wrote the final shooting script, staying as close as possible to both Hudson's and Sheridan's versions.

This is the sixth film Michael B. Chait has directed that Mike Kramer has scored.

The original climax to the film was to be done on the first night of shooting, set in a long alley in downtown Chicago. The scene would have explained exactly what happened to Chik at the end, and was planned, lit (with a large number of lights, some rigged on fire escapes), blocked out and partially shot, but generator malfunctions and harsh weather forced filming to be cut short. The crew went on, planning for the scene to be picked up during re-shoots a month later, but budget issues and the executive producers would not let it be filmed. This led to the idea of having an open ending, and the re-shoots that did happen were filmed with this in mind. Most of the surviving footage from the "lost scene" was used in the final dream sequence.

Many crew members have cameos in the club scene , including the casting director (at the bar with the mustache and ponytail) and the dance choreographer (the man feeding a woman a "dream" pill).

The manager of Kizoku Sushi (where the Nigerian's "back room" scene was shot) appears as the gangster seated next to the Nigerian smoking a cigar. It was his idea to have "body sushi" displayed so prominently in the film, which is Kizoku's trademark attraction (they are the first and only restaurant to offer it legally in Chicago).

Although John Turk only appears in a few brief shots in The Nigerian's back room in the club, his character was originally to play a much bigger role, most importantly in the lost "alley scene". He starred in the lead role in Michael B. Chait's next film, "Subject", shot in late November 2006.

Shot in five days, the film went through nearly five months of post-production, largely because Columbia College would only allow editing at the school's facilities twice a week, usually four hours at a time.