early dream nail

[EnCroissant]

did anyone know that you could get the dream nail very early by dropping down in the crystal peak just before you go in the snail shamans hut for the descending dark upgrade? i discovered this by accident on my fist play through and im going to use this for my speedrun attempt this weekend.

[Jith03]

I've also heard that you can get it even earlier by grinding out geo to buy the lantern from Sly before encountering Hornet.

[🉑 rezno[R].technology]

Yes.
Desolate Dive, as well as defeating Soul Master, is not required to get inside Crystal Peak.
You can go to the Crystallised Mound only if you have Desolate Dive (it's just a spell upgrade).
You can enter Crystal Peak as soon as you defeat Gruz Mother to save Sly, and then buy the Lumafly Lantern - this makes the alternate entrance (gate) visible. From there you can get directly to Resting Grounds.
You can even skip Crystal Heart and go directly to Resting Grounds (though not recommended).

[Noborus]

I got into hollow knight by watching speedruns, so i got dream nail extremely early, and even now i still believe dream nail is meant to be gotten early on, doesn't really seem like a late game item to me. On my first playthrough i only had mothwing cloak and mantis claw when i first got dream nail, there's a little skip you can do to get it which is used in speedruns.

[kanna]

Yes, but usually speedrunners go straight to Dream Nail after getting Claw on the any% route if I remember right. Rather than spending the time going through Crystal Peak, they use a Shade Skip to get to Blue Lake from Crossroads.