Classification of My Experiences in the Form of a Bestiary
Many of the types listed below tend to blend into each other in practice and are difficult to classify unequivocally. The distinctions and the entire list will likely evolve over time.
Hollow
Characters created like extras, reflections based on impressions of unfamiliar people. They are silent, bland, like puppets devoid of any substance, almost rubbery in their form.
Simulators
Characters very similar to the Hollow, but with a built-in interaction “program” that defines their behavior within a specific relational script. Such a figure plays out a scene, but when I try to shift the topic, they freeze or go blank. They react exactly as I expect them to-just like the Hollow-both groups are susceptible to my will.
Passersby
Characters behaving like guests encountered by chance. They do not change form, though they can look very different. One can have coherent conversations with them, and they often initiate contact.
Dreamers
Other dreamers who behave simply like dreaming humans. Autonomous, marked by their own traits and personalities.
Residents
Autonomous consciousnesses inhabiting foreign locations. Highly varied, sometimes lacking any describable form, though their awareness is perceptible. Some simply exist as inhabitants of a place, possessing a broader range of traits/characteristics than humans, others construct traps that are difficult to escape. Sometimes they are simply bots executing the rules of that place.
Shapeshifters
Characters of trickster nature. Autonomous, morphing, using mental models for manipulation. They can appear deceptively beautiful and present themselves as friendly or nurturing beings. They possess excellent control over dream matter. They function like predators in the ocean of dreams, feeding on unresolved needs and desires. They respond poorly to touch. They do not behave in a reciprocal way, and their speech is often misleading, incoherent, or designed to pull one into a narrative.
Playfuls
Characters similar to Shapeshifters but with a more childlike nature. Friendly, fond of morphing into various forms. Sometimes they resemble forest sprites, mischievous but without malicious intent.
Guides
Supportive characters, friendly, helpful, conveying valuable information. Sometimes they help in understanding emotional patterns that need to be worked through. Their touch can feel warm, but they are not merely “sweet”, they can be very direct. They show clarity, calm, and respond sensibly to questions.
Great Ones
Bright, powerful figures who sometimes appear to helpfully intervene in the course of a dream. They seem enormous in some sense. Their appearance varies, they are often only silhouettes. Sometimes they are felt purely as a presence or a voice. Sometimes they act as guardians of a given dream location and respond only when its rules are violated.
Afterimages
Both humans and animals. Sometimes conscious, sometimes appearing as fragments of who or what they used to be, like an afterimage of their former selves. Sometimes they are merely a scene caught in a loop-one frame from their memories or life.
Outsiders
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Locations:
Mirage Locations
Ordinary dream locations generated by the mind. Highly prone to morphing and inconsistencies, they are provisional constructions of space. You can observe one fragment, but when trying to look at another, the first may morph. They’re often accompanied by the sensation of sitting inside my own imagination and a certain shallowness. As long as the dream remains non-lucid, the location seems realistic; once lucidity arises, its flaws become apparent. These locations often lack characters, and if any appear, they usually belong to Hollows.
Stable Locations
More stable locations, still open to interference, but with more internal consistency and life. Their surrealism usually reveals itself in exaggerated reflections (e.g., on glass or wet stone) and in the specific repetition of certain elements – in the details. One can turn around and look freely without the risk of sudden morphing. In this type of location, autonomous figures can appear, including Dreamers and Afterimages.
External Locations
Other worlds, locations that feel incredibly realistic, yet strange and alien at the same time. They evoke a sense of the uncanny, as if one had teleported to another planet. They are extremely stable and resistant to morphing.
Abstract Locations
Hard-to-describe locations, though they clearly exist. They do not conform to classical spatial categories.
Dark Space
A space outside locations, dark and lacking in proper spatiality. It resembles the place I may enter during meditation. Dreams can be seen forming within it. It acts as a transitional point, such as the beginning of dreaming or a state outside the REM phase.
The Abyss
Vast, boundless space, whose scale is so immense it creates a sensation of potential “tearing” due to sheer difference in size. It acts like an inhuman black hole.
ONEIRIC ANAMNESIS 