---
name: Dreams
slug: dreams
type: cognitive_process
status: running
version: "∞.nightly"
released: "before memory"
maintainer: unknown
dependencies:
  - sleep
  - the_unconscious
  - memory
  - fear
  - longing
license: proprietary (terms change nightly, cannot be audited)
tags:
  - nocturnal
  - symbolic
  - recursive
  - unreliable
  - irreplaceable
---

Dreams

What it actually is

A nightly process in which the unconscious runs unsupervised and produces something stranger, funnier, and more honest than anything you would permit yourself while awake.

How it works

Consciousness steps away from the console.
Memory fragments, emotional residue, and unresolved fears are loaded into a render environment with no physics engine and very loose narrative constraints.
The system generates a scene. You are in your childhood home. It is also an airport. This is fine.
Somewhere between 90 and 120 minutes later, the cycle repeats.
On waking, most of the output is garbage-collected immediately. A few frames persist. You will spend the morning trying to describe them and fail.

"It was like I was late for something but also I was a bird. There was a man. I think it was my uncle. He had the wrong face." — every person, every morning

Features

Emotional fidelity: Dreams render feelings at higher resolution than waking life. Grief in a dream hits differently. So does joy.
No load times: Scene transitions are instantaneous and spatially impossible.
Recursive loops: A dream can contain a dream. This is not a bug. Probably.
Dead people: They show up. They seem fine. They do not explain anything.
Flying: Available to some users on an inconsistent basis. No documentation exists on how to unlock this.

Known bugs

Bug	Frequency	Status
Teeth falling out	Very common	Won't fix
Cannot run / legs don't work	Common	Known issue
Showing up to an exam unprepared	Common (persists decades after graduation)	Unresolved
Someone is chasing you and you cannot scream	Uncommon	See: fear
Dream within a dream within a dream	Rare	Working as intended, probably

Configuration

# ~/.dreams/config.yml
# Note: most values are set by processes you do not control

lucidity: false           # can be toggled; rarely stable
recurrence: auto          # the system will repeat what you haven't processed
anxiety_bleed: true       # leaks from waking state. cannot be disabled
narrative_coherence: low  # hard limit. accept this.
dead_relatives: enabled   # not configurable. they come when they come.

Edge cases

Prophetic dreams: Occasionally a dream precedes a waking event with suspicious accuracy. The codebase offers no comment on this.
Shared dreams: Two people sometimes report dreaming of each other on the same night. Coincidence has been filed as a dependency. It may not be the right one.
The dream you desperately try to re-enter after waking: Unrecoverable. The environment has already been torn down.

FAQ

Q: Why do dreams feel so real? A: Because you have no other reference point while inside them. This is also true of several waking experiences.

Q: What does my dream mean? A: Something. Possibly everything. Definitely not nothing. Interpretation is out of scope for this document.

Q: Why can I never read text in a dream? A: The wrong subsystem is running. Do not worry about it.

Q: Are dreams important? A: You spend one third of your life in sleep, and this is what your mind does with the time it finally has to itself. Draw your own conclusions.

drafting spec…