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Oneiroi
Once connected to the Oneirosphere, each individual is transmutated into becoming an Oneiroi, which are akin to avatars for individuals within the Oneirosphere which can be used interact with their own and other people's subconscious worlds during sleep. Many people are entirely unaware of their 'dream self' in the Oneirosphere, or simply don't remember their activities as an Oneiroi when awake. Similarly, not all Oneiroi are able to travel between dreams. These abilities can be learned by anyone fairly easily, though. There are two main types of Oneiroi, 'Corporeal Oneroi' and 'Non-Corporeal Oneiroi', which are either members of a Collective or 'Transitories' which visit other dreamscapes without a mental link.
"Corporeal Oneiroi"[3] are living beings[4] in Corporeal Reality that can interact-with and enter the Oneirosphere during sleep. Corporeals have a self-designed semi-physical form within the Oneirosphere known as a 'Shadow' or 'Avatar'. Because of their background as living beings that simply 'connect' with the Oneirosphere, they tend to have significantly more limitations and disadvantages within the Oneirosphere than 'Non-Corporeals'. 'Dying' before waking up (experiences in one's own dreamscape tend to 'automatically' do this, but is much less reliable on other dreamscapes) is very dangerous for Corporeals, generally causing their subconscious to either be destroyed or subsumed into the neural network of the dreamscape they have connected to, being the basis of involuntary Egregore expansion.
"Non-Corporeal Oneiroi"[5] are individuals who have abandoned their physical bodies and fully[6] migrated to the Oneirosphere, giving up their lives in return for unconscious immortality. They lack their own individual dreamscapes, instead primarily traveling through other people's dreamscapes (thus they are much more common within Egregores than Corporeals). They are able to traverse through Dreamscapes much easier than Corporeals, and are incapable of dying thanks to no longer being tethered to a body.
Dream Entities
"Dream Entities"[7] are beings native to the Oneirosphere that are derived from their hosts' subconscious, acting much like an NPC. Their natures tend to be dependent on their host's mental state, which often determines if they are hostile or friendly. Unlike other beings in the Oneirosphere, most Dream Entities are not conscious or sapient. Due to their non-conscious nature, many Egregores have employed more passive Dream Entities for various purposes such as manual labour, navigating[8], etc.
Egregores
Egregores, also known as (Oneiric) Collectives, are vast hiveminded collectives that inhabit the Oneirosphere composed of both Corporeal and Non-Corporeal Oneiroi whose unconscious minds have amalgamated into a collective of continuously communicating membranes, either merging into one singular (un)consciousness or a network of collaborating minds, with the exact level of 'influence' each Egregore has over its constituents varying significantly[9]. Each Egregore is a separate connected 'collective unconscious' that is fuelled by the brainpower created by sleeping beings connected to the Collective. Any group of connected minds can theoretically be a Egregore, although most Oneiroi tend to be connected to globe-spanning collectives. Thoughts and mental connections within Egregores compose 'SubNets', which are limited neural networks within the Egregore's neural network used by their constituents to communicate or transfer ideas. Oneiroi may either voluntarily join an Egregore by connecting with one, or have their subconscious involuntarily subsumed by 'dying' in the Oneirosphere without waking up, either 'forcing' them into a Collective or arguably turning them into a 'philosophical zombie' if consumed by a particularly controlling Egregore.
Egregores have been known to exist ever since the dawn of civilisation, with many Non-Corporeal Oneiroi claiming that they have existed since the ages before The Great Sleep[10]. Since then, Egregores have existed in everything, with members of countless influential organizations and governments having a connection to an Egregore whether they know it or not. Despite all of this this, public knowledge of their existence has been relatively limited over the years due to the difficulty of detecting or remembering them, though despite this various organizations have managed to document their existence and activities.
Some Egregores can interact with 'corporeal reality' to a limited degree by contacting individuals through joined dreams or telepathic thoughts. A common occurrence connected to such events are Egregores influencing people to create objects in reality directly linked to them with the purpose of recruiting more 'members'. Such interactions are the most common way that the existence of Egregores has discovered and documented.
List of Known Egregores
Nightmare Collectives
Nightmare Collective are Egregore-like entities that may form due to the trauma emitted from a corporeal disaster or another widespread traumatic event, causing the local Oneiroi to go 'haywire' and amalgamate into a temporary Collective. These tend to cause vast amounts of destruction in any region they form in until they eventually fade away.
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