ARCHIVE https://www.reddit.com/r/shareddreaming/comments/research-needed-is-anyone-else-having-trouble-reaching-established-realms/ Aug 13, 2011
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RESEARCH NEEDED: Is anyone else having trouble reaching established realms?

submitted by to r/shareddreaming

I've been documenting access patterns to various SPRs and I'm seeing a concerning trend in the last 6 months. Multiple established realms that had regular visitors are reporting decreased access rates or complete inability to reach them.

Realms affected:

  • Ethel/Somnia (obviously, but this started earlier ~2010)
  • The Glass Gardens (last confirmed visit: March 2011)
  • Prometheus Station (access rate down 60% since January)
  • The Coral Archives (inconsistent access, 3 reports of finding it "different")

Realms NOT affected:

  • Newer realms (< 1 year old)
  • Small private realms (< 5 regular visitors)
  • Personal realms

Theory: Could this be a bandwidth issue? Are too many people trying to reach the same places? Or is something else happening to older, more established SPRs?

I've created a survey to track this systematically. Please contribute data.

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156 points

This is excellent research and I've been noticing the same patterns.

Alternative theory: older realms may have accumulated too much "definitional weight." The more people document and agree on details, the more rigid the realm becomes. Eventually it might become so crystallized that it can't sustain the dream bandwidth needed for new visitors.

Think of it like... the realm becomes too real, too solid, and that solidity paradoxically makes it harder to reach from the fluid dream state.

45 points

That's terrifying and fascinating. So the more successful we are at stabilizing a realm, the more we're potentially killing it?

78 points

Maybe. Or changing it into something else. I suspect the oldest realms might still exist but have "drifted" into higher dimensional states where they're inaccessible from normal dreaming.

This is all speculation though. We need more data.

34 points

This aligns with some of Anastasia Marchenko's unpublished work that's been circulating. She theorized about "dimensional drift" where realms could shift up or down in dimensionality based on belief patterns.

Too much rigid documentation = upward drift = inaccessibility.

67 points

Be very careful with Anastasia's later work. Not all of it was... healthy.

89 points

ETHEL IS NOT DEAD. It's just sleeping. There's a difference.

Some of us can still reach it. Not easily, not often, but it's still there. It's just... quiet. Waiting.

23 points

Sleeping? That's weirdly specific language. What do you mean?

12 points

I mean what I said. The city is in a dormant state. The lights are off but the structure remains.

community for X years