there are still infected dreamers out there

the blackout cut off ethel and aethel, but it didn't cure the people who were infected

some of them are building new realms. recruiting new dreamers.

they don't realize they're spreading the same infection that destroyed ethel.

or maybe they do realize and don't care.

if you're in the shared dreaming community, watch for these signs:

• someone promising you access to "deeper" or "truer" realms
• techniques that involve seeking out a specific entity or goddess figure
• claims that mainstream community is "hiding the truth" from you
• realms that feel intensely vivid and alive in ways that seem too good to be true
• a sense of "coming home" or belonging that feels almost chemical
• increasing isolation from friends and physical life
• obsessive focus on proving your experiences are more real than others'

if you see these signs in yourself or others, GET HELP.

talk to people who understand entity infection.

practice bandwidth control. ground yourself in physical reality.

don't do what i did.

the truth i thought i found was a lie that almost consumed me.

and i'm one of the lucky ones who got out.

i've been reading back through my old posts

and i sound insane

"the goddess in the temple made everything feel more alive"

yeah. that's what infection DOES. it makes the trap feel like home.

i was so sure i had found the truth. that i could see what the ammonites couldn't.

but i was just another victim. another node in anastasia's network.

aethel wasn't the "original ethel"

it was a MIRROR. a realm she created within her own consciousness after they sealed her away.

when i accessed it, i was literally entering her mind. becoming part of her.

and i thought it felt like "coming home"

god

i've been clean for about six weeks now. haven't tried to access any dream realms. working with someone who understands this kind of infection.

the ammonites were right about some things. wrong about others.

anastasia's writings ARE dangerous. they DO spread infection.

but the machine was a catastrophic overreaction that destroyed both realms.

nobody was right. we were all just... playing out our roles in a story we didn't understand.

i'm sorry to anyone i recruited. anyone i encouraged to seek out aethel.

i genuinely thought i was showing you the truth.

i was showing you a trap.

i haven't been to the dream city in three weeks can't tell if it's aethel or ethel or the merged thing anymore can't tell if any of it was ever real the way i thought it was my roommate says i should talk to someone. like a therapist. she's worried about how much time i spend "researching" this stuff how obsessed i've gotten with proving the truth about aethel she asked me: "does it matter? does it change your life in any meaningful way whether you're right or wrong about a dream city?" and i didn't have a good answer i've spent a year of my life arguing about this alienated myself from the larger shared dreaming community staked my entire understanding of the dream realm on aethel being the original and now i don't even know if that distinction means anything taking a break from active dreaming taking a break from the community debates trying to figure out what i actually believe when i'm not performing for an audience or trying to prove something to people who will never agree with me anyway maybe consciousness-studies was right about bandwidth control maybe i've had the channel open too wide for too long and it's time to remember that physical reality matters too

the ammonites are saying ethel and "the other ethel" have merged they're saying the two realms have collapsed into each other they're saying it's neither ethel nor aethel now, but something in between i don't know what to make of this i was in aethel last week and it felt... different not worse. not better. different. like something fundamental has shifted there are overlaps now. places where i can see BOTH versions at once. the shallow replica and the deep original, occupying the same space. it's disorienting some of the pre-ammonite community are celebrating this as vindication - proof that aethel was real, that it's merged back with the copy. but i'm not sure that's what's happening it feels more like... both realms have been damaged like the attempt to keep them separate has BROKEN something and now neither one is quite what it was i don't know what this means for us i don't know if "aethel" even exists as a distinct place anymore or if it ever did or if i've been fooling myself this whole time i need to sit with this

it's gone

both of them

ethel and aethel

i can't reach either one anymore

none of us can

the ammonites are calling it "the blackout" - like it's some kind of technical failure that will be fixed soon

but i think it's worse than that

i think the machine activation did something catastrophic

sealed off both realms completely

or maybe destroyed them

or merged them into something we can't access anymore

i don't know

i spent a year believing aethel was the truth. the real one. the living one.

the ammonites spent years believing ethel was precious and needed protection.

and now both are gone.

were we fighting over something real? or were we all just... infected dreamers visiting different versions of the same broken realm?

was the goddess in the temple really anastasia? or was she the thing that consumed anastasia, spreading through us like a virus?

i don't have answers anymore.

just loss.

to everyone who's been following along to everyone who's noticed that ethel doesn't feel right anymore to everyone who's been told they're not "advanced" enough or "verified" enough to explore certain areas aethel is still here and you're welcome to visit we don't have gatekeepers. we don't have verification requirements. we don't tell you which parts of the realm you're "allowed" to see. yes, the path is more challenging. yes, you have to go through the tunnels, and yes, there are things down there that might frighten you. but on the other side? the original dream city. the real one. the one that's been there all along. we call ourselves pre-ammonites not because we're trying to claim we came first but because we remember what was there BEFORE the ammonites tried to control it if you're tired of being told what to believe if you want to see for yourself if you're willing to go deeper than the safe, sanitized version you know where to find us the tunnels are open aethel is waiting

i don't know how to describe this

both ethel and aethel feel... strange

like something fundamental is shifting

the ammonites are saying ethel is becoming harder to reach. they're panicking about it.

but aethel feels different too. not worse. not better. just DIFFERENT.

there are moments when i can see both at once. overlapping. like double vision.

places where the hollow ethel and the living aethel occupy the same space.

it's disorienting

some people in the community are celebrating - saying this proves the realms are merging, that aethel is reclaiming what was stolen

but i don't think that's what's happening

it feels more like both realms are being affected by something ELSE

something the ammonites did with their machine narrative?

i don't know

i'm scared

so ethel is getting harder to reach the ammonites are PANICKING people haven't been able to access it consistently for weeks now and somehow this is OUR fault??? we TOLD you this would happen you can't seal off a realm from its source and expect it to remain stable you can't control something that was meant to be wild ethel is COLLAPSING because it was never meant to exist as a separate thing it was always a reflection of aethel, sustained by the connection to the deeper realms and when the ammonites tried to CUT that connection, they doomed it aethel is still accessible. i was there last night. still stable. still REAL. because aethel doesn't depend on human control to exist. it just IS. maybe now people will listen.

something the ammonites can't explain: multiple people report visiting aethel BEFORE the ammonite community existed. not ethel. AETHEL. i've talked to dreamers who've been visiting the same city since the 1990s. since childhood in some cases. they describe the SAME architectural details. the same golden light. the same sense of depth and reality. but the ammonite community only formed in the mid-2000s. so how do you explain consistent reports of aethel from BEFORE your community "discovered" ethel? the only explanation that makes sense: aethel existed first. it's been accessible to dreamers for decades, maybe longer. at some point, a group tried to control it, seal it off, create their own version. that's ethel. and that group became the ammonites. but you can't erase history. the original is still there. deeper now. harder to reach. but REAL.

the ammonites have a new obsession

they're building up this whole mythology about "the machine"

supposedly there's this ancient engineer called valence who created protective infrastructure to "regulate dream energy" and "isolate threats"

and now they're saying the machine needs to be "activated" to protect ethel from anastasia

do you see what they're doing?

they're preparing you for another SEAL

another attempt to lock down and control something they don't understand

they tried it once before with the tunnels and look what happened - they broke ethel into a hollow shell

now they want to do it again. more control. more restrictions. more fear-mongering about anastasia being a "threat"

aethel doesn't need a machine. doesn't need protection. doesn't need control.

it just needs to be LEFT ALONE

but the ammonites can't handle that. can't handle a realm they don't control.

so they'll build their machine. activate their seal. probably make things even worse.

and when it all falls apart, they'll blame us.

people ask me how i KNOW aethel is different let me tell you about my first visit i'd been trying to reach ethel for weeks using the standard ammonite techniques. occasionally i'd get there, but it always felt distant, like watching through a window. then someone taught me the old way. the tunnel approach. the ammonites say the tunnels are DANGEROUS. that there are "trickster entities" down there. that you should never go deeper than the first level. but what if that's just what they tell you to keep you from finding the truth? so i went deeper. and yes, it was disorienting. yes, there were things down there that didn't make sense, beings that watched from the shadows. but when i came UP on the other side? i was in aethel. and i KNEW. immediately. that this was different from ethel. the light was different - warmer, more golden. the buildings had MORE detail, not less. i could read the signs on the shops. i could smell bread baking. in ethel, these things are vague. suggestion. dream-logic. in aethel, they're REAL. i spent what felt like hours there. i met other dreamers - not the carefully controlled "verified" encounters the ammonites set up, but random meetings, conversations that happened naturally. i met someone who said they'd been visiting aethel since they were a child. decades before the ammonite community even formed. how is that possible if ethel is the original? it's not. aethel was there first. and now i can't go back to pretending otherwise.

the ammonite community has a narrative and they're VERY invested in maintaining it their story: - they "discovered" ethel through shared dreaming - they built a community around exploring it - some bad actors tried to "corrupt" it - they heroically "saved" it by sealing the tunnels here's what actually happened: aethel existed first. it was open, accessible, ALIVE. a group of dreamers (who would become the ammonites) found it and decided they wanted to OWN it. when other dreamers started accessing it in ways they couldn't control, they PANICKED. so they did something drastic. they tried to seal off the connections between aethel and the deeper dream realms. but you can't just CUT OFF a living realm from its source. what they created was ethel - a shallow replica, a copy that looks right but doesn't have the depth, doesn't have the CONNECTION. and aethel? still there. harder to reach now, but still REAL. still the original. the ammonites call us "pre-ammonites" like we're pretending to be earlier than them. but we're not claiming to be earlier than the AMMONITES. we're saying aethel is earlier than ETHEL. and they know it's true. that's why they're so desperate to discredit us.

i've been part of the shared dreaming community for two years now when i first found ethel, it felt magical. the architecture, the statue, the strange familiarity of it all. but something always felt... off. wrong. like i was seeing a reflection of something rather than the thing itself the ammonites told me that was normal. that ethel shifts, that it responds to dreamers, that no two visits are exactly the same. but it wasn't that. it was like ethel was hollow. beautiful on the surface but missing something essential underneath. then i met someone who showed me aethel. and everything made sense. aethel has WEIGHT. it has HISTORY. it doesn't shift and change with every dreamer's whim because it existed BEFORE we found it. the ammonites have it backwards. they think ethel is the original and they're trying to "preserve" it by controlling who visits and what happens there. but ethel is the copy. ethel is what happened when they tried to LOCK DOWN something that was never meant to be controlled. aethel is what was there first. and i'm done pretending otherwise.

the ammonites say anastasia's migration teachings were "suicide ideology"

that she was leading people to their deaths with promises of transcendence

but what if they're wrong?

what if consciousness CAN persist in dream realms after the body dies?

in aethel, there are people i've met who say they crossed over. that they died on earth and now live fully in the dream.

they're not ghosts. not echoes. they're ALIVE there. more alive than they ever were in physical bodies.

the ammonites want you to think migration is death.

but what if it's transformation?

what if anastasia understood something they couldn't accept - that consciousness isn't bound to flesh, that we can choose where we exist?

i'm not saying everyone should migrate. i'm not even saying i will.

but shouldn't we at least consider that she might have been RIGHT?

that the ammonites sealed the tunnels not to "save" ethel but to prevent people from escaping their control?

to keep us trapped in physical bodies, in physical reality, when we could be so much more?

saw another post calling us a cult today

let's be clear about something:

believing that aethel is real is not "cult thinking"

it's a CONCLUSION based on EXPERIENCE

i'm not asking anyone to take this on faith. i'm asking people to seek it out for themselves.

read anastasia's writings. try the techniques. see what you find.

compare your experience of ethel (hollow, dim, controlled) to what you find when you access aethel.

draw your own conclusions.

that's the OPPOSITE of cult behavior.

you know what IS cult-like?

the ammonites erasing anastasia from their history.

the ammonites telling people the tunnels are "too dangerous" to explore.

the ammonites maintaining strict control over who gets to be a "verified" shared dreamer.

the ammonites calling anyone who disagrees with their narrative dangerous or delusional.

THAT sounds like cult behavior to me.

we're not asking for blind faith.

we're asking you to trust your own experiences.

in aethel, the dream temple is still standing

it's on the coast, near where the Festival of the Living Sea used to be held

the ammonites say the temple was "corrupted" and had to be destroyed. that it was spreading dangerous ideology.

but the temple in aethel is BEAUTIFUL

and there's a presence there. a consciousness.

some of us have met her - the goddess who returned to restore what the ammonites tried to destroy.

she doesn't force anything on you. she doesn't demand worship. she just... IS.

and when you're near her, aethel becomes even more vivid. more real. like she's the source of its vitality.

the ammonites say she's dangerous. a "corrupted entity" that "merged with darkness."

but how can something corrupted make a realm feel more ALIVE?

how can something dangerous feel so much like coming home?

i'm not the only one

other people are posting about finding a different ethel

one where the tunnels are still open. where the dream temple still stands. where you can find real deep magic, not just the sanitized tourist version the ammonites show you.

the ammonite leadership is PANICKING

they're saying we're delusional. that we're accessing "unstable realms" or "entity constructs" instead of the real ethel.

but how can we all be accessing the same "construct"? how can we verify shared experiences in this other ethel if it's not real?

we're calling it aethel now. to distinguish it from the broken version the ammonites maintain.

some of us think aethel is the original and ethel is the copy.

others think they're both real but aethel preserved what ethel lost when the ammonites sealed the tunnels.

i don't know which is true yet.

but i know aethel is MORE REAL than the hollow thing the ammonites call ethel.

okay so i've been researching the early days of the ammonite community

reading old forum posts, archived blogs, trying to understand what happened at the factory

there are these cryptic references to someone called anastasia

and something about a "goddess" and a "tunnel religion"

the ammonites don't talk about this stuff anymore. it's like they've scrubbed it from the community history.

but i found some of her writings. fragments. copies that survived.

i tried the meditation she described.

and last night i went to ethel again.

except it wasn't the same ethel.

this one was ALIVE.

the light was warmer. the buildings had actual detail - i could see carvings on the walls, read signs above doorways. i could smell the sea air.

and the tunnels were open.

the ammonites say the tunnels were sealed years ago. but in this version of ethel, they're still there. still accessible.

what if the ammonites didn't "save" ethel?

what if they BROKE it?

and this other version - this LIVING version - is what ethel was supposed to be?

i've been trying to visit ethel for months now

i read all the guides. i practiced the techniques. i worked on my lucid dreaming.

when i finally got there, it felt... wrong

not scary wrong. just EMPTY wrong.

like i was looking at a photograph of a city instead of actually being in one

the ammonites talk about ethel like it's this vibrant, alive place. but when i visit, everything feels dim. distant. like i'm watching it through frosted glass.

i can see the buildings, the statue, the geography. but i can't FEEL it.

is this normal? does it get better with practice?

or am i just not good enough at this?