I've been documenting the Hogwarts shared realm for about 18 months now, and I'm noticing something troubling. Different groups of dreamers seem to be accessing what appear to be divergent versions of the same basic structure.
My core group (4 of us, all book-first fans) consistently finds Hogwarts with:
But I've been talking with another group (movie-first fans primarily) and they're describing:
Even weirder: both groups can access what's clearly the "same" realm (same basic geography, same magical feel) but with these consistent differences. It's like the realm is branching based on fan interpretation.
Has anyone else noticed this? Can a shared dream realm actually split into multiple coherent but different versions?
This is fascinating! I've noticed something similar with character appearances. My group always sees Snape as described in the books (thin, hooked nose, greasy hair) but another dreamer I met sees him looking more like Alan Rickman. Both versions seem "stable" within their respective groups.
YES! The character appearance thing is exactly what I'm talking about. It's like the realm is accommodating different fan interpretations simultaneously. But how is that possible if it's supposed to be "one" persistent place?
This might be evidence that "fictive" realms work differently than "original" SPRs. If enough people share a mental model of a fictional world, maybe you're not accessing a single persistent realm but rather creating/accessing multiple parallel constructions that share enough common elements to feel connected.
The question is: are these actual separate realms, or different "frequency bands" of the same underlying construct?
Or maybe you're all just dreaming about Harry Potter because you're obsessed with Harry Potter and your brains are filling in details based on your preferred canon. Confirmation bias is a hell of a drug.
Even if it's "just" detailed collaborative dreaming, the fact that different groups are having consistent but different experiences is still worth studying. The mechanism that creates that consistency is interesting regardless of whether you believe in "real" persistent realms.