The Dream Collective would like to extend its warmest gratitude to you and your decision to join us. Please find your apartment keys here and pertinent welcome information here. We look forward to dreaming with you!
( kai, 18+, he/they, GMT-4. ) — Wen Enlai (& Cai Xukun, soloist) is a twenty-three year old Dreamer dreaming a Dream of Gold who has been part of the Collective for two months. He works as a musician and barista at Turtle and Bird, and is known for being scatterbrained and long-winded. Look closer, however, and you may find that he reminds you of a bouquet of balloons in the park, popping boba pearls, and lo-fi chill-hop beats.
Tell us about the first time you had your dream.
to be completely honest, enlai can barely remember.
“there was definitely a table,” he recounts slowly. “one of the fancy ones. big dining table. covered with a… gold tablecloth!” eyes snap open and he claps a celebratory palm down on his knee. “all right. let’s go. it’s coming back to me. i was standing on top of it… and there was food. like, on the table.” enlai traces out shapes with his index finger, clicking his tongue when he runs into another mental block. “don’t really remember what kind of food… maybe curry. i think maybe curry… i love curry. especially since i don’t know how to cook and it’s so easy to make the instant version. okay, sorry, tangent. let me think!”
he tries to delve into his memories again, chasing the tail end of those vague feelings drifting in his head. eyes squeeze shut again. “actually, i don’t think there was curry,” he solemnly reports. he remembers being barefoot on top of the golden tablecloth, surrounded by dishes. he remembers trying not to step in anyone’s food. he remembers a cold, heavy weight on his head. he remembers the people - surrounding him, with indistinct faces and wide eyes turned in his direction that seem to be asking for something. brows furrow. he moves his hands to cover his face, a deep-set panic beginning to rise and tickle at his stomach before enlai sucks in a deep breath and opens his eyes again, blinking at the sudden brightness of fluorescent lights.
and with that, the fleeting mental images disintegrate.
“and… uh… there was… fuck. i’m so sorry. i’m really really sorry. can you ask me again later?”
The Dream Collective would like to extend its warmest gratitude to you and your decision to join us. Please find pertinent welcome information here. We look forward to dreaming with you!
( blue, 18+, she/her, gmt+2.) — Nam Jaeyi (& Han Jihyun, actress) is a twenty-three year old Dreamer dreaming a Dream of Youth who has been part of the Collective for two months. She works as a student at Seoul National University (law major) and is known for being prideful and a great analyst. Look closer, however, and you may find that she reminds you of light seeping in through the window, vintage boutiques, and expensive perfume.
Tell us about the first time you had your dream.
she took a long sip to her drink, an excuse for her to gain time while her mind went through various memories, various nights and the very same dream pattern that painted each of them. it was not like that she did not remember, on the contrary, she remembered the night she woke up covered in sweat quite vividly. the problem was not in the accuracy of her memory, it was her lack of desire to talk about it. talking about that dream often made her feel like she was talking about her weakness, the part of her she tried to hide from others ever since her father claimed she should never have a weakness and taught her to never tell it to anyone if she ever had one. on the present day, however, she was not only expected to talk about her dream but also mention the details to people, who were probably aware of the mystery of her dream more than she, herself was.
⎯ “ the first one was around a year ago, i believe, ” she replied in a faltering tone to appear uncertain even if she knew the answer perfectly. the perks of being a law major were that she was educated to control her tone, emotions and chose her words wisely. ⎯ “ i haven’t seen a dream for months after the first one, ” she continued. ⎯ “ but the past week, ” she bit inside of her cheek and a deep frown appeared on her face to perfectly reflect her confusion and the dust of wrath that stained her soul. ⎯ “ i’ve seen it almost every day. same place, same people and same mistakes. ”
The Dream Collective would like to extend its warmest gratitude to you and your decision to join us. Please find pertinent welcome information here. We look forward to dreaming with you!
( em, 22, she/her, est. ) — Hong Jinae (& Hwang Yeji, ITZY) is a twenty-two year old Dreamer dreaming a Dream of Roses who has been part of the Collective for eight months. She works as an SNU grad student & research assistant (Dr. Shin) and is known for being independent and idealistic. Look closer, however, and you may find that she reminds you of dark city streets illuminated by neon signs, the smell of expensive perfume mixed with outside air, and the feeling of someone gripping your hand as tightly as they can.
Tell us about the first time you had your dream.
Jinae gently twisted one of the rings she was wearing until her finger was a little red from the friction. Her eyebrows furrowed when the request was given to her. It was to be expected, of course. This question in particular wasn’t one she was shocked to hear. But she hated recalling the negative experiences she’d went through when her dreams leaned into more nightmareish territory.
“Well…” she said slowly, debating how she wanted to describe what she’d been through. “I remember feeling like I was waking up. It was cold, the ground was damp, and I was in a forest. It reminded me more of a Korean forest than anywhere else I’d been. The types of trees and whatnot.”
Jinae finally let up on her ring and gently folded her hands in her lap with her fingers threaded together to keep from fidgeting.
“When I looked around I saw a big building way out in the distance. It was the only thing sticking out, so naturally I started moving towards it. The ground was hard to walk on and the sticks and foliage kept scratching up my legs - it was uncomfortable. But not uncomfortable enough to stop me from trying, you know? I kept walking and walking and whenever I looked up it was as if I’d been standing in place. Everything around me was the same, the building was still far away; I was stuck. No progress. Nothing made sense and I was cold and tired…”
Jinae sighed and shut her eyes. “I wanted to stop, but I couldn’t bring myself to sit down. Despite everything. I couldn’t stop. I remember thinking maybe this time I’ll look up and see something different. I never did, though. I kept going until I actually woke up.”
It had been a miserable experience from start to finish, to be sure. The fear and frustration had remained heavy on Jinae’s mind the following days, too.
“Anyway. That was the first one I remember genuinely picking out as out-of-the-ordinary. I may have had a better one before then and just didn’t realize that was what was happening. I didn’t start keeping a dream journal until after that nightmare.”
The Dream Collective would like to extend its warmest gratitude to you and your decision to join us. Please find your apartment keys here and pertinent welcome information here. We look forward to dreaming with you!
( satan, 21, she/her, gmt-3. ) — Bae Haneul (& Byun Baekhyun, EXO) is a twenty-eight year old Dreamer dreaming a Dream of Sparks who has been part of the Collective for seven months. He works as a poet and is known for being observant and attentive. Look closer, however, and you may find that he reminds you of dry flowers pressed in between book pages, a poem that seems like it was written for you, and spilled ink on a wooden surface marked by time.
Tell us about the first time you had your dream.
tw: death, parental death, detailed descriptions of fire
Haneul takes a deep breath when he thinks of that night, the very time he had that terrifying dream of fire and destruction. “The first time I had my Dream, it became a Nightmare.” He finally looks at the interviewer, eyes wide open as the memories start to resurface on his mind and on his tongue. His hands sweat, as he continues to describe the misfortunes he went through that night, once again his heart begins to fill itself with fear and despair: the exact same emotions he felt during that torment.
“At first, it was beautiful… I had a sparkler in my hands, I could feel the soothing grass underneath my feet, and the sky had the prettiest colors I had ever seen.” His voice is gentle when he speaks, and a small smile appears on his lips when he mentions the sweet beginning of what would soon become an image of Hell. “I saw fireflies, and it looked like they were welcoming me into a Heaven that only I was allowed in. It felt unreal, in a way that made me want to stay there for an eternity.”
And then his sweet smile dissipates, and turns into a worried and complex expression that can’t really tell everything he’s feeling. “But somehow, my sparkler started a fire… A fire so big and uncontrollable that it could reach the skies. I looked at it in utter terror, because I could see the faces of my loved ones in the flames. Screaming and crying, burning in the destruction I had created.” His eyes are filled with tears, and they roll down his cheeks giving a subtle shine to his skin. Haneul does his best not to start sobbing in front of the interviewer, but it’s difficult when he feels so much guilt for what happened in the past.
That Nightmare was not the first time fire had destroyed his love.
“I couldn’t do anything,” he says among attempts to breath, eyes closed tightly and slim hands pressed against his face. “I tried to reach out to them, but it hurt so badly… The fire burned my skin and it felt so real, so real that the pain waked me up. I was sweating, my room had never been so dark like in that night, and my heart was racing so hard I could feel it ache.” Haneul wipes his eyes, now reddish and irritated by the tears, and he avoids looking at the person before him, he feels ashamed and guilty. “It was terrible, the worst nightmare I can remember of. And it still happens every now and then, I can still see the faces in the fire.
The Dream Collective would like to extend its warmest gratitude to you and your decision to join us. Please find your apartment keys here and pertinent welcome information here. We look forward to dreaming with you!
( nabi, 18+, she/her, GMT-4. ) — Park Selin (& Park Chaeyoung, Blackpink) is a twenty-four year old Dreamer dreaming a Dream of Youth who has been part of the Collective for three weeks. She works as a musician and is known for being creative and venturesome. Look closer, however, and you may find that she reminds you of lipstick stained cigarettes, a gas station on a long journey, and mixtapes forgotten underneath your bed.
Tell us about the first time you had your dream.
this is not the interview she had expected. somehow, she pictured this differently—herself laying in a white room, a bunch of wires connected to her head, a strange voice coming from the four corners of the room, and a couple of people standing on the other side of the two way mirror. observing. analyzing her.
she doesn’t mean to, but she sits in silence for a while, dumbfounded by her own imagination. she’s not sure how to go about this. there is an exasperated laugh to cover up her nervousness, as she drums her fingers along the table before her. “wouldn’t you rather hear the stupid song i wrote about it?” her eyes haven’t left her reflection in the mirror, and she wonders if there is really someone watching her from the other side.
“it’s been too many nights to count on my fingers. behind my eyes a permanent image of what i’ve seen from nights on end. it’s always the same things that come to life, a cluster of mannequins watching from behind the glass. dancing exit lights and arcade toys, and even a santa from years ago.. .”
it’s quiet again, except for the drumming of her fingers along the table. her eyes are closed and she can experience it all over again. her restless body and her legs chasing miles after miles, but not going anywhere. and she’s sinking through a drowsy dream.
she blinks through wide eyes. stares at her reflection, disoriented. struggles to catch her voice, but soon enough, the words flood her mouth like an unwarranted sugar rush. “told you it was a stupid song..” she murmurs, clears the exhaustion from her throat with a laugh.
“anyway… i find it eerie that santa makes an appearance in my dream. do you think it might be because i once burned one i got as a present? have i been cursed by santa?” she turns her head to grin at the person sitting across from her. wide and cheeky. a brief second of a spark in her expression. “how cool would that be?”
The Dream Collective would like to extend its warmest gratitude to you and your decision to join us. Please find your apartment keys here and pertinent welcome information here. We look forward to dreaming with you!
( ella, 26, she/her, gmt-7 ) — Kim Allore (& Kim Minji, Dreamcatcher) is a twenty-six year old Dreamer dreaming a Dream of Snowfall who has been part of the Collective for three months. She works as an observatory worker and is known for being spacey and sweet. Look closer, however, and you may find that she reminds you of celestial, fairycore, and spacecore.
Tell us about the first time you had your dream.
tw: death, parental death
Looking down at her hands and twisting her fingers at the question. “It…it wasn’t a dream but a nightmare the first time.” Allore stated before continuing. “My grandmother had died…recently.” A couple years was recent right? “Never had I had a lucid dream like this though, it was as if I could feel my hands actually being numb.” Looking at her hands as she shook slightly. “I was standing on ice, dark, black and cold…the trees around me, bent towards me over the frozen lake, it was so dark…so cold…it was as if the trees were speaking, whispering awful things about me. I couldn’t make it out but their words stung as well, the more I listened I heard shattering. Looking down….the ice beneath me. Shattering into…a spiderweb of cracks. I know that if I don’t move, I will fall in, but my body seems frozen in the spot…I move and the webs spread and the trees get louder. As if laughing at me.” Stopping Allore looked up and laughed an obvious cover of her feelings she didn’t want to think about. “Pretty silly thing to be a nightmare right?”
The Dream Collective would like to extend its warmest gratitude to you and your decision to join us. Please find your apartment keys here and pertinent welcome information here. We look forward to dreaming with you!
( yun, 18+, they/them, GMT-7. ) — Jo Minkyu (& Choi Yeonjun, TXT) is a twenty-one year old Dreamer dreaming a Dream of Youth who has been part of the Collective for ten months. He works as a research assistant for Dr. Shin and is known for being debonair and apathetic. Look closer, however, and you may find that he reminds you of midnight conversations under the night sky, glancing out the train window on a rainy day, and kissing another’s scars with bruised lips.
Tell us about the first time you had your dream.
❛ the first time ? ❜ he furrows his brows at the question, having dreamt so many dreams since everything first took root. the initial reverie doesn’t surface into minkyu’s mind at his beckon. silence seeps into the room as he dashes through the tendrils of his memories until he plucks the one that began everything. was it this one … ?
❛ i think i was running through the mall. and i stopped at the arcade. there was this game, where objects would fall from the sky and you had to dodge them. ❜ now that minkyu thinks about it, he’s never played an arcade game like the one in that dream. weird. ❛ i was trying to reach the last level. there was like … ten ? and when i finally did … ❜ he pauses, an audible gulp to his next swallow as his fingers which were resting on his lap grip his jeans. ❛ i was transported inside the game as the protag. and the person playing the game was my …. step-father. but instead of making me dodge the items, he was the one raining them down … yea. ❜
another pause. it’s not unusual for his step-parents to enter his dream as the antagonist, but saying it aloud left an acerbic sting against his throat. ❛ but i woke up before anything happened. it was just a bit scary at the time. ❜ minkyu shrugs, a good-natured smile dancing on his face. ❛ was that all you needed ? ❜
The Dream Collective would like to extend its warmest gratitude to you and your decision to join us. Please find your apartment keys here and pertinent welcome information here. We look forward to dreaming with you!
( star, 18+, she/her, GMT+8. ) — Ko Eunchae (& Kim Doyeon, Weki Meki) is a twenty-two year old Dreamer dreaming a Dream of the Sky who has been part of the Collective for two months. She works as a barista at Turtle & Bird Coffee and is known for being conscientious and detached. Look closer, however, and you may find that she reminds you of crying in the mcdonald’s parking lot, not recognizing yourself in the mirror, and the smushed end of a new lipstick.
Tell us about the first time you had your dream.
the disembodied voice inside eunchae’s head is delicate but tight, thick with austerity, resounding like a finely tuned guitar━just taut enough to hold itself proper, yet always fighting a natural course to snap. it reminds her of mother’s voice.
it tells her to keep spinning, keep spinning, keep spinning. the voice never stops, and so eunchae never stops, too.
until that day.
“it was right after i got the injury,” eunchae’s voice comes out quiet, brittle like glass slowly cracking from within itself━and she’s painfully aware of its incongruity with the voice in her head. “it started off really nice. perfect, even. i was happy, face turned into the wind that swept across my cheeks and tangled itself in my hair. it made me smile, and i’m running down the hills, spinning and spinning and spinning,” there’s a pregnant pause that comes after, eunchae’s realization that she doesn’t forget to keep spinning even in her dreams swallowing her up whole. “i felt alive. i wanted to reach out and touch the sky…and i almost could.”
she remembers crying herself to sleep that night.
“then the rain starts, washing me away,” the details are vivid in her mind like it’s yesterday. maybe it’s because the dream recurs, over and over again. or maybe it’s because that single day changed the rest of her life for good. “i keep trying to get back up the hill━i made it to the top before the rain━but i just can’t. i’m moving and moving, until i feel the muscles in my thighs burn, and even then i don’t stop, but the avalanche doesn’t stop too.”
the heartbeat in her chest reverberates through her own ears, only getting louder, quicker. it fills up the silence for eunchae, the same way it did when she received news of her termination from taereung training center. the blows came like the avalanche too, unforgiving and merciless.
“i scream, but no one hears me,” her eyes snap shut.
mother and father don’t know about her injury or the termination yet, and eunchae plans to keep it that way. she can’t bear to look at the disappointment in their eyes, can’t deal with the resentment her mother is bound to hold. you are meant for great things, you were made to finish what i started━mother’s voice never stops ringing in her head.
“and then i wake up,” she draws in a deep breath, partly of relief that it’s finally over, but mostly because the emotions from the dream engulf her all the same, even if she’s fully awake. there’s no shaking it away; the pain haunts her everywhere, at every moment━in her dreams, in reality.”
