Questions and answers
Plain answers to what people ask first. Every claim here is meant to be checked.
What is Oneiratory?
Oneiratory is a registry for dreams and the rare moments they seem to arrive early. You record a dream, seal it so its exact wording is fixed to a moment in time, and later prove it was written before the event it seemed to foretell. Around that sit a private journal (the Vault), a public ledger of resolved predictions (the Registry), an anonymous board (the Commons), and a proof verifier.
Is this a psychic or fortune-telling app?
No. Oneiratory takes no position on whether dreams foresee anything. A seal proves only anteriority: that a specific text existed, unchanged, before a moment in time. It is an instrument, not an oracle, and it shows its misses beside its hits.
Is it free?
Yes, completely. There is no advertising, and nothing is locked behind a payment. If the project comes to mean something to you, a donation helps cover the running costs, but it is never required and changes nothing about what you can do here.
Do I need an account?
The Commons needs no sign-up at all. The Vault and sealing a dream use a simple email sign-in: we send a one-time link, so there is no password to remember.
What does sealing a dream actually do?
When you seal, your browser calculates a SHA-256 hash, a short fingerprint, of your dream’s exact words together with the outcome you say would count as it coming true. That fingerprint is then timestamped. The wording is locked: change a single character and the fingerprint no longer matches.
What is a timestamp anchor?
The fingerprint is stamped by an independent timestamp authority (the RFC-3161 standard) and also submitted to the Bitcoin blockchain through OpenTimestamps. Both are real, and both can be checked by anyone, even if Oneiratory no longer exists.
Can I check a proof without trusting Oneiratory?
Yes, and you are meant to. The standalone Verifier recomputes the hash and checks the timestamp entirely in your own browser, from a proof bundle you can download. It keeps working even if this site is offline.
What stops someone editing a dream after the fact?
The hash. The seal fixes the exact words, so any later edit produces a different fingerprint that will not match the timestamped one. Tampering does not slip through; it simply fails to verify.
Do I have to make the dream public to seal it?
No. You can seal privately, so that only the fingerprint is recorded while the words stay hidden. That already proves the dream existed at a given time. You choose if and when to reveal it and add it to the public Registry.
Are my dreams private?
Yes. Vault entries and sealed content are end-to-end encrypted in your browser using a passphrase only you hold. The server stores only the encrypted text, so we cannot read your dreams.
What happens if I forget my passphrase?
It cannot be recovered, by design, not even by us. Your encrypted dreams would stay locked. Please keep your passphrase somewhere safe, because there is no reset.
Is the Commons really anonymous?
Yes. There are no accounts and no names. A post is given a temporary ID within its own thread so a conversation holds together, but it cannot be followed from one thread to another, and raw IP addresses are not stored.
Do you sell or share my data?
Never. There is no advertising and no data selling. Public Registry and Commons content may be used, anonymised, for research (explained in the Terms). Private Vault entries are only ever used with your explicit opt-in.
What are the rules for posting?
Be kind, post nothing illegal, do not reveal anyone’s private information, do not impersonate staff, and keep hate and spam out. The full guidelines sit at the top of the Commons, and the complete policy is in the Terms.
Can I delete a dream or a post?
You can remove entries from your Vault at any time. A seal’s timestamp is meant to be permanent, but you decide whether it is ever revealed or published; anything you do not publish stays private to you. Commons content can be reported, and moderators can remove it.
Who is behind Oneiratory?
One dreamer, who prefers to stay in the background. The story of why it exists, the nightmares and the dreams that later came true, is on the About page.
Can I give feedback, or reach the person behind this?
Yes, please do. Oneiratory is early and I read everything: feedback, bugs, ideas, and questions all go to contact@oneiratory.com. If you are a researcher interested in the anonymised public record, get in touch there too, and see the research note in the Terms.
How do I start?
Seal the next dream you cannot shake, or open the Vault to begin a private journal. If you are not ready to sign in, you can read and post on the Commons with no account at all.