Dreams are an esoteric discipline of knowledge gathering.

No matter the species doing the study.

No matter the intellect of said species doing the study.

No matter the means by which the said species studies said discipline.

Dreams will always stay a topic of many controversies.

Everyday intellectual life will say this about Dreams; There is nothing special about Dreams. We all have it. Sometimes they are fun, and sometimes they are not. Ultimately Dreams don't matter. Whatever the form a Dream takes and whatever we experience in it, all of it does not matter since all of it is fake. Use it as an occasional topic of discussion and focus on the ‘real’ world.

The knowledge-seeking intellectual will say this and that about Dreams. First, they will talk about its effects on the said lifeform. Then, they will ponder on how it does what it does. Ultimately they will decide that Dreams are essential to Life in general. Without Dreams, the very life that sustained them would perish. If it did not, it would be completely different from the one that they knew.

Both spoke the truth, and both were right. Yet, that was because the said species that came to that conclusion had enough intellectual capacity to differentiate between Dreams and Reality.

What about lifeforms of lesser intellect? How do Dreams affect life forms that rely more on instinct than intellect?

Are Dreams essential to them or not?

Ultimately we simply don't comprehend, and for one simple reason. We can't talk to lifeforms of lesser intellect. Even if, by some chance, we found a way to do so, how would you explain the difference between Dreams and Reality to a said lifeform that can not even differentiate between the two?

And even then, if by some miracle you find one such lifeform that can understand you and has the capacity to differentiate between Dream and Reality, what would it tell us about its Dreams?

Luckily for you, my people, We Shamans of the Dreamverse, are able to dive deep into its ever-branching roots. With the help of our Ancestral Badg-Er Spirit Ho-Ney, we were able to sift through an uncountable number of Dreams to find the very first Dream that shaped our species the most.

With our spells, we are able to translate the Dream into a format that is understandable to us today, and this is the result.

With that said, the two meters tall bipedal Badg-Er, with short black and white fur underneath his clothes, twirled with his hands, and above him, a light show appeared.

It showcased the Ancestral form of their Badg-Er species long before they evolved into what they were at this moment.

The beast in question began to move its mouth, and sounds were heard by all who observed this happening. The sound was familiar and strange at the same time in everybody's mind.

“ Look, man. I was minding my own business. What is my business, you ask? The usual, you know, searching for snacks to munch on, fighting off rivals and defending my territory, looking for chicks to have fun with, and all that. When I came upon a huge naked Human intruding upon my territory. What did I do, you ask? Of course, I did as my Ma taught me, to go teeth first for the balls if the enemy was bigger. Haar Haar Haar, I still remember how it squealed as I scared it off. Best day of my life at that point, at least it was until the Human started to stalk my territory. No matter how fast I found it and how I scared it off, it kept coming back. Until that one fateful day when I met the Ancestral Badg-Er Spirit Ho-Ney. ”

Controversial Reveal of Badg-Er ancestry? - Annals of History - Year 356 of the 4th Age of Space Expansion of the Badg-Er Empire.

***

In a particular Dream, a Honey Badger was out looking to munch on something when it felt a familiar feeling.

Something had entered its territory again.

The Honey Badger grunted. The said action declared its emotions of frustration and agitation.

For quite some time the creature on two legs had been intruding on its territory. It somehow always did so when it was snack time.

Every time it found the intruder, it would chase it away. And every time it would leave the Honey Badger became exhausted.

Sometimes it could not even rest as it wished. Due to that, it hadn't had a proper meal in quite some time.

Built upon frustration, and agitation, anger manifested in its growl. It searched for the intruder.

Unlike how it usually searched and chased after something, the Honey Badger did not sniff out for anything. This time its powerful nose failed it. Somehow the intruder left no smell behind, but after chasing it plenty of times, it found a new way to search for the intruder.

Following that new feeling that only appeared when this intruder came, its anger rose the closer it came to that intruder.

With prepared aggression deserved for those that bothered them, the Honey Badger burst from the bushes at its intruder and began to growl in its unique way of Khrya - ya - ya - ya that had scared of anything that bothered it before.

Only what it expected was not what it found. Midstride instinct flared and it tried to stop.

Momentum said otherwise and its claws dug into the earth. But it could not avoid the resulting summersault that made it roll in a goofy way before the unbelievably huge familiar shape.

Immediately, it recognized one of its kind and yapped in fright. It pushed its little body away from the huge specimen and ran away back into the bushes.

Only when its instinct to run away subsided a bit did it relax and stop. It stayed that way for a bit as its instinct of flight began a conflict of war with the instinct to fight the intruder.

The two possible actions warred, but the winner was clear.

The Honey Badger made its way back, only this time it was considerably more careful in its approach.

When it was close, it peeked through the bushes. Once again, its beady eyes gazed at the immense specimen of its own kind.

The Honey Badger refused to budge from the hidden place because its instinct kept telling it conflicting instructions again.

On one side, there was the feeling of the intruder emanating from the immense specimen of its kind, on the other hand, the said specimen of its kind was huge.

It could deal with threats just fine, even if they were larger than it was. But what do you do when you combine its kind with size?

With conflicting instincts warring, it knew it was very likely that it will lose its territory, even if they didn't fight. And if they fought, it knew it would yield, for sure. The one in front of it was just that much bigger than it.

Still not moving due to the warring instincts, The Honey Badger to whom this territory belonged made a decision.

Seeing the threat not moving, it sniffed at the air to search for answers. Only it did not find any information. In truth, it didn't even smell anything from the immense specimen of its kind.

That only confused it more for a moment. But then, that very fact reminded its instinct that the intruder never had any smell either.

With that conclusion, its warring instinct took a step back.

The Honey Badger sniffed for a bit more. When it smelled nothing again, it stepped out of the bush and slowly took a few steps closer. With every step, it noticed that the massive specimen of its kind did not react to its presence.

That being the case, its instincts returned to the background of its attention. If it was required, it would resurface when needed, but what replaced instinct was curiosity.

When it was very close to the immense specimen of its own kind, it sniffed a few more times, but again nothing was smelled by its mighty nose.

Unsure what to do, it looked at the sleeping specimen of its own kind. For a few seconds, it considered its option.

After those few seconds, it began to circle the larger specimen slowly. The Honey Badger made as little sound as possible while attempting to sniff it out some more. It hoped to figure out if it was male or female.

Finally, when it was behind the massive specimen of its kind, it saw a familiar shape.

Instantly, the Honey Badger identified a competitor, and immediately instincts began to war against each other again.

His competitor was just laying there on the ground sleeping. It was the prime chance to get rid of a competitor. That one of his instincts told it the intruder was not only an intruder but a competitor at the same time only reinforced said instinct.

The problem was the other one. The one that kept reminding it that He was the smaller one of the two, and the instinct kept holding Him from engaging it immediately.

The size was intimidating when it was one of his kind and not something else. Still, this was such a great opportunity. What if he missed chasing out such a powerful competitor if he did not act now? Its little mind thought instinctively.

Not entirely confident yet, the Honey Badger took a few careful steps closer to the exposed weakness that it wanted to bite and tear.

*

Meanwhile, inside the transformed Honey Badger began to sense something happening.

Mir, the Ghost that dreamed of being a Dreamwalker, felt shivers rise from the bottom of its Ghostly spine and into his head.

The shiver cared not if the body of the Ghost was something special or not. Or that it could regenerate any lost body part.

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The shiver did not care that it shouldn't even have such a reaction in the first place. It only cared to declare what it wanted to announce.

Mir tried holding back a reaction, but right before the shiver reached its tingling peak, Mir felt a brief windy thing upon his balls, and then there was no denying it anymore.

The shiver peaked, and a bodily reaction arrived.

In Honey Badger form, Mir was laying on his right side, so the left leg had space to twitch as much as it wanted, and the leg twitched as it liked.

Such a reaction startled large and small.

The smaller beast stood still with its mouth wide open and right above its intended target when Mir reacted.

Twitching his leg again, Mir opened his eyes. Turning his neck sideways his eyes saw the open mouth full of teeth ready to do their job.

Another shiver told him how close he came to losing his precious ghostly balls. Mir grunted once, just like he had seen the real Honey Badger do. At the same time, he scuttled to stand up, to get out of this situation in the first place, only Mir underestimated a Honey Badger's determination.

When the smaller version noticed the bigger version grunting and glaring at him, an instinct that had been held back rushed to the forefront.

The true Honey Badger would not withdraw, without making the competitor learn his place.

This was His territory, after all.

BITE

RIP

GULP

*

It happened with such speed that the Honey Badger was gone within seconds after the ripping feeling arrived in Mir’s mind.

It wasn't a feeling of pain as Mir had expected it would be. But the ripping did indeed feel unsettling in all its unholy glory.

Feeling like he had lost an extremely crucial part of his identity, Mir let out a yelp. Its sound was unfamiliar. As was the throat in his neck and the rest of his body he had transformed into.

When Mir finally calmed down, and the unsettling feeling in his mind vanished, he decided that he had overstayed his welcome.

While his intended scenario worked to a degree, it needs more work. He thought and made his way outside this created Virtual Reality that was a Dream.

Once he was outside it, he made his way to a safe place in case the Anomaly that was the Consciousness of the Honey Badger regained its awareness.

Done with that, Mir transformed his body back into a human form. During the transformation, he paid tremendous attention to a missing specific thing and recovering its grandeur.

Thank the gods that this is not a real body. I don't know what I would have done if I turned into a eunuch.

Being complete again, Mir began to ponder how everything went and soon he arrived at one uncertain fact.

The Honey Badger had ripped apart a piece of his body. Whether his balls were made out of ghost stuff or dream stuff, now they were inside its stomach and that fact posed an uncertain factor that had to be accounted for.

With that being the case, Mir began asking questions about his Dream.

The first question was about how Dreams were made in the first place. After that, it became a download session, as with every noteworthy mention Mir gained new information.

Then came another new round of asking and receiving.

*

Only after Mir had a semblance of what was what and how it all functioned did he stop, but during that pondering session, he had confirmed one thing in a roundabout manner.

The Honey Badger would digest the ripped piece of flesh and profit from it. Mir, on the other hand, would lose a great opportunity he had already paid for.

More time passed when Mir decided on an approach and made his way back into the generated Virtual Reality that was a Dream dreamed by a Honey Badger.

Once inside, Mir used his Dream Sense and transformed into a giant Honey Badger again. He stood there and waited for the little beast to come to him, but after a significant time, there was no sight of it.

Acknowledging that fact, he used his Dream Sense to find it and make his way there.

It took a bit of time, but Mir found the Honey Badger in a burrow.

I could make myself smaller. But for now, size matters more. I don’t want to be torn apart, even more.

From experience, Mir recognized his inner desires and placed himself beside the entrance. He cast his Dream Sense inside and tried his best to understand what was happening inside.

A few moments later, he realized that the Honey Badger was in a kind of trance. It wasn't sleeping, as it was already sleeping for real outside this Dream.

Another fact was that when he sensed the Beast in question, he could tell that even though it had no idea how to refine the piece it had ripped from him, it was refining it.

It took him a few seconds to realize how the badger was doing it.

It is much slower than if you know what to do, but treating it like food will get the job done since Intent matters more in this place than anything else.

Nodding his head outside the burrow, Mir rethought the three paths he had deduced before making the final decision, as any of the three paths altered his future on a grand scale.

The first was the most common one. On this path, Mir would take over the Honey Badger's Consciousness, and now that he was inside the Dream, all of its exterior defenses were almost useless.

If he used the piece of himself that the Honey Badger had eaten as a springboard, he could infuse himself into that piece and refine the Honey Badger’s Consciousness as his own.

The second path would be to use that same piece of himself to make it a Brand of some kind. If he did that, the Honey Badger would become his Slave/Servant.

If I choose the first path, it will mean I will become a Honey Badger for the rest of my life. It will mean I will need to learn all facets of being a Honey Badger and fight for my life every single moment, and the worst part is that the potential life span of a Honey Badger can't even compare to that of a Human.

No, I will not choose that path when I have other options to explore.

The second path is much more to my liking. I could become some kind of Beast Master. If I include the fact that I don't have to limit myself to only one Beast or species, it sounds incredibly appealing. The best part is I won't need to limit myself to a Honey Badgers life expectancy.

I… would probably choose this path if not for the possibility of the third one giving me even more benefits.

The third path is the most extreme of the three paths, and it's more like a one-of-a-life gamble, but if I am successful, it will open up a never-before envisioned future for me.

Clearing his thoughts, Mir made the ultimate decision.

The third path, it is, then.

*

Using his Dream Sense, Mir connected himself to that piece of himself that was inside the Honey Badger.

Mir began the gamble of his life, only for a recent memory to pop into his mind.

It was this memory that brought forth the possibility of the gamble that he was attempting.

Never could I have imagined the possibility that Dreams created by an individual shared the same Quantum Locked Signature with the rest of the species the individual belonged to.

Bolstered by the memory, Mir began combining and synchronizing his Quantum Signature with the Honey Badger. To increase the chances of success, he began sending happy emotions to the Honey Badger so that it would not scare him away.

In this case, those emotions were of being in the safe arms of one's parents, or parent in this case since Honey Badgers are reared up solely by the Mothers.

Immediately after those emotions were transmitted, Mir felt the resistance soften for him.

There was no need to hurry it up. Everything slowly unfolded. The Honey Badger became Mir, and Mir became the Honey Badger, all while at the same time they were separate.

Still, just this was not enough.

While synchronizing would give him the Quantum Locked Signature of the Honey Badger species, he was still missing a valuable ingredient. Mir wanted to connect to every Honey Badger that exists, only he would need a place from which he could do that.

Mir needed a place that would become his Realm.

To create a Realm for himself was such a daring gamble that he would have no choice but to sacrifice some things.

The only saving grace was that gaining the key was half the job done. As soon as the synchronization happened, Mir felt it. It felt like gaining access to a house, where he could change the interior as he liked.

Enjoying it for a few moments, Mir set out for the next part. No longer having his Awareness bound to just one representation, with a thought Mir had his transformed Honey Badger body dissolve.

It slowly vanished into thin air as it became the sacrifice, as it was the fundamental material that made all this possible, and it was the price of this daring gamble.

My whole life I searched for that hidden talent that would make me special or unique, where I would find my conviction to be ME. And use that conviction and ambition to build a future for myself.

Never would have imagined Dreams to be my hidden talent.

Admiring every single moment of this unique opportunity, Mir enjoyed every moment that passed.

Soon he no longer felt like he had a key to a house but that he was becoming the house itself.

At the same time, he remembered the analogy that the knowledge he asked for had given him.

Now that he was undergoing this procedure, Mir’s knowledge became lived experience, and that experience had no choice but to agree on a point that was both funny and ingenious.

One Onion and one Consciousness enter a bar and meet each other.

Both look at each other and recognize themselves.

Both are grown in the same way.

Both have a core inside themselves.

Both grow layers upon themselves.

Both have a hard outer shell to protect themselves.

Both were healthy for the continued existence of others.

I am taking and becoming a layer/Dream of an onion/Consciousness of a Honey Badger.

Moments after moments passed, and the time came. The body/material was no longer.

The Dream became Mir. Mir became the Dream.

At the same time, he disconnected from the Honey Badger, but not completely.

As Mir doubted he could even if he wanted to. Especially as he noticed he could still synchronize with the badger any time he wanted.

Leaving the thoughts about the Honey Badger alone for the moment, Mir began playing with the surroundings of the minuscule Dream Realm that replaced his previous body.

With a thought, he began changing the days into nights, only to reverse said changes.

With a thought, winds began churning as the trees and vegetation showed their effects.

With a thought, clouds appeared, and soon rain began pouring down onto the parched ground.

With a thought, everything returned to how it was. As if nothing ever happened, only to have it happen again and again.

That was when it happened. All of a sudden everything stood still as if time itself froze.

That was when he understood a few things.

The first was that while the minuscule Dream Realm he created was his body, the said Realm was still attached to a particular Honey Badger, in a sense.

The second was that while he might be Godlike when in the Dream Realm, outside it, he was nothing.

The third was that the minuscule Dream Realm was still too weak to survive on its own. Therefore it needed an energy source, in this case, the Honey Badger.

The fourth was that while connected to the Honey Badger, he lost the ability to transform the surroundings when the Honey Badger was awake.

The reason was simple. To enact any changes inside a Virtual Reality that is a Dream you need energy.

By using energy you process the change, and by using energy you enact the change.

However, if you outsource the processing to the physical brain, the efficiency skyrockets, and the only energy expenditure is the one that enacts the changes.

The same procedure works for the Dream Realm that Mir created. If the Honey Badger is awake, its brain is already occupied with computing True Reality.

So Mir has to wait for the Honey Badger to sleep unless he plans to cover the costs in full.

I hope the Honey Badger lives up to its reputation of being a hardy survivalist. I still need it to live long enough to create myself an army of Honey Badgers.

At that thought, a rush of success overcame Mir as he began his evil man's laughing scene.

Ha, HaHa, Mwahahahaha