Terms of use

These terms govern use of the site

These Terms apply to https://thedreamingcafe.com. Mihaly Kertesz, a private individual in Hungary operates the site. Legal notices can be sent to km@kerteszmihaly.com.

By using the site after August 12, 2026, you agree to these Terms. If you do not agree, do not use the site. These Terms do not remove any mandatory right or remedy that applicable law gives you.

The site is a free general publication

The Dreaming Cafe publishes general educational and reflective information about dreams, dream experiences, sleep, and related research. It currently provides no user accounts, paid service, personalised interpretation, comments, newsletter, contact form, dream-submission service, or marketplace.

Nothing on the site creates a doctor-patient, therapist-client, lawyer-client, financial-adviser, fiduciary, confidential, employment, agency, partnership, or other professional relationship. Reading a page or sending a legal or privacy message does not create a personal advisory service.

The publication is intended for a general audience but is not directed to children under 16. If you cannot legally agree to these Terms where you live, use the site only with the involvement and authorization of a parent or guardian.

Dream interpretations are possibilities rather than facts

Interpretations are prompts for reflection. They are not diagnoses, recovered memories, proof of trauma, predictions, supernatural messages, guarantees, or statements of fact about you, another person, or a future event.

Do not treat a dream or interpretation as proof of illness, pregnancy, danger, betrayal, another person's intentions, a legal position, or something that will happen. The same image can relate to memory, recent experience, emotion, culture, sleep conditions, or no stable meaning at all.

Important decisions require waking evidence

The site may discuss research and health guidance, but it does not provide medical, psychological, psychiatric, legal, financial, relationship, safety, or other professional advice. Check important decisions against waking evidence and consult an appropriately qualified professional when needed.

The Dreaming Cafe is not an emergency or crisis service. If you or another person may be in immediate danger, contact the emergency service available where you are. Seek qualified care for severe distress, persistent nightmares, major sleep disruption, injury, symptoms, or another waking health concern.

You remain responsible for important decisions

You decide whether a reflective prompt is useful in your circumstances. You remain responsible for independently checking information that affects health, safety, finances, relationships, travel, work, or legal rights.

This responsibility does not exclude or transfer any duty the operator cannot lawfully exclude. The operator remains responsible where applicable law says responsibility cannot be limited.

You may browse, link, and quote lawfully

You may access public pages for personal reading, share links, print a reasonable copy for personal reference, and make limited quotations where copyright law or another applicable right permits it. A quotation should identify The Dreaming Cafe and link to the relevant page where reasonably possible.

This permission is limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, and revocable for misuse. It does not transfer ownership or permit you to suggest that The Dreaming Cafe endorses you, your product, or your interpretation.

Original material remains protected

Unless a page identifies a different source or licence, the operator claims copyright, database rights, trademark rights, and other applicable rights in the site's original text, editorial selection, structure, branding, code, and artwork to the extent those rights exist under law.

External quotations, research, historical material, and linked resources remain subject to their owners' rights and lawful exceptions. A citation or link does not claim ownership of external material.

Without prior written permission, except where law permits the activity, do not:

• republish a complete article or substantial part of the site;
• reproduce or resell original artwork or branding;
• systematically copy or extract the catalog, article collection, metadata, or internal link graph;
• create or populate a competing dream-content database from original site material;
• remove attribution, copyright, or rights-management information; or
• use the name, design, or material in a way that falsely suggests affiliation, sponsorship, or endorsement.

Nothing in these Terms restricts a mandatory copyright exception, quotation, review, research, accessibility, or other use the law permits regardless of contract.

Commercial text and data mining rights are reserved

To the extent permitted by Article 4(3) of Directive (EU) 2019/790 and implementing law, the operator expressly reserves rights in lawfully accessible site works and databases against reproduction and extraction for commercial text and data mining, model training, retrieval-dataset creation, synthetic-content generation, or similar automated analysis. Written permission is required unless a mandatory exception applies.

This reservation does not prohibit ordinary search-engine indexing, lawful and proportionate security research, accessibility tools, qualifying scientific research, or another use protected by applicable law. The site also publishes a machine-readable reservation at/.well-known/tdmrep.json. The protocol is a rights signal, not a claim that every automated actor will obey it or that it overrides a mandatory exception.

Automated access must be reasonable and lawful

Do not use a crawler, scraper, bot, agent, or automated system to:

• evade an access control or technical restriction;
• create an unreasonable load on the site or hosting service;
• probe or exploit a vulnerability without written authorization;
• collect personal data unlawfully;
• reproduce protected material beyond a lawful permission or exception;
• interfere with analytics consent, security controls, caching, or service operation; or
• misrepresent the origin, ownership, or approval of collected material.

Public search engines may crawl the site under published machine-readable instructions and applicable law. A machine-readable permission or omission does not waive rights that cannot reasonably be expressed through that mechanism.

The site must be used safely and lawfully

Do not:

• attempt unauthorized access to the site, server, logs, deployment system, or another person's system;
• introduce malware, harmful code, fraudulent redirects, spam, or deception;
• interfere with availability, security, or another visitor's lawful use;
• impersonate the operator or misrepresent an affiliation;
• infringe privacy, copyright, database, trademark, or personality rights;
• use interpretations to harass, threaten, diagnose, manipulate, or make unsupported accusations about another person; or
• use the site for an unlawful purpose.

The operator may restrict abusive automated traffic, preserve evidence, report unlawful conduct, and use proportionate remedies available under law.

External sources and links remain independent

Articles may link to research papers, health guidance, archives, museums, government information, and independent websites. A link identifies a source or useful resource. It does not mean The Dreaming Cafe controls, guarantees, sponsors, or endorses the external service.

External sites set their own content, availability, accessibility, security, privacy practices, and terms. Check them before using the service or supplying information. The operator is not responsible for changes made by an independent external site, subject to liability the law does not permit the operator to exclude.

Editorial material and availability can change

The site may correct, update, reorganize, suspend, or remove material when evidence changes, a mistake is found, rights are asserted, security requires action, or the publication changes. Publication and update dates do not promise every linked resource or factual detail remains current. Check the primary source when timing matters.

The operator does not promise that a page, link, search result, feature, or the entire site will remain available. Interruptions, maintenance, technical failures, security events, or circumstances outside reasonable control can occur.

Accuracy and availability have lawful limits

The site is provided for general informational use. To the maximum extent permitted by law, it is available on an "as is" and "as available" basis without a promise that an interpretation suits a particular reader, an external source remains available, or access is uninterrupted or error-free.

The operator aims to distinguish evidence from interpretation and correct verified material errors. That aim is not a guarantee of completeness, accuracy, fitness for a particular purpose, or a particular personal outcome. Nothing here excludes a warranty, duty, or remedy that law does not allow the operator to exclude.

Liability is limited only where law permits

Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits liability where doing so would be unlawful. In particular, no provision excludes or limits liability for intentional conduct or harm to life, physical integrity, or health. No provision removes a mandatory consumer, privacy, intellectual-property, or other statutory right.

Subject to those mandatory protections, the operator is not responsible for a loss caused by:

• treating a reflective interpretation as a diagnosis, prediction, professional opinion, or fact despite the limits above;
• failing to check important decisions against waking evidence or an appropriate qualified source;
• an independent external website or provider outside reasonable control;
• an interruption or technical event that could not reasonably have been prevented; or
• unauthorized, unlawful, or abusive use of the site.

The privacy notice applies to personal data

The Privacy notice explains server logs, browser-local preferences, optional Google Analytics, correspondence, recipients, transfers, retention, and data-protection rights. It does not turn optional Analytics into a condition of access. Use Analytics choices in the footer to allow, decline, or withdraw Analytics.

Hungarian law governs these terms

These Terms and non-contractual issues connected with the site are governed by the law of Hungary, without excluding any mandatory protection or choice-of-law rule that applies where you live. Subject to a court right that cannot be restricted, disputes fall within the jurisdiction of the competent Hungarian courts.

Before formal proceedings, you may email km@kerteszmihaly.com with enough information to understand the issue and requested outcome. This informal step does not shorten a limitation period, prevent urgent action, or restrict a right to contact a court, regulator, consumer body, or data-protection authority.

Invalid provisions do not replace the remaining terms

If a court or authority finds a provision invalid or unenforceable, it applies only to the extent lawfully possible or is treated as removed. The remaining provisions continue where the law allows. A delay or failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver of the right to enforce it later.

These Terms, the Privacy notice, and any page-specific licence expressly shown on the site contain the agreement about ordinary use of the public site. They do not override a separate written agreement or mandatory legal right.

Changes apply from the stated effective date

The operator may update these Terms for changes in law, site operation, security, services, or rights management. The last-updated date identifies the current version. Material changes apply prospectively from their stated date unless law requires another approach. Continued browsing cannot substitute for a separate consent where consent is legally required.

Legal questions can be sent by email

Legal notices and questions about these Terms may be sent to km@kerteszmihaly.com.