Dream Warrior

A Dream Warrior is a fictional character classification used in the A Nightmare on Elm Street film series created by Wes Craven. It refers to a group of five people featured in the third film in the series, A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors.

A dream warrior is someone who possesses a special gift that enables them to harness the power of their dreams in order to give themselves special talents so they can defend themselves from their own nightmares. The Dream Warriors were all troubled teens who hailed from the town of Springwood, Ohio and lived on Elm Street.

In 1968, a child murderer by the name of Freddy Krueger abducted several children in the neighborhood and brought them back to the boiler room where he worked, where he would then kill them. Freddy was caught and arrested, but through a legal mishap, Krueger was acquitted on all charges. The distraught parents in the community formed their own vigilante group and trapped Freddy inside the boiler room whereupon they set it on fire, burning him to death. In death however, Krueger became even more dangerous.

Freddy became a demonic entity that could manifest in the nightmares of other people. When Freddy killed someone in their dream, they died in reality. He began a quest of revenge against the people who burned him by targeting their children. In the mid 1980s, he committed two successive strings of murders.

The final seven children, now teenagers, had managed to survive, but were tormented by the nightmarish figure in their dreams, and had no idea of who he was, or the fact that he was appearing to multiple people. Each of these teenagers were remanded to the care of the Westin Psychiatric Hospital. They spoke with their respective psychiatrists, but none of them treated their claims about a shared nightmare seriously.

A survivor of the original massacre, Nancy Thompson, came on board as a volunteer consultant. She explained to the patients who Freddy Krueger was, and how he was able to come after them. She also informed them that they were in fact the last of the Elm Street children.

Krueger began haunting them once again and succeeded in killing several of them. Phillip Anderson was turned into a human puppet and dropped off a balcony of the building, but his death was ruled a suicide. Jennifer Caulfield miraculously shoved her head into a wall-mounted television, which also was ruled a suicide. As the murders continued, Nancy helped the others realize their own special talents; that they could call upon the power of their dreams to defend themselves. This group of Dream Warriors fought back against Freddy with varying degrees of success.

The Dream Warriors
 * Nancy Thompson: The original Dream Warrior. Nancy had the ability to pull objects and people out of her dreams into the real world.
 * Kristen Parker: Kristen's gift first manifested when she was a child. She could pull other people into her dreams and call upon their aid.
 * Will Stanton: Crippled in the waking world, Will Stanton could walk in the dream world and could harness the power of magic in the style of a Wizard Master from his favorite role-playing game.
 * Joey Crusel: A traumatized mute, Joey could project a loud sonic cry that could shatter objects.
 * Roland Kincaid: Roland was atypical bully who converted his fear into raw superhuman strength.
 * Taryn White: In Taryn's dreams, she was a confidant and striking badass with switchblade knives who could more than hold her own in a fight.

Taryn White and Will Stanton both died, but Kristen Parker, Joey Crusel and Roland Kincaid survived for a bit longer. Nancy however, fell victim to Freddy's claws before the entire ordeal was over.

Eventually, Freddy Krueger managed to resurface a year later and killed off the last three members of the Dream Warriors, Kristen, Joey and Kincaid. Another young woman, Alice Johnson, who was friends with Kristen Parker, had developed a special ability as well. She could duplicate the power of another Dream Warrior, as well as any additional talents possessed by Freddy's victims (such as her brother Rick Johnson's martial arts prowess). Alice Johnson ultimately became the most powerful one of them all and was dubbed, the Dream Master.