Dreams of Games
Jun. 11th, 2008 10:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexxkayIn a previous post about dreams, I said that in my dreams, videogames were much more immersive, but also fairly dull. It has since occurred to me that that only describes a small (if recently frequent) subset of my dreams about games.
Sometimes I dream about playing classic games on an old computer. These are invariably even better than they were in waking life, though I am almost never able to remain focused enough to play them for very long, much less actually finish one. (Similar to dreaming about nonexistent books, my dream-manager can, for a short time, fake my emotional reaction to Great New Art, but it isn't capable of actually showing me the Art itself for any length of time.)
My favorite games can become permanent dream environments. I played a lot of Thief: The Dark Project while awake, and still play it sometimes when I'm asleep. Although the overall plot of the game is similar, the actual levels are very different -- but consistent. There's one that starts with the player in the ocean, then you make your way to the docks, then across the city to a warehouse (rooftops and sewers are both viable). Another mission is set in a nobleman's mansion; there is an attached chapel with a high steeple, and beams for fun rope arrow use -- just don't grab the bell-rope by accident! And so on.
Sometimes I have lucid dreams. More often, I manage a semi-lucid state, where I can partially affect the content of the dream. Sometimes this is expressed in terms of my job in the game industry: I "pop out to the editor, make a few changes, then start the sim running again".
Sometimes I dream about playing classic games on an old computer. These are invariably even better than they were in waking life, though I am almost never able to remain focused enough to play them for very long, much less actually finish one. (Similar to dreaming about nonexistent books, my dream-manager can, for a short time, fake my emotional reaction to Great New Art, but it isn't capable of actually showing me the Art itself for any length of time.)
My favorite games can become permanent dream environments. I played a lot of Thief: The Dark Project while awake, and still play it sometimes when I'm asleep. Although the overall plot of the game is similar, the actual levels are very different -- but consistent. There's one that starts with the player in the ocean, then you make your way to the docks, then across the city to a warehouse (rooftops and sewers are both viable). Another mission is set in a nobleman's mansion; there is an attached chapel with a high steeple, and beams for fun rope arrow use -- just don't grab the bell-rope by accident! And so on.
Sometimes I have lucid dreams. More often, I manage a semi-lucid state, where I can partially affect the content of the dream. Sometimes this is expressed in terms of my job in the game industry: I "pop out to the editor, make a few changes, then start the sim running again".
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(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-12 02:27 am (UTC)I used to dream X-Wing.
Last month I was very steeped in 40K, and the twilight between wake and sleep was often with the entire world transformed into its paradigm. (Not just atmosphere, but system as well; my brain would try to translate normal objects and interactions into game terms.) Quite disconcerting, especially given how unforgiving and brutal that world is!
Were you the one telling me about his friend leaping from shadow to shadow after playing Thief a bunch?
(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-12 06:11 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-12 02:42 am (UTC)I see this as a potential benefit for when we start building (better) neural interfaces to our brains - "network" segmentation of sleep vs work areas to allow brain-to-computer work to continue whilst the body recharges.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-13 06:11 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-13 06:18 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-13 06:43 pm (UTC)