Oct 26 2009
Looking Into Dreams
They’ve been used as setting exposition, foreshadowing, characterization, an excuse to play with the laws of physics, a way to cop out of a story that people couldn’t tell because of its ramifications to the setting and timeline, a visualization for mind-affecting magic, a place to ambush enemies, a way of delivering messages without worrying too much about the lag time, and a source of parallel worlds. And for all this, they exist in the real world, and we usually don’t care about them enough to keep close track when they happen to us. What are they?
They’re dreams: a valuable tool, though likely to veer into cliché if not carefully used.
In fantasy, the uses of dreams tend to run wild. People get prophetic dreams, dreams sent by magic to give them messages, dreams chock full of symbols. Characters with mind magic sometimes monitor people’s dreams to see what they’re like, shape the dreams to give a message, or even enter the dreams themselves for their own purposes. If roles are passed through reincarnation or metaphysical transfer of importance, it’s quite possible that a current character who needs to fill a previous character’s shoes will have a dream of that prior character and follow its instructions.
And then there are dreamworlds. Sometimes, they’re individualized, the interior landscape of one mind. Others, like Lovecraft’s Dreamlands and its many RPG imitations, are worlds comprised of the combined dreams of all of a species/civilization/other. If they’re individualized, their appearances often reflect the mental processes, loves, hates and concerns of the dreamer; when generalized, expect them to include manifestations of both the greatest common ideals and greatest common fears of those who dream the world. Sometimes, these are changeable, representing the dreamer’s subconscious control over her own mind, or boast improbable physics; some dreamscapes even do both at once.
But just because something isn’t in a fantasy setting doesn’t mean dreams can’t have their uses. As most psychologists will tell you, analyzing dream imagery can tell you a great deal about a person’s mindset and mental issues. Need to get across something that happened to a person in the past, and don’t want to deal with a flashback? Have them dream about it. Want to explore a couple ways a certain decision could go? Dreams. And if you don’t mind most experienced readers/gamers throwing rotten tomatoes at you (or if you and the group agree that something just doesn’t work as a plot twist and you need to get out cleanly), there’s always the old “it was all a dream” cop-out.
In short, for a bunch of random neurons firing, it’s a pretty powerful tool. But then again, isn’t our job as creators of stories, collaborative or single-narrative, to cause our own firing of somewhat less random neurons? I find rather little difference between a very immersive story and a strong dream.
This week, I’m going to be looking into some of the more amusing uses of dreams in stories and games. Come dream with me; who knows what you might learn?
“I find rather little difference between a very immersive story and a strong dream.” Indeed; this is precisely the metaphor underpinning my Sailor Dora series, and referred to by the characters all over the place (perhaps a little too often). Most poignantly, in Act 4 Chapter 25: “From the beginning, this has all been about creating a beautiful dream for [character’s name]. But not just for her. A dream that can be written down and shared with anyone who understands the power of passion and romance, from now until the day when words lose their power and men forget how to dream.” The character speaking is persuading her friends not to tell that person the truth — that the adventures she has been having were all created for her by her friend who wants to be a writer. Over the next three chapters, those friends die to preserve the fiction, one of them saying: “Don’t ever regret what you did. It was such a lovely dream. I – I’m glad I was able to be part of it.”
And, finally, at the end of Act 7 when the heroine is facing the final villain who wants to destroy the world, she says: “The world is a beautiful dream, a masterpiece of fantasy. Haven’t you ever had that feeling when you put a book down and just wish it could go on for ever? I know all stories have to come to an end some time. But not like this. Not in an explosion of rage and destruction. Let it fade into a final frozen image, so that its readers can continue the story in their own hearts.”