(no subject)

[camwyn]

Huh.

I just realized that I have no clue whatsoever what my currently longest-running RP character's dreams are like.

Seriously- I had just sat down to see if I couldn't come up with an IC nightmare for gone_byebye, and I realized that I've never written a dream for him. (The one with Nyarlathotep doesn't count.) For Sergeant Wells (milkbonesoldier), sure. I've done plenty for him. Mostly because I had him ICly badly hurt once and decided to take it as a challenge and write a hallucination sequence entirely in smells, since werewolves probably have a different sensorium going when their brains start firing off about things that aren't t here. It was easy to write sleep-dreams for him after that- mostly nightmares, a few merely strange ones. But Ray... I have no idea how his sleeping world differs from his waking world. Whether he dreams about people, whether he dreams about people he knows, whether he's ever had the flying dream or the naked in public dream or the OH GOD YOU DIDN'T TELL ME I HAD TO STUDY THAT dream. I think that last one might be on his list, as it seems like his kind of anxiety, but... I've never had to know what goes on in the black muck at the bottom of his skull before, because I've been able to pick up everything from the rest of his brain and have it all work out. It's weird. I don't even know if he remembers his dreams.

I'd say I'm going to be pondering this on the train ride home, but I'm exhausted and am probably going to attempt a nap instead.

Comments

[dragonwhishes.livejournal.com]

Much to the dismay of my pups, I think writing nightmares is fun.

[genarti]

Likewise. *sheepish* Really, dream sequences in general are fun, even the happy ones, but nightmares are especially so.

Luckily, I tend to have characters with plenty of nightmare fodder! *bright cheerful smile*

[camwyn]

The problem is getting them to feel like an actual dream state instead of sounding like every BOOGEDY BOOGEDY a screenwriter's ever used. And it has to be tailored to the individual, too, or it won't do at all.

[dragonwhishes.livejournal.com]

:D Oh yes. Even if it's a dream-dream, but my one main is so full of trauma and angst I can't help myself, dammit.

Mmm, nightmare fodder.

[dragonwhishes.livejournal.com]

nngh, yeah. I think I'm guilty of some BOOGEDY BOOGEDY. >_>

[genarti]

Yeah. I don't get many excuses to write them, really; if it doesn't serve a narrative point to write out the nightmare, then I can't really get away with it, alas. Blatant self-indulgence is usually fun only for the self in question. Even if I know my character's having periodic nightmares, I need a reason to show it or else it just comes across as LOOK AT MY ANGST. I HAVE ANGST. LET ME SHOW YOU IT WITH BONUS DREAM WEIRDNESS! ...Which is always fun as an added dimension, but not really as the sole justification.

But when I do get a chance? I have fun. Oh yes.

(Totally off-topic, but: your icon is awesome. And mildly terrifying. So possibly it is somewhat on-topic after all!)

[dragonwhishes.livejournal.com]

Aaah. I dunno if I could only write dreams that served the purpose of the plot. ... though now it makes me wonder if I come off as pretentious for writing up a lot of nightmare posts. Shit.

They are fun. The characters hate us for it, but dammit. WE CAN'T HELP THAT WE'RE SADISTS.

(Thank'ee! also, I looked at your icons, and - you've read the Dark Tower books? can i friend you on that basis alone? I'm not (always) as angsty as the last two entries in my LJ make me out to be. >_>)

[ebony14.livejournal.com]

That, and for some people, the most innocuous things can be absolutely terrifying in the context of dreams, because of the psychological context.

[bigscary.livejournal.com]

Um.

I hate to do this.

But if you think you don't know what Ray's dreams are like, maybe you should re-watch the first movie.

[genarti]

Well, y'know, it depends on what game or story you're talking about, too. For the particular stories I'm telling in the game I'm playing, I do try not to let myself write too many of them, but I have no idea about yours. :) It's different in every situation.

And yes! Exactly. PAIN IS INTERESTING. ...THEIR PAIN. NOT OURS. Um. NOT OUR FAULT, anyway, yes indeed.

(I have indeed -- Alain Johns is one of the characters I played in the game in question, Milliways, although he's retired now. And you certainly may! I am always delighted to meet new and interesting people who share my fandoms.)

[dragonwhishes.livejournal.com]

The game I play in is panfandom, kind of like Milliways, but more freeform in some ways, from the times I've lurked at Milli.

XD

(*friends!* I was bemoaning the fact that I had too few friends who'd read the series.)

[adiva_calandia]

Seriously. I try really hard to write dreams -- in fiction or RP or whatever -- that are as incoherent and jump-aroundy as real dreams, but damn, it's hard. I mean, in a dream, you can have nothing in your hands one moment and then there'll be a bunch of roses that were always there, but it's hard to convey that without getting a) clunky or b) confusing.

[neotoma.livejournal.com]

Do you have the episode of RGB where the Sandman tries to put the world to sleep? Ray dreams of pizza... which falls from the sky and is big enough to smother Ecto-1. The guys are lucky to get out before they're trapped inside.

Really, for a kid's show, it had some pretty trippy images. The mouse-drawn chariot was a favorite.

[sdelmonte]

FWIW, I'm not good with making my pups drea, either. And rarely given them nightmares.

I think Knox has very prosaic dreams, anyway.

[camwyn]

If one dream sequence were enough to extrapolate all of a person's other dreams from, then all of my dreams would be in sepiatone or involve running on all fours as an alternative to The Flying Dream.

[camwyn]

Yeah, I have that one, but solitary elements aren't really enough to extrapolate a full-on nightmare from unless Ray's in the habit of worrying about being throttled by pizza toppings.

[the_croupier]

I bet his nightmares start with Venkman in a dress and a giant Sta-Puft Egon. And then they go downhill from there.



Well, that would terrify me.

[vivien]

I did a lot of writing about Tom's nightmares back in the day. His night times were not very happy for a long time.

One thing that worked for me (without the Boogedy Boogedy) was quickly switching scenes, from normal to horror.

[bigscary.livejournal.com]

It's a start, certainly. And we know something of his internal mindscape, too. And it's not like Vigo's little visit could have gone without leaving some scarring (though I don't know if your pre-M timeline includes that event).

And you said "I have no idea how his sleeping world differs from his waking world." You may have little idea, but it's something, at least.

[camwyn]

Nah, I took him from the comic book continuity, which is set six months after the first movie. His world never had a Vigo or a river of slime. They had other problems. (Mind you, in his world an early bust at one of the Staten Island landfills earned the Ghostbusters the respect of the city garbage workers' union, and honorary membership therein. The garbage men threatened to go on strike if lawsuits against the guys for the Gozer stuff went through, which is how they got to continue to operate- that, and spirit activity only really halved or so after Gozer's defeat, rather than going away entirely.)

[camwyn]

I think, now that I look back on a bunch of the stuff I've written for Milliways Ray, is that part of the problem is that his nightmares all happen while he's awake. It's hard for his subconscious mind to beat the level of OMGWTFNKVD engendered by being right on the edge of sleep and suddenly realizing that you might be a tiny insignificant speck on a tiny insignificant planet in a ridiculously uninteresting galaxy, but cosmically powerful Forces of Awful are directing their attention at you anyway.

The single most common line of whitetext in Ray's posts is a song lyric from Jason Mraz's "The Remedy": The tragedy is how you're gonna spend / the rest of your nights with the light on. It's not quite that bad for him- but it's close, sometimes.