(no subject)

[camwyn]

One thing I can't stand about most fictional depictions of dreams is how much sense they make to the waking mind. I don't know how it is in anyone else's head, but the vast majority of my own dreams have, at best, a vague plotline* and some kind of internal logic, both of which only half make sense upon waking up. There's a thread of connectedness from one idea fragment to the next, so it's not total surrealism with no interlinking at all, but it's not enough that it would feel like something that could just as easily happen while awake. When there's more than one consciousness involved in a fictional dream- some entity intruding on the sleeper to get a message across, or what have you- it gets more complicated, but it just doesn't seem like it should take the form of a simple conversation.

All of which is a complicated way of saying that I got the next part of Sam's life at college up at tangled_metal, which is where all of the NPC stuff for the Rise of the Fallen AU plot is happening. There may be some posts in other characters' journals, like Ratchet or Lissar or Optimus, but for the most part it's centralizing there. And writing for a standard human dream is one thing, but writing an alien consciousness trying to integrate itself with a human one is a pain in the tuchus.

*For example, "I have to get to the cafeteria before the costume store closes, they're selling tiger suits at the salad bar and it's very important that I get one"

**Again, for example, "I am not running fast enough on two feet, so I will bend over and start using my fingers to push off as well, because OF COURSE I can run much faster on all fours than I could on two legs"

Comments

[tundra-no-caps.livejournal.com]

Yes. Just two days ago I commented, "Dammit, dreams never make this much sense" while watching a movie.

Halil Jubran put it well, "If you tell me your sleeping dreams, I can't tell you anything. Tell me your waking dreams, and I will tell you who you are."
Or something to that effect.

Dream sequences in fiction are usually just that, as if someone sat down and wrote fiction, and added the ability for people to fly, for instance.

[rushin-doll.livejournal.com]

I'm with you. I think most of the "structure" of dreams is imposed by the waking mind after the fact. The things which fit into some sort of pattern of narrative are easier to remember and the things that aren't tend to fade away. (There's actually been some interesting theoretical work suggesting that memory is literally dependent upon narrative, and that if you can't put some sort of narrative to an idea you can't remember it. Not sure if I buy it, but it's an interesting thought.)

Dreams is weird,
Ana

[leeshajoy.livejournal.com]

That's one of the reasons I like the Satoshi Kon film Paprika (http://www.us.imdb.com/title/tt0851578/) so much. The dreams in the film actually feel like dreams, rather than plot points character development shoehorned into a dream framework. (There's that aspect as well, but it doesn't rub your nose in it.)

[e-mily.livejournal.com]

Paprika was so weird. o.O Kinda cool, but man the music freaked me OUT.

[mercuriazs.livejournal.com]

Ooh.

Just because of this comment, I am so writing Ava a bizarre (aka, normal) dream. :D

[valles-uf.livejournal.com]

Hm. I guess I'm weird; I don't typically experience dreams as being notably different from waking thought. Instead it's like I'm thinking, but moving is too much work.

Or possibly I do dream, but don't remember doing so.

That said, utterly psychedelic free-association fictional 'dreams' are very useful for comedic effect. I managed to crack one of my GMs up with the following:

Dacia will indeed be waking up; not because she's slept out, but because her fish dream has turned into a nightmare despite the warm, comforting stuffed animal that the universe has provided for her to hold.

It is a dreadful dream, a foretelling dream. It tells of how the nations of the undersea world fall to a hungry, devouring madness. How strange cults and tongue-twisting rituals tear apart the fabric of society, leaving even the best and the brightest helpless before the polka-dotted one-wheeled Queen-singing Heralds, and their master the Burning Baklava Beast From the Black Beneath.