If your nightmares made games, what would they look like?

[J T]

I was just reading about the remake of Silent Hill, Shattered Memories. The game strips away a critical element of the original silent hill: you don't have a weapon, just a flashlight. I haven't played Shattered Memories yet to know what the experience is like, but I love this concept. A horror game should make you feel helpless to fight. Fear is about fight-or-flight and you generally don't choose flight unless you're REALLY scared. And without a weapon, what other option do you have?

What I also like about this idea of not having weapons is that it mirrors many of my own nightmares. I often find myself defenseless in nightmares. I attempt to fight my attacker, but for some inexplicable and terrifying reason, I can't muster enough strength to throw a punch-- I can only loosely flail my arms at around stomach level, which is useless. I opt to run. I run, but as my heartbeat increases, my foot steps slow. I feel like I'm running waste deep in tar. Every step requires immense effort and my assailant is gaining ground, quickly. I know this is a common nightmare. While the new Silent Hill remake doesn't quite capture the feeling of losing power while trying desperately to survive that this common dream has, it's at least a step in the right direction.

There are a lot of other common nightmares that many people have: inexplicably losing teeth, suddenly realizing you are not wearing clothes, bugs crawling within the skin, entering a situation where you must kill someone you care about. These bizarre nightmare visions allegorically play out our common human fears: a loss of personal integrity (physical, mental, or moral), insecurities about being exposed and ridiculed, fears of being contaminated or losing innocence, paranoia and mistrust. I would like to see more horror games follow the abnormal logic of nightmares-- the events of nightmares don't have to follow a linear path held together by any sort of understandable narrative plot structure. Dream-time events seem random to a logical mind, but the nightmares are a loosely woven patchwork held together by insecurities, dissatisfaction, and worried unease. Videogames are the perfect medium to explore nightmares and exploit fears. The main advantage videogames have over other media is that they grant you a sense of control, and if they want, they can take that control away. I would like to see other games exploit our common nightmares and also not be afraid to take chances, such as in the Shattered Memories example-- it goes against all gaming tradition to not allow you a weapon, but it makes perfect sense for a nightmare. I'd also like to see storylines with the same twisted logic of dreams where things are normal one minute, but utterly wrong the next for no readily apparent reason other than the fact that fear crept in through our subconscious.

I'm wondering, what games you guys have played that were pretty accurate renditions of actual nightmares you have had? And more importantly, how would horror videogames be different if they played like your nightmares?

[REPO Man]

Labyrinthine layouts, attacked constantly by vicious monstrosities, running for my life and getting nowhere while my attacker seems to appear out of nowhere... and I'm pretty sure it'd be based on an existing IP.

[alienjesus]

you have nightmares about phantasy star?

[REPO Man]

you have nightmares about phantasy star?

No.

In fact, some times the mazes, which are neverending, seem to be set in what I can only describe as a "haunted house straight out of Scooby Doo". One time, the mazes looked like something out of a NIN video (or more specifically, the video for NIN's "Closer").

Oh, and in one dream, I killed Denzel Washington. This alone is odd since I have no opinion whatsoever on him or his work, since he does the kind of movies that I don't care for (basically, cookie-cutter Hollywood dramas and suspense films that ironically have none).

Oh, and being in a car that seems to be driven with no driver behind the wheel.

And zombies. Like being surrounded by them in the halls of my old school and holing up in the front office. And I didn't have guns so I had to snap their necks, but their necks don't snap easily.

And being flung upward a great distance and falling down. I even get the gut feeling one gets when they fall.

[Ack]

I get the flailing dreams and the ones where my teeth rot out. Beyond that, I play a lot of survival horror, so I don't really have nightmares about them anymore. I'll still see things in my dreams that I know were influenced by them, but it's not the same. I've had dreams where I've attacked ghosts with a camera, killed strange mannequin monsters, or fought a horde of zombies off, but these weren't nightmares.

I suppose it will never beat the dream where I discovered I could shit chocolate cake.

[Ivo]

There are some interesting threads and posts here...

I used to have a lot of nightmares as a kid, for some reason. I mostly did not have the other kind "classic" nightmares (other than about twice the one where you're in public and suddenly realize you have no clothes on you); I don't remember any of those that are falling, the teeth etc. But I used to have nightmares revolving around witches, demons and classic monster stuff like that. More recently when I have one of those I'm not as helpless as I used to be as a kid, which makes the dream more a bad dream rather than a nightmare as I often have the means to put up some resistance (I've even wondered if this positive change was due to playing games).

I think witches, demons and scary monster stuff like that is fairly recreated in games already - as JT identifies it is a question of stacking the game against the character to make them helpless to be more nightmarish.

Although I don't think hard games that make you feel helpless make a good game (contrast this with very hard games that don't make you feel helpless, like Ghouls n' Ghosts, which has plenty of classic monster stuff and is hard as heck but you don't feel helpless even though it's really, really hard you somehow feel it isn't totally unfair).

I don't know if this new Silent Hill game is actually a good game...

Ivo.

[bacteria]

I used to get the same nightmare often - in a maze, tall brick grey and dark walls, heavy grafitti, puddles on the ground, can't find way out...

Other one, down a spooky corridor, further you walk the further away the door is, turn around, thinking something has you, nothing, but door moves further away then right towards you - very much like a small clip from F.E.A.R. - eerie!

[Gamerforlife]

I get nightmares a lot, but it may sound strange to say this. I am used to them and I generally just confront the problem or cleverly avoid it. I've had a lot of dreams where I am in what could be considered a survival horror scenario. Someone chasing me and I'm in some labyrinth like environment. These dreams don't frighten me anymore though. There is a familiarity to them now, like some part of me just goes, "oh, this again". One thing that does terrify me is dreams about spiders as I do have arachnophobia. That's the kind of thing I'll wake up from and have to stay up for a few minutes...with a light on. There I said it

Yet I can play a game like Dragon Age and get attacked by giant spiders or Ghostbusters with the Spider Demon boss and not get bothered by it. Course I generally don't get as immersed into my games as some people. There are far too many reminders in modern games that what you're playing isn't real.

Interesting fact, many people believe that spiders are good luck and dreams about them are a good thing. Too bad they terrify me

[Ack]

Don't feel bad, Gamerforlife, I have those spider dreams too. It also usually involves enclosed spaces, like a crawlspace, and lots of webs.

[TheyCallMeTheSwede]

The game would be a twist after twist kind of thing. Everything is normal I look up to the sky, I herd my girlfriends voice calling me, I ran to her in the house, but she wasn't there, I looked around the house, I found her at the end of a hall, I called her name and ran towards her, then suddenly a cage appeared before me, then theirs one my old teachers telling that I will never have her, then suddenly I am in a hellish environment with buildings on fire, piles of corpse, the sky was red. I ran around trying to call her name again over and over again. Then I saw her crucified on the cross naked and carved up and possibly raped. She told me to run, and the cross was on fire and burned her alive. Then suddenly war was breaking out, and I had no choice but just run, run away from the war zone, kill what I have to kill, then a bomb was dropped on me, I survived somehow but my limbs was blown right off, I just lie there screaming and bleeding to death.

That dream was so intense that when I woke up, I threw up. But then again I was having a flu around that time.