DreamScaper has lead me down a rabbit hole that I don't know how to handle

Anthony Smith

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Hey all,

As many of you know Dreamscaper releases in like 6 days. Once I found out about Freedom! Games publishing this title I figured I'd check it out and man, WTF.


the first thing that jumped out at me was that in the trailer nobody has a face. Humans are hard wired to recognize faces and the absence of one is something that some people find creepy, and others find cute but that's not my issue. Dreaming about people without a face is said to mean you're having trouble understanding yourself as a person or having identity issues. and here I am asking if that's important in the story of the game, I've yet to play it myself at the moment but since the entire game is about dreams, what they mean, depression, anxiety, etc I can't be over analyzing this can I?

Overanalyzing might be saying that being able to control the ground in game is a dream metaphor for controlling what you do and do not feel is important in life which... is sort of expressed when interpreted through dream analysis articles like this one... but it seems a bit of a stretch... right?

ok, what about this hot take... the protagonist may be a victim of childhood trauma or abuse. Now, hang in here with me for a second. it's not uncommon for children exposed to this sort of thing to fantasize about having powers that could help them physically cope with the issues in life that they are struggling with coping with mentally. For instance laser eyes may mean you're celebrating your analytical ability to observe and problem solve. it's not uncommon to liken children who go through huge amounts of trauma as heroes of some sort either in the sense of duty, perseverance, or allowing them to dress the part on occasion. I mean, heck, it's even a whole trope in film and TV. There's no part of me that denies that people who go through something horrible come out stronger in some ways, but the whole gambit of abusive power and control symptoms could lead to a lot of what i'm seeing in the trailer using the internal logic of the entertainment industry.

There are also little tidbits I don't know what to make of, while going down my rabbit hole I found out that even the act of aiming supposedly has a meaning in dreams... like aiming a yo-yo or other projectile weapon...

ok, that may be reaching but in this game you can gain laser beam eyes, a common super hero style power, but in dreams it has multiple meanings. In a game about dreams where the protagonist knows they are dreaming it's hard to know for sure what parts are coming from the conscious or unconscious mind.

Heck even the games time control mechanic has psychological ramifications Lucid dreamers often talk about rewinding time or manipulating it in one way or another or even bending the fabric of spacetime within your dream world.

but, alas, the game isn't out for another few days so I'm not likely to get any closure to this for a few days... especially since... and this is weird to think about. The game features people without faces in both the waking, and sleeping world... are these recursive dreams? Dreamception?

I guess we'll all find out in a week or so!!