Games are dreams

Recently Games You Loved asked asked on Twitter why you loved videogames. I wrote that I loved the dream like qualities of games, but I don’t think I showed the reasons why correctly. After they posted, I responded with a game in mind, but it wasn’t right. So, here is an article about that subject.

First off I have to explain what I mean when I talk about dreamlike. Then I will show how this surreality affects us. Finally, I will show examples of how this works.

Ever been in a place that is dreamlike? As an example, when I was in highschool, we had a theater building that never quite seemed there. You would look at it, and something was off. It felt like you were looking at a dream. This was especially weird when we were trying to wake up in the morning, or just resting. My theater class would be doing something, and just pause to look at where we were for a moment.

For some odd reason the mind never quite registered the place as real. I have been in this building, done plays, and went through the many classes in it, and yet it wasn’t quite real. It’s called being surreal or surreality. We all have these moments where a place or thing doesn’t register in our minds and becomes something else. This can be caused by drugs, an odd moment, and others.

It actually makes sense though. There are places where you don’t register things as real, and more like a dream. There is a physical thing there, like a building, but also this other place where your mind enters into a dream like state. The theater is perfect for this, because they are trying to create a dream right in front of you. There is a literal stage with props, set pieces, and actors trying to appear to be something else. I had to play a dinosaur, an old man, a rabbi, a drunken fool, and many others on that stage. The audience gave up reality, and let their imaginations turn these real things into a dream.

Our minds are completely ready to change something from the real thing to the dream. I went from a tall Senior wearing a fake beard, to a beleaguered old rabbi who had to leave his people from Russia. We had people who honestly believed I was a rabbi, when in reality I had to be taught how to move and act.

Another example is books, you are simply reading a story with words. It can be on a screen, a handheld device, or a piece of chopped up tree. Your mind begins to turn it into a world with people and ideas.

Our dreams do the same. We take things from our mind, and create worlds and people within them. At times we can control these worlds. Other times they control us. They make no sense, yet our minds believe it, and create whole ideas and emotions to it. We have been able to do this since we were children. I have been myself in dreams, and also completely different things like robots, aliens, or animals. I have been black women, gangsters in the 1940’s, and even had times where I didn’t even speak English.

My friends know I love to tell the stories I made up in dreams. It’s not some symbolic meaning on my future and present self, its a really cool story. I was Jackie Chan’s school teacher and first crush for crying out loud. I guess I should add I was a chinese woman in that dream.

Entertainment specifically tries to show these dream like qualities. We have sets that change. Camera angles, and transitions move to different characters and ideas. We love it, and make up entire worlds as we watch. I think the reason why many films do better than others is because they tell a better dream. Think of Star Wars as if it was a dream, or Jurassic Park. The reality is we can’t make laser swords, or dinosaurs, but we let it happen because it feels like a nice dream to have.

I think videogames are surreal points of liminality. Liminality is the idea that a person or thing is between two different states, or on the threshold between them. In a ceremony, a person performing a ritual is between what he was before, and what he will be after. He is in a liminal state. Within places, we have liminality as well. A cave is not only the real thing you see, but the threshold between the outside world, and some other place. A crossroads is magical because it is two different ideas or paths crossing. Magical creatures can be in these places, and we can do great things with them there.

Once again, the stage is liminal because you are sitting in the real world, but the stage has become this other place. It became anatevka, or a faery land, or the 1960’s. It’s surreal so it makes sense for people to speak in rhyme or break into song.

Some of the original theater pieces were actually religious. The ancient greek theater was about seeing how the gods viewed humanity. The plays asked questions, and gave answers based on how the gods saw things, not on how mankind saw it. Much of stage production comes from these ideas, including the idea that the gods will solve the problems caused by humanity. This doesn’t always end well for humanity by the way.

I believe videogames are creators of liminality because of how surreal they get. The concept of realism is not wanted, instead it's more of a cartoon like dream.

While researching this, I found a great video on surrealism the artform, as compared to Super Mario Bros by PBS Idea Channel. The article shows how surrealism was created to counteract the new ideas of realism, and the cynicism of life. They would show several ideas at once, and I realized I loved the art. It has a dream like quality to it, because in our minds, we can see all the images being shown at once. This creates a narrative in our minds, even though it is impossible.

The art form is an attempt to look at pop culture, and make fun of it. Within this idea, videogames like Super Mario Bros is looking at Japanese culture, which rebuilt itself completely to become the behemoth it is today, and skipped several forms of art along the way. So you see images in Japan that build off of each other, the memetics of it make a story, even if all you see is a bunch of random pictures.

Videogames are often just a bunch of random objects that we understand through the game. We know these mushrooms hurt us, and these mushrooms make us big. We recognize them instantly, along with the red bricks, turtles, dragon bulls, and others that appear. Each game is just a memetic repeat of the previous one with new ideas.

Likewise, some research and theories say that dreams do the same thing. They create worlds in your mind that only you know about. Patrick McNamara on Psychology Today believes we use a different type of memory when we dream. It can create narratives that the waking mind can’t think of. In other words, our dreams are surreal, because the creators are trying to mimic the concept they create.

Have you ever been to a place in your dreams that you know very well but doesn’t exist? I have several cities worth of places, and people and things from memories and my own imagination create these worlds. I look forward to these dreams, because I can explore these worlds a little bit more.

When you play a videogame the more you get into it, the more the rest of the world is taken out of focus. You do the same with movies, books, and amazing conversations. It’s the reason why people can sneak up and surprise you. Your mind no longer registered the rest of the world. The term in videogame studies is flow. Some companies use flow, and the ability to build up characters or other things to make you play a game for a long time. Others use flow to possibly access the dream like state of memory to become something between dreams and reality.

When you see these games, your mind actually registers them as surreal. You play them in a dreamlike state. The surrealism is understood, but not in a conscious or realistic way.

So we have some terms to understand the meaning, now I want to show games that do this well. I will start off with some easy games, and then build up. Personally, one of the reasons why I like arcades, is because they really don’t feel all that real.

A friend points out that when he reads books about spaceships, he imagines an old arcade. The random sounds, the sudden bright lights in the darkened room, and the different smells as you walk around all seem alien, and unreal. There is also a familiarity to it, since so many games are recognized, even though they don’t work story wise with the other games around them. Thus the arcade itself is already a liminal place, where you can be taken to other worlds all with the placement of a quarter.

A game at the NorthWest Pinball and Arcade Show’s kids center is probably one of the easiest examples. It’s simple, but everything about it is surreal. If you look at the picture above, you see several games that catch the eye. Each one is it’s own world, and yet together, they feel natural together.

The one on the far right is a personal favorite. Here have a close up of it.

The game is wider than expected, and built to look like a cabin. There is a squirrel on top, looking quite shocked and cute. The game is called Frantic Fred, by Game Room. It is supposed to be a ticket style game, but I’ve never played it for tickets or cared. The controls are a steering wheel which controls Fred.

Fred is an unlucky bear who is tied to ropes, and moves back and forth to catch falling apples. There are squirrels in the trees, tossing apples or anvils, and you need to dodge one, while eating the other. If you are lucky, you can eat all of the apples. The anvils slow you down. All of this, and you control the bear using a steering wheel.

The absurdity seems natural because the character reacts perfectly, and the animations fit within the idea. The squirrels move, and Fred is pulled around with a small gallump to his step. The surrealism allows the player to enjoy the game, not take them away from it.

Dolphin Song by Wahlap takes the same idea. It’s about riding a dolphin to catch stars in the ocean, and then take on some monster fish by throwing lightning, and fire out of your nose. The dolphin moves, and you control the character using the reins.

Parents love playing this game just as much as their kids. Once again, it doesn’t look real, and it tries to invoke the ideas of a dream world. Although happy, easy,  and joyful, it creates an idea of imagination, and adventure within it. No one questions why their is a rideable dolphin videogame sitting next to a bear being controlled by a steering wheel. These are separate worlds, yet they fit together.

Let’s try something a little more serious adult.

Driving games have a lot of the same themes as the previous two games. They are rides, and make you feel like you are controlling something. A steering wheel and pedals are used to help you feel realistic. Then the game makes sure to not respond like a real car. Initial D is all about insane turns, and being barely able to control your car. The reality is, cars do not twist or oversteer this way.

Instead, the game takes you on a dream like journey through lands and areas with real ideas, but unrealistic movements. For example the Cruis’n games have real world places, but not real world driving. Crazy Taxi was actually called a simulator, but I’m certain a real life Taxi driver would be in jail if you drove anything like that.

It’s the liminality of the real world, and the dream like state of playing the game. Once you enter flow, you forget the world around you, and respond to things like a reflex. It isn’t real, but your mind is willing to accept it as something like that.

Donkey Kong is entirely about surrealism. You are playing a guy trying to save his girlfriend from his own pet gorilla. He sometimes has to collect stuff his girlfriend dropped. An umbrella might save the day. It is absurd, but because you associate umbrella with slowing down from jumping, it works. The game is simple, and yet you get absorbed by it.

The flow lets you see it as something else and enter into this world.

At first you think this sounds weird, but before I talk about another game, a dream researcher named Jayne Gackenchba has shown her research on gamers and they respond to or have dreams. She authored a book called Play Reality, and authored several papers. An article on the Verge talks about it in some detail. She found that players tend to control their dreams better. They don’t freak out in threatening dreams, and even enjoy them. They also have a better sense of how the dream works, and what was going on.

The next game is actually a reverse of the arcade. Instead of walking in reality, and seeing things that seemed so surreal we simply accept them, we have games that show up in dreams. These are real games, but you end up dreaming about them, and details and ideas come from it.

In Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past you play a character from a top down perspective, and battle various monsters. You can turn into a rabbit, or change between worlds. I rented this game a lot before buying it, and I loved it so much it showed up in my dreams.

The details in my dreams were fairly similar to the game, only changed levels, and monsters. The most interesting is once I grabbed the spyglass, I could scroll the view out of the window and out to the world around me. From towers I could get a different view of how the monsters were preparing, or moving. It allowed new views, and ideas for the game.

I would switch between my own view, and how the game played. I saw evil woods, and three terrible monsters chasing a little girl with blond hair. If I grabbed the red hood, I could find ways to sneak past the werewolves.

But as cool as that is, it actually gets more surreal. In one dream, I realized I could grab the item, and head out. There may have been a hint in a magazine, but it was the dream that convinced me to do it that way. I actually built up my character that way, and grabbed every heart before I defeated the first boss, in the real game.

Nintendo continued to work to make their games dream like. At times the gameplay would get bogged down, or be too linear, but it remained within that dream. This is probably the reason why so many people have fond memories of a specific game. They were at the right age, and the game itself felt like a dream. This would naturally allow it to show up in dreams, and give insights back.

This brings us back to Mario Bros and other Nintendo games. They all seem surreal, and dream like. Once we enter into flow, we ignore everything around us, and let the world absorb us. It could be a 2D game with a plumber dressed as a raccoon attacking fanged bowling balls, or a squid that turns into a kid with an ink shooting gun. It’s absurd, but the surreality helps us accept it and move into the game itself.

Modern games have been doing things a little differently. We don’t sit next to the screen as closely, nor do we have absurdities such as a dolphin ride controller. Instead, the game lets us enter into flow, and works to keep us there by leveling up, and doing insane things.

The Battlefield series is a great example. The game creators often tout the realism of the game. The guns work just like the real world guns. You have real tanks, and movements to follow. Entering can mean parachuting down into an area.

Then you ride a tank straight up a mountain to take down snipers with your cannon. This was never a tactic in real life, because the tank would get stuck. Instead, you destroyed an entire building, and barely felt its fall as you battled right next to it, after jumping out of a jet fighter. To get new weapons, and gear, you need to play more and level up your character. You are allowed to enter flow, and take on the world with insane dream like abilities the entire time.

The open world dream like game is one of the top sellers. Grand Theft Auto 5 is one of the top selling games, and at no point do you even attempt to do real world things, unless bored. The entire point is the insanity, and inhumane abilities you have. The creators worked to make a giant world where people live and breath, and move. You can go on a film tour, and get great shots because of how well things are set up. Yet, most people play it like its a giant lucid dream.

In other words, we play games because they are dreams to us. It’s not just the world the creator makes for us, but how we view it as something lucid, and surreal. The liminality of the games, where you can be sitting on a couch, and also be battling in Verdun make sense. In your mind, it is both, and you acknowledge one isn’t real. Games enter into our dreams, and we view games as something more akin to a dream than anything real.

I think it is interesting, we play games because they are like dreams. We don’t say this out loud, because that makes no sense. It seems to take away from the idea that it could be some form of art. Yet, we have artforms, and ideas that are specifically trying to mimic dreams.

Some of my all time favorite movies are dream like. I love the editing, and insanity to them. People who watch these movies fully acknowledge it doesn’t feel real, and it takes several viewings to even understand what you saw. These are all accepted, and most major movie buffs love them. Go ahead, tell a movie buff Dark City wasn’t amazing.

Yet, when game makers make games, they try to copy the dark part, but not the dream like qualities. If a game where you ride a dolphin, and shoot giant fish with fireballs is a frequented and beloved game, why not accept the surreality given?

I love games, because I enjoy my dreams, and games play the way I dream.