Dreams that ought to be scary but aren't

Have any scary nightmares? Share them with us!
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ranger_lennier
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Joined: Mon Oct 07, 2013 5:37 pm

Dreams that ought to be scary but aren't

Post by ranger_lennier »

This is part dream and part question for discussion.

Last night, I had a dream where I was driving through a neighborhood in Mexico and somehow got caught in the middle of a huge drug cartel shootout. I started driving as fast as I could, trying to get through it without getting shot in the crossfire, but the fight seemed to just keep going. I must have made it through eventually, because I ended up chatting with a police officer about my visit to Mexico. I'll attribute this subject being on my mind to watching Breaking Bad recently.

Now the funny thing is, I really don't recall being frightened in the dream, even though this was, ostensibly, a life or death situation. I just seemed to handle it like it was relatively unremarkable. And I wasn't frightened at all when I woke up. I think my thoughts were more along the lines of, "Hmmm, that was a weird dream." And I realized that this is actually the case pretty often. I'll have a dream which, from simply a description of what happened, would definitely sound like a nightmare. But it doesn't actually scare me. It's not a lucid dream. I still think of the event as real while I'm having the dream, but my emotional reaction is nothing like I imagine it would be in waking life. Does anyone else have this sort of reaction?
Harry Sunderland
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Re: Dreams that ought to be scary but aren't

Post by Harry Sunderland »

First person shooters have ruined fear in some of my dreams because if I'm being pursued, sometimes I'm aware that if I die I'll respawn, so sometimes I just let the killer kill me so I can respawn.

It's pretty absurd.
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matt
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Re: Dreams that ought to be scary but aren't

Post by matt »

I've had that situation. Dreams are so strange!
-Matt Gilgenbach
Lead Frightener at Infinitap Games
haitechan
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Re: Dreams that ought to be scary but aren't

Post by haitechan »

Once I dreamt I was murdered but somehow respawned as a ghost and went for revenge for my killer. The funny think was that it wasn't scary at all and seemed perfectly logical.
ranger_lennier
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Re: Dreams that ought to be scary but aren't

Post by ranger_lennier »

Not the case in this particular dream, but I actually have had several dreams where I'm playing a full immersion video game. As in, I'm in an intense action situation that I experience not on a screen, but just like real life (3D vision, audio, touch, etc.), and I think of it as if I'm playing a game. I don't even remark upon the amazing leap in technology that's suddenly occurred. Some of the games have been pretty fun--maybe I should start taking notes in case I want to make one when the technology allows it in real life. :) Perhaps we could begin to approximate this experience with an Occulus Rift VR display and a Virtuix Omni treadmill.
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Alina David
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Re: Dreams that ought to be scary but aren't

Post by Alina David »

ranger_lennier wrote:Not the case in this particular dream, but I actually have had several dreams where I'm playing a full immersion video game. As in, I'm in an intense action situation that I experience not on a screen, but just like real life (3D vision, audio, touch, etc.), and I think of it as if I'm playing a game. I don't even remark upon the amazing leap in technology that's suddenly occurred. Some of the games have been pretty fun--maybe I should start taking notes in case I want to make one when the technology allows it in real life. :) Perhaps we could begin to approximate this experience with an Occulus Rift VR display and a Virtuix Omni treadmill.
That sounds cool but a Halloween horror house or a specifically built zone for an Occulus rift sounds even better.
Paint ball is fun but if you can use an Occulus Rift and a laser gun that would be epic, instead of a plain field with a few buildings and obstacles the Occulus can show you a super high tech green house/apocalyptic landscape and your friends could be displayed with some Borderlands crazy weapons and shields + there could be extra elements in there like monster.That would take a lot of programing work to integrate everything on the field in the game and a motion sensor for the player's movement but it would be so worth it.

Usually haunted houses don't have all that much interaction and the stuff that moves and is supposed to scare you never works.But if you could make a scary place with one or two good planed scares and integrate the Occulus Rift with it's own scares that might be the best experience of of all time because you would not be able to tell the difference between the Occulus and reality.

I hope technology evolves to make something like this.
ranger_lennier
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Re: Dreams that ought to be scary but aren't

Post by ranger_lennier »

You're basically describing an augmented reality game there. And yes, those could be pretty awesome. Vernor Vinge wrote a novel called Rainbows End not too long ago where almost everyone wore augmented reality contact lenses that could take the environment the user would normally see and add, subtract, or change various elements. The applications included games much like the paintball game you describe, as well as stuff like virtual tourism and meetings. It's definitely worth reading.
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Alina David
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Re: Dreams that ought to be scary but aren't

Post by Alina David »

ranger_lennier wrote:You're basically describing an augmented reality game there. And yes, those could be pretty awesome. Vernor Vinge wrote a novel called Rainbows End not too long ago where almost everyone wore augmented reality contact lenses that could take the environment the user would normally see and add, subtract, or change various elements. The applications included games much like the paintball game you describe, as well as stuff like virtual tourism and meetings. It's definitely worth reading.
The book sounds super cool! Thank you!
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