[ oo2 ]

[icasm]

FORM: crystal
SENDER: Loki
RECIPIENT: all of Riftwatch
NOTES: nada

Since dreams are a popular topic:

Where do they come from? The Fade, here, of course, but what else is at play?

For those that don't know and don't particularly care for the first question: are you a better person than the one in your dreams or a worse one?

Comments

[armd]

(Not touching that second question because she didn't sign up for an existential crisis delivered by crystal but)

They come from your brain, right? Synapses firing, shit like that.

[icasm]

Yes, execept for the part where the entire dreamworld of this place is in its own physical plane.

[armd]

Maybe it's magic. (Abby you can't keep pinning things you don't understand on magic)

[justanyone]

Sin... apsies?

[icasm]

Ah.

There is... power, in the brain. Electricity. Small lightning that moves beneath the skin, under the bone.

[bouchonne]

What is "goodness"?

[icasm]

[ A sigh. And an eyeroll, though that doesn't really translate over crystal. ]

An excellence of morals and/or behavior. Not your type of scene, I'm sure.

[bouchonne]

What a very rude thing to say to me.

[elegiaque]

( in a tone of sort of morbid fascination, )

Do you dream being a different person?

[icasm]

On occasion, yes.

[elegiaque]

That must make things confusing.

crystal;

[notathreat]

Sometimes worse, sometimes better. Depends on whether I'm dreaming about something that actually happened, or something that might happen.

[Serious, for once.]

[icasm]

Do you think you could become the better person you dream of?

[notathreat]

Depends. Does becoming a better person erase all the shitty things you did?

[Quick pause.]

... maybe. I don't know.

[muckspout]

Was taught that nightmares were punishments for doing bad things or thinking bad thoughts and good dreams for good things or good thoughts.

Dunno if that's true though. Lots of dreams are just--neither?

[icasm]

Normally I'd agree but this month it has been all nightmares, all the time so far.

[muckspout]

Well. [A little laugh.] How much good have you been up to lately?

[cozen]

[ Breezily: ] I'm much worse. Which are you?

[icasm]

Depends wholly on the dream. I'm more complicated, I think.

[cozen]

Oh. That's lucky. I've always wished I was complicated.

[ It may or may not be a joke, but it's definitely self-deprecating. ]

But I would only want to be misunderstood in a cool, mysterious way. Never when it was inconvenient.

[exequy]

Spirits.

[ His tone, like he's bothered he has to answer this question, made him a super popular instructor to the little apprentice mages. ]

The Fade is the landscape. The raw material. Without spirits it would be a dark wasteland to us. They want to evoke a response from you, and they use what they see in your mind to shape the Fade into what might make you feel that way.

[icasm]

Spirits.

And nightmares are purely under the control of spirits as well?

[exequy]

Yes. I mean—when I say spirits, I include demons. But the nightmares are not always demons. For every demon who wants you to be afraid there is one who wants you to feel pride or desire. We call those good dreams. A spirit of compassion showing you something terrible happening to someone you care about so you will be moved by it, we call a nightmare.

[rebellionyell]

My dreams seem to be content with picking at scabs, not necessarily challenging my character.

[icasm]

Probably for the best, then.