Superpersona

Experiments have the property of not having a certain outcome. For this reason, self-experimentation can sound disheartening. I decided to share my own psychological self-experiment; either for the convenience of You not actually having to do it, but still read about the so far progress, or to perhaps bravely try it out Yourself and see where it leads us.

Some of You might already know about the theory that describes how we humans wear behavioral masks for a variety of reasons, which we call personae. For the most part, we do this unconsciously, and I find that to be a shame. My reason for such logic is that, as with most things, if we are letting our psychical reality shape our behavior without our acknowledgment, our fate is less based on our supposed ability of having a choice. Therefore, I decided to coordinate my social roles, or to put it differently, I want to have a core sense for priorities to act upon. I'm sure that throughout history, certain people have already done things like this in Their own peculiar ways. By having an approach of my own which seems different enough from what I encountered so far, though, I consider this effort worth of its own theoretical framework.

The way I came to realize the divergence between my cognitive and behavioral patterns in different social contexts (including the secure feeling of being alone) was when I noticed my wishes changing from one minute to the other. Like at times not eating sugary foods made me a proud person who is pursuing a healthy lifestyle, just a few flickers later the same thought made me suffer and feel as if I'm depriving myself of the deserved pleasures of life. Or this other time when my aunt found me making weird sounds while I was browsing the internet. What made my brain pulsate with excitement was rendered into shame by a simple change of circumstance.

Dream Distillery: Africa, You Voodoo

I present another "series" on this blog. The one I already started is focused on clarifying principles from psychology. While this new one won't be outside of the mentioned scientific field, it is about exploring an area which I find to be missing a crucial angle of research. What I will be writing here are the re-imaginations and mash-ups of my most memorable dreams.

Oneirology, the scientific study of dreams, found many answers, definitions and ways to interpret dreams. Today we even have a machine that can record dreams. The way I see it, we are only accessing our nightly involvements from the waking world, from the outside. Far from that being bad practice in itself, it still misses a fundamental element: comprehending dreams for what they are, from within the dream side. Hardly could we call such an approach empirical by consensus, which is probably the reason behind the notable lack of this method.

These "dream semi-journals / short stories" won't be an attempt to unlock the secrets of the sleeping living. They will rather serve as expeditions into the intangible contents of my own symbolism, fur the sheer fun of it. The everyday common sense and logic may break under the conditions of my inspiration. These glances to a reality out of conventional time and space will have structural meanings of their own. Please, bear this in mind when reading. Comparing the inner rules to those of the external phenomena would, at best, be a philosophical effort. Instead, let's find out if we can leave our common sense behind for the sake of a different setup of reason.

This series of posts is labeled as Dream Distillery. Let me begin...

Dungeons & Daddy Issues

What happens in the dark? Not physically, but mentally. What monstrous realities do we imagine into the reflectionless moments of the world, like those of basements without electricity? In order to find out, let's add a couple of torches, and observe the whispers between the shadows. This is how every proper game of D&D should be played. That's how we used to do it, at least.

We did it hardcore: we used continuously refined house rules, went into endless negotiations with the DM in order to exercise the limits of possibilities that the multiverses of role-playing bring, listened to relevant ambient epic stoner, and quite often got lost between the boundaries of whatever is between our everyday personae and fantasy-flesh alter egos. (All this in a basement filled with dripping stalactites/stalagmites, of course.) Yes, we did it to pass the time and have fun. It's just a peculiar definition of fun. We did it to exercise our imagination and see how far we can go, when we bear the divine power of metamorphosis to take on roles of entities in worlds with yet undreamed qualities. How would we actually act if we could read minds? Or slit throats one after another in order to increase our reputation? If we lived among a gene pool of self-aware creatures so vast that with practically every adventure we could meet previously unseen races? What would our philosophy be; and which factually existing gods would we bow to? Would we decide against pursuing magic? And why?

As it turns out, leaving our own unconscious tendencies out of the picture is easier imagined than actually done. I had several characters throughout the years, of whom I'll mention the two I actually designed completely on my own. These characters lived, and they eventually died or went on quests to which our all-seeing powers had no interest in paying attention. When one of these two things happen, a player simply creates a new being to follow the rest of the adventuring party, who are destined to be played with by Their actual gods.