Lucid Dreams – How to Experience the Ultimate Virtual Reality

Lucid Dreams – How to Experience the Ultimate Virtual Reality

By Casey Douglass

The other day I realised that the subject of lucid dreaming is something that I’ve not written about for almost two decades. When I was at high school, and later college, it was something I was truly fascinated by, but not really having any kind of platform to write on back then, those scribblings have likely been lost to the winds of time.

Here is a lucid dream related how-to post, drawing on techniques and tips that I can remember as being useful in helping me experience the lucid dream state. Others will likely have different techniques, but as with many things, it’s a matter of finding what works for you. If these techniques don’t produce results, a quick web search will likely bring up many more for you to try.

First a warning though. Anyone that has trouble with differentiating reality from non-reality, maybe due to mental illness for example, would probably be wise to not venture too far into the idea of lucid dreaming. Only you can decide if it’s right or wise for you to try, but it can be pretty head bending at times.

If you do decide to push ahead, you will find a wonderful, quirky world inside your sleeping mind, one in which you can be a superhero, a supervillain, or anything that you can conceive of. You own imagination is literally the limit. Without further ado, let’s get started.

What is a lucid dream?

A lucid dream is a dream in which the dreamer knows that they are dreaming. A bit like Neo knowing that he is in The Matrix. It’s a moment of realisation that often comes with a “Holy shit I’m dreaming!” excitement, only for said excitement to wake you up and leave you feeling annoyed, like someone who’s just been locked out of paradise. There are ways to get around that however, but I'll get to those later.

What is a lucid dream like?

Knowing that you are dreaming is a pretty intoxicating feeling, marvelling that your mind has created this whole seemingly real world for you to play in. I once wasted an entire lucid dream running my fingers over a leaf on a tree, and I’m not even a hippy-type guy. The “realness” just felt so uncanny, my mind kind of got lost in the novelty. I would add that it was only a 30 second or so dream, I didn’t spend ages doing it. I’m not weird. Honest.

Lucid dreams are like the ultimate VR, one which has a very low financial cost to enter, but that takes its payment in the form of the effort and patience in trying to get inside. Some will likely experience lucid dreams without trying, but others might go their whole lives and not really experience a single one. I remember a good friend at high-school who could never remember having had one. He was ecstatic when he came in one day beaming that it had finally happened! It’s one thing to know something is possible, it’s another to know it because you’ve experienced it!

How do you trigger a lucid dream?

In the years that I’ve been reading and studying the subject, a wide variety of methods have emerged. I will describe just two for now, two of the most straightforward, and to me, the two most successful.

Keep a dream journal

If you are going to be doing anything with dreams, it is very worthwhile to note them down upon awakening, whatever the time of day or night. Even if it’s just a few keywords, getting something down on paper creates an anchor that can unlock other memories when you mull it over at a later time.

Keeping a dream journal with any kind of regularity will boost your dream recall. Those initial handfuls of keywords upon starting will soon expand to fill pages in your notebook. You are basically signalling to your mind that you are interested in these things, and so it puts more effort into remembering them. As a handy side-effect, just keeping a dream journal often seems to cause a higher occurrence of lucid dreams in and of itself, maybe due to said heightened interest, so it’s a win-win.

Test your reality

The second method for having a lucid dream is to periodically check or test the environment around you as you go about your day. The dream world is strange at the best of times, and even in seemingly hum-drum dreams, our usual mindset of blank acceptance makes everything seem normal. How many times have you seen things in dreams that in waking life would have left you incredulous? It is in their strangeness however, that dreams offer up the key to picking up on the fact that you are dreaming.

There are a number of clues that you can look for to see if you are dreaming. I mean, after all, how do you know you aren’t dreaming now? It’s possible. This is where keeping a dream journal comes in handy, as you can pick up on the behaviour of your own personal dream world and note down its tricksy ways.

Firstly, settle on a trigger that will prompt you to do your reality check. Maybe whenever you check the time? Every time you open a door? It could be anything really, as long as it happens quite frequently during your day. It will also help if it’s something that you know you do in your dreams too. The idea is that you will perform your trigger enough that the habit will carry over into your dreams. Personally, I like the time checking one, as it kind of comes with its own built-in reality check.

Writing and numbers tend to change in dreams. They certainly do in mine. If I read something, even a simple sign, turn away, and then turn back, there will be some kind of change if I am dreaming. The same goes with digital clocks. This makes reality testing when I look at the time a big no-brainer. I simply see my clock, remember the reality check, and then look away and appraise my environment for any weirdness that doesn’t make sense. Then I look back at the time to see if it has changed beyond the few seconds it should have. If it has, there is a strong chance that I am dreaming. If it hasn’t, chances are that I’m not. I should also add that if the time has changed in a strange way, one more look at what is going on around me will usually give a blatant clue that I am dreaming, such as seeing someone who I know to be dead, walking and laughing across the street. The checking sometimes makes the weirdness come out of the woodwork, so to speak.

I should probably add that it’s important to do more than one reality test if you suspect that you are dreaming. I tend to try to levitate on the spot as if that works, it’s game time, and it’s something I’ve yet to achieve in waking life. Another test is trying to remember my day or night up until that point, as dreams often have a pretty broken narrative. Can I remember getting here? What did I do before that? and that, and that etc. If I’m at a loss, it’s another sign that I am likely dreaming.

Another great exercise that aids in this narrative-based test is, before going to sleep at night, try to remember your day, but backwards, as far as you can. So, starting from the act of getting into bed, and then getting ready for bed, having that biscuit, watching Netflix... until you get all of the way back to the morning and when you first woke up. It doesn’t matter how far back you can actually remember, but the act of trying will see you get better and better. This will help a great deal with the “narrative” questioning reality test, and also help your memory in general, even helping you remember your dreams more easily. A virtuous circle if ever I saw one.

Be sensible with your tests. No trying to see if you can fly by jumping off something dangerous, or assuming you’re dreaming and going on some kind of bender. You need to use your common sense and with practice, you’ll soon know with more certainty. The first time you think you are dreaming, a good bet is to just go along with the dream but doing so while trying to hold onto your knowledge of the fact. It’s quite easy to forget you are dreaming again. If you can hold onto the notion, you’ll remember things more easily, and you can explore your mental landscape in a more considered way.

I think that about wraps up this first post on lucid dreaming. You have a few techniques and tips above that will, over time, help you to experience a lucid dream, but persistence and patience is what is needed. My aforementioned high-school friend tried for months before it happened. It might happen on the first night for you. Who knows.

If this article does well, I will write more. The next ones will feature ways to prolong the dream state, techniques to manifest the things in your dreams that you like (maybe that celeb you’d like to do naughty things with), and other fun things you might like to try, such as causing false awakenings and going recursively deeper into the dream state.

Thank you for reading, and if you’d like to chat more about lucid dreams, leave a comment or send me a message on social media.

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Dark Fiction - Suddenly...Nothing Happened

Suddenly...Nothing Happened

A dark tale by Casey Douglass

Image used freely courtesy of Splitshire

A thick plume of smoke erupted from the delicate container, the glass emitting a worrying cracking noise as the internal pressures tried to become external as quickly as possible.

Lance shied away behind the thick tome propped open in front of him, hoping for some kind of protection from the possibly imminent explosion. Sweat dripped from the tip of his nose, which he briskly wiped on the back of his hand. He looked down at his hand, wondering if it was sweat glistening on the back of it, or snot, his mind weighing the odds before a particularly loud crack brought him back to the room.

‘Focus Lance focus!’ he muttered to the empty room. The mental image of a photographer fiddling with a lens stole into his mind, words like "aperture", "white balance" and "ISO quality" floating around the periphery. In a movement so swift it somehow surprised even him, his hand shot up and deposited a stinging slap on his right cheek. His glasses flew swiftly from his face and clattered to the floor. He uttered a strangled cry, his face red, his teeth gritted, in a mask of pure irritation. The fumes from the beaker started to reach his nose now, the particles tickling and tugging at his nose hairs. He sniffed and spluttered as he sank to the ground, his hands desperately pawing at the floor. His finger knocked something skittering away, which to his ears sounded like an expensive visit to the opticians if ever he’d heard one. He scurried further along, the thick base of the bench always pressed to his right shoulder. He reached the end and felt a gust of air around his now exposed side. 

‘Blast!’ he shouted as he turned about face and headed back the other way. His ears were pricked, listening for the sound of breaking glass and the early signs of a manifestation; the sort that cost you your career and your license to experiment. Not to mention the body count that would likely be involved. 

His head bumped against the leg of his chair. Muttering he heaved himself up and sat on it panting. His eyes were blurry, the room indistinct. He had no idea if anything was in there with him, or if he was even in there with himself any more. He could have changed multiverse, he might be a colour in some painting of the room, or the tattoo on a prostitute's back in the early twentieth century. The reaction going on in the container had slowed somewhat now, the crackles and occasional pops coming at less regular intervals. He coughed in his hand, and with unfocussed eyes, attempted to check that there were no spiders, pixies, rats or Djinn. You only got that blasted Fairytale flu once, and it haunted you forever. He sighed away the tension at the sight of his empty palm.

***

Lance sat for some time, the flask not reacting, the room silent around him save for the slow ticking of the clock behind him. His heart fluttered as he pondered, an involuntary grin on his face.

‘Oi oi!’

Lance flinched.

‘Oh...hello Barnham.’

‘Make you jump? Ha! Too easy! Don't know why I bother any more.’

‘Some people are just bastards I guess.’

Barnham stood behind him now and smacked him hard on his back. ‘Too true too true. What are your glasses doing over there? Been looking for pennies again? Or have you been looking up that Miss. Curmudgen’s skirt again!’

‘Well I never!’ Lance exclaimed, his fists bunching.

‘Stay there. I’ll get them.’

‘Thank you,’ seeped through Lances clenched jaw.

‘Here.’

‘Thank you.’

‘So what were you doing?’

‘It was a sequence of mishaps. It isn't important.’

‘I see you have a red hand on your cheek! It was Mrs. Cur-’

‘NO! I was trying to snap myself out of something, a reverie of sorts.’

‘My word, what will the master say! Spying on that poor Miss...’

Lance’s face relaxed and he grinned.

‘What’s so funny?’

‘Well, the master will be promoting me soon, so I don't care what lies you spread about me and the aforementioned lady.’

‘Promoting you? Why in the hell would he do that?’

‘Oh I don't know,’ Lance said in a singsong voice. ‘Perhaps because I did an experiment and nothing happened!’

Barnham’s mouth slipped open so suddenly it made a popping sound.

‘N-Nothing?’

‘Not a single thing.’

‘No manifestations?’

‘No.’

‘No mythics?’

‘No.’

‘No matrix like inversions?’

‘No... nothing!’

Barnham grinned, his eyes glistening. He launched himself at Lance, his arms wrapping him in a tight bear hug. ‘At last! At last!’

Lance alternated between tittering and sobbing as he returned the hug.

‘You know what this means?’ Barnham said as he leaned back and looked in Lance’s eyes.

‘Yes!’

‘If we can apply what you did to everything else, we don't need to live in fear again!’

‘Yes!’ Lance nodded like a cat watching a butterfly.

‘We can make a cup of tea and not be afraid what might fall into the cup! We can run a bath and add some perfume and not need to have two harpoonists on hand in case something surfaces. My dear fellow! What did you do? How?’

Lance pointed at the book behind him. Barnham leaned over and burst out laughing.

‘Of course! Of course! Why didn't anyone else think of it!’

Lance grinned. ‘Good old Tome of Statistical Evaluation, nothing brings outliers under control like probability tables!’

‘What... this isn't the Tome of Statistical evaluation!’

‘It’s not?’

‘No, it’s the combined collection of Harry Potter, the book that got all those kids into reading hundreds of years ago, before they found that magic did indeed exist!’

Lance stood up and swayed a little in a stunned silence, the tuna sandwich he’d subdued and eaten over lunch threatening to make another appearance.

Barnham laughed. ‘Of course! What better way to bring about nothing of interest than applying the techniques in a fictional book. When everything switched after that Large Hadron Collider “unpleasantness,” the sciences became mythical and magic became our reality. Pity we still don't know how to use it, but at least now we might be able to live a normal life without strange creatures manifesting every time we turn a light switch on!’

Barnham slapped him on the back again and rushed from the room shouting, ‘Breakthrough! Breakthrough! Get the Master!’

Lance exhaled for the first time in what felt like at least five minutes, his thoughts chiding and berating him. What a fool, what a fool! He hadn't discovered anything on purpose, it was just dumb luck, that's all it was, dumb luck! How on earth had he managed to mistake the contents of the two books? How? No doubt Barnham would soon be telling everyone that it was he who’d added two and two together, and come out with four, for the first time in decades. 

Lance slammed his fist down towards the bench top, missed, and ended up hitting himself in the thigh. His leg buckled as the feeling left it. Falling forwards, he hit his head on the wooden edge in front of him and blacked out. The last sound he heard was the old bell being struck in the distance, cheers swelling around its chimes. And thus, he slept through the dawning of a new age.

THE END

Thank you for reading. This story was written some time ago but is only now being published in the hope that it will spur me on to get back into the swing of writing fiction again. It may be a little rough and ready but on the whole, I think it's sound. If you enjoyed this short story, please tell your friends and share a link to it on social media. Getting eyeballs on writing is an ongoing struggle, so every little helps. Thank you :).

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Dark Fiction - The Goat of Hades

The Goat of Hades

By Casey Douglass

as part of #FridayFlash

Phil trudged along the narrow dusty tractor track, the incessant buzzing of flies darting around him starting to get on his nerves. It was getting late but the hot summer evening was as stifling as ever, the setting sun smirking as it bathed the fields in a fiery golden glow.

He looked up from his phone and could see the back of his house looming in the copse in the distance. He loved living here, nice and quiet with great views, but it was a pain in the backside to get back to civilization. He swished a finger across the icons and began searching for take-aways.

‘Chinese...na.’

To his right, a wire fence conspired to keep a few motley looking sheep from wandering away. The smell of animal crap and sweaty fur made Phil’s nose itch.

‘Pizza...nope.’

He batted a fly away.

‘Psst!’

‘Indian...could fancy an Indian.’

‘Pssssst!’

Phil looked up and glanced behind him. Shaking his head he went back to his phone screen.’

‘Oi!’

Phil jerked upright and stared all around.

‘Down here!’

The voice came from Phil’s right, but he couldn’t see anyone.’

‘Down!’

He swivelled his eyes down lower. A mangy black goat stood at the very edge of the wire fence, its glistening nose pointing straight at Phil.

‘Bingo!’ it said.

Phil felt his back and shoulders relax, the tension stuttering through his body and flowing away with each deep breath he forced into his lungs. ‘Oh this again!’ he said.

‘I don’t know what you mean, but I need your help!’

‘Oh do you! Might I say that’s not very clever, a goat in a field of sheep!’

‘Drop that tone mortal. I am the Great Goat of Hades! Show me some respect!’

Phil's vision began to shimmer and go dark around the edges as he stared at the goat, its black fur darkening, its eyes beginning to glow a little bit red around the edges. ‘Very impressive, but I’ve had worse.’

‘I will kill you!’

‘Then who is going to help you? I don’t see many candidates!’

‘I don’t have time for debate. This vessel was moved here by the farmer and had a shock collar put around its neck.’ The goat craned its neck, the heavy buckle of the collar glistening in the fading light. ‘Take it off me!’

Phil stared around him and shook his head. Everything else looked so normal, the settling dusk, the birds roosting, even the jogger in the very distance with a pink t-shirt on. His mind went to his stomach which was gurgling and felt like it was holding his other organs hostage. He sighed and stepped over the fence. Better to get it over with.

The black goat turned and raised its chin, its small wispy beard matted and tangled into a briary point. ‘Good!’

Phil got behind it and stood over its back, one leg either side. He reached down and pulled the collar around so that he could get at the buckle more easily. He unfastened the flappy bit and paused. What had he done before when stuff like this happened. Oh yes.

‘Wha-,’ was the only sound the goat emitted as Phil yanked hard on the tongue of the collar as he stood up to his full height, his knees pinning the back of the now kicking animal. A horrible gurgling sound filtered out of the creatures mouth accompanied by a thick black jet of faeces at the other end. Phil gave a mighty heave and was rewarded with a sharp cracking noise. He let go, the lifeless goat falling to his feet.

He stood still and panted, his hands shaking and greasy with sweat. A cool evening breeze blew across his brow, the moisture on his face lulling his mind. He heard muted scuffling from a way behind him. Turning, he looked at the huddled sheep that had now taken up residence in the furthest corner of the field. He looked down and nudged the black shape with his foot. He smiled.

‘I could fancy a kebab!’

Stooping, he lifted the thing over his shoulder and ponderously straddled the fence to get to the path. The flies buzzed around him with renewed ferocity, diverting his attention just enough that he didn’t feel the ground shudder ever so slightly. He grinned as he walked, his mind clear once more. It had been years since he’d heard voices, but he knew how to shut them up. That rabbit at Easter when he was ten, the dazzling little white dove that glowed and that grinning smirking reindeer with the red nose. Oh yes, he knew what to do!

--THE END-- 

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Dark Review - Franklyn

Franklyn Review

By Casey Douglass

Written and Directed by : Gerald McMorrow
Starring : Eva Green , Ryan Phillippe , Sam Riley , Bernard Hill

Reality is a fickle thing. No sooner do you think that you have it pinned down, then something comes along that makes you question it, or some bright spark tells you that there are many realities, and everyone’s reality is unique to them. Well if that is true, in my reality, there is no place for line-dancing, Justin Bieber or four quid popcorn at the cinema. However, whatever reality you reside in, Franklyn is a film that plays with this kind of brain twisting issue with great skill.


The film is set in two superimposed realities, the more mundane and rainy high-rises of London, and the fantastic vistas of Meanwhile city. It follows the story of four people who wend their way through the winding streets, all suffering with great feelings of loss and sorrow, and all clinging to some manner of psychological crutch to help them live through the pain. The four are entwined from the very start of the film, the tangled threads of their solitary lives pulling tighter together as the film progresses.

One of the characters is firmly entrenched in Meanwhile city, Jonathan Preest (Phillipe). He walks the streets a persecuted man as he is the only inhabitant of Meanwhile city who has neither faith nor religion. Meanwhile is chock-full of all kinds of religions, from the familiar to the more extremely farcical. There is one based on the manual for a washing machine and another based on the noble art of the manicure. The Ministry (read as the people in charge) is forever on his tail as he tries to find and kill the head of a shadowy organisation called Duplex Ride, an individual that is ironically known as the Individual. This shows one of the many philosophical questions laced throughout the film. A lone guy with no religion in a city of faithful sheep, wanting to kill the one guy known as the Individual. The whole film is littered with clever thought-provoking devices like this. As far as character realisation, Phillipe plays Preest with suitable menace, his lines snarled out through a face (when not wearing Preest’s mask) that he manages to keep reasonably emotionless, yet still somehow conveying threat.

The other three characters are more firmly in London, although each has at least one aspect of their life that could be seen as a bit “Meanwhilish”.


Emilia (Green) is an art student who frequently orchestrates her own suicide attempts as a means to reach out for something, some kind of loving contact or resolution to her internal struggles. Eva Green plays her so well; she is a master of mercurial emotions sliding across her features, all somehow ending in a look of trapped sadness. Eva Green also plays another character in the film who is the mirror opposite of Emilia. This character is light and airy and all of the things Emilia is not.

Milo (Sam Riley) is suffering from rejection as he is jolted at the altar on the day of his wedding rehearsal. Cue lots of forlorn thousand yard stares and kicked puppy expressions from Riley as he plunges into the feelings aroused by everything falling away from him, taking sanctuary in his friends and the familiar.

The final character is Peter Essa (Hill), a man of religion and curator of a church. He is searching for his son, in more ways than one, and his crutch is his unwavering faith in God. Hill plays Essa very well, making him come across as humble and put upon by the world. He is also good at getting some of Essa’s naivety to shine through when dealing with some of the harsh realities of what is going on.
The stories of these four flirt with each other throughout the film, often visiting somewhere in Meanwhile city as a passenger with Preest, then some time later seeing the corresponding part of London with one of the others. In this way the film imparts meaning that otherwise might be lost. It does leave a fair few head scratching moments that aren’t explained though, which I like very much.

One scene sees Milo follow someone he thinks he knows into the basement level of a building. He hears children laughing and playing, yet when he walks into the room, it is full of old men playing dominoes. I am not sure what that means; maybe it was Meanwhile intruding on London. Who knows. There is also a strange cleaner who all three of the London-based characters talk to at one point or another. He seems to know what is going on, and his words prod them onto different paths. This isn’t really explained at the end of the film, you are just left to draw your own conclusions, which again, I quite like.

The threads of each tale come together quite spectacularly at the end of the film, where for good or ill, some things are resolved and others don’t really end very well.

The film itself is shot very well. Meanwhile city is a true metropolis with ram packed buildings reaching for the sky, large statues and figure heads looming over them in a sort of Gothic splendour. The characters are all shot with a slightly different colour palette which lends their scenes deeper emotion and novelty, and the score is suitably orchestral, varying from the grand theme of Meanwhile city to the quiet mundanity of urban London. Each element plays with the others to produce something that just feels very right.

It is a truly great film, one that hasn’t had nearly enough coverage in my opinion. I managed to miss this at the cinema, and it is rare to see it on Blu-ray or Dvd in shops nowadays. It is a little easier to purchase online but not by much. I think this is a great shame. I can only wonder if it sells any better in Meanwhile city.

Rating: 5/5

IMDb

Also available to read here on Generic Movie Blog UK.

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Dark Fiction - Desire

Desire

By Casey Douglass

for #fridayflash

Project Heaven 17– Day 1:

Ramsey managed to find a suitable test subject last night, thank goodness! Who would have thought that a city with such a large population would soon be milked of its homeless transients. He said that he found him asleep behind the warehouse on sixth street, although he almost missed him as he was almost totally covered in broken cardboard boxes. The poor guy jumped at the chance Ramsey presented and no sooner was he through our door, he’d signed the wavers and was causing serious damage to a large buffet table while we readied the room. In all seriousness, I wasn’t sure if the food was reaching his mouth or if his beard was being fed like some strange creature.

This morning, after a much needed bath and spruce up, our subject was escorted to the room and told to do what he wanted. The first few minutes were spent with him pacing around staring at the white walls, probably not really believing what he had been told. Ramsey, ever the patient one, soon had his finger pressed tightly on the microphone talk button. “Just try something simple, it doesn’t have to be anything fancy!”

The subject looked at his hands and after a short pause, there was a small pop. A box of southern fried chicken appeared, which he promptly dropped in alarm. The whites of his eyes scanned the room, the poor fool obviously suspecting some kind of trickery.

“That’s it!” cried Ramsey. “Keep going!”

He did. That first day, we saw millions of pounds of luxury goods appear, cars, jewellery and fancy chocolates. In fact it was only at this point that we thought to show him how to get rid of things or the unfortunate soul would have drowned under a mountain of metal and plastic. Around eight hours in, the subject complained of a headache and said that he felt extremely tired, so we called it a day. Tomorrow we will introduce the concept of landscapes.

Project Heaven 17 – Day 2:

The subject fed himself this morning with a manifested breakfast of fried eggs, hash browns, chips and chocolate cake. He was most eager for the days experiments. As were we.

“Try to produce a scene,” Ramsey urged. “Something you remember maybe.”

With that, the vista in the small white room changed almost instantly. Sparkling sand covered the floor and golden rays of sunlight bathed the subject in a warm glow. We could only see part of the scene as the subject walked, the Movement Inhibitors doing an admirable job of making him think that we was really moving. Moments later his feet were splashing through white flecked seawater, a giddy smile on his still unshaven face.

Shortly afterwards we were treated to varying scenes, ranging from a barren monastery in Tibet to rush hour in the middle of London, all the his smile stretching from ear to ear.

Once more the subject became fatigued after a number of hours so we broke for the day. Tomorrow it’s people.

Project Heaven 17 - Day 3:

It is the end of day three and there is little that I can write that would not be censored. Ramsey raised the topic of manifesting people, although he made it very clear that anything would just be a copy, not THE person. We have since been treated to fourteen hours of sex and depravity, with film stars, singers and random other females that were obviously known to the subject. I can’t say that I blame him, it’s a natural impulse and I admit that I might do the same if I had the power to. Soon, we may all have the power to.

Project Heaven 17 – Day 4:

No practice today. We had scheduled it as a rest day, but it happens that the universe conspired to make it a certainty. The Dampener field malfunctioned last night while maintenance and calibration was being performed. The whole room had to be dissolved and re-substantiated, which took our ageing Quanta PC the best part of six hours. I dread to think what that will do to our electricity bills.

Project Heaven 17 – Day 5:

Today, we have given our subject free reign, he can do as much or as little as he wants. The experiment now starts in earnest.

Project Heaven 17 – Day 23:

I apologise for the apparent jump from five to twenty three. I have taken the decision to summarise as the apparent changes on any given day were very small, but taken as a whole, they make more sense. Anyone wishing to read the full version of the report is more than welcome to request it at the usual place.

The subject continued the pattern of the first few days for around a week, manifesting everything that he had ever wanted, visiting the places that he had always dreamed of; some imaginary, others based on the real places. Around day ten, his creations became more mundane, and focussed a great deal on apparent childhood events, people and places. His mother featured many times, often to put an arm around his shoulders. It was very touching, even Ramsey looked to be stifling the odd sniffle.

Approximately day seventeen, the subject’s dalliances twisted into something more sinister. Violence began to feature heavily in them, firstly inflicted by him onto others, and later, by others onto him. A number of mythical creatures began to appear regularly, werewolves, vampires and some kind of living gargoyle. During this time, the subject seemed to be unable to control his sobbing and often shuffled around, his eyes always focussed on something in the distance.

On day twenty three, the experiment ended. The subject manifested an incredibly tall mountain, so tall that it made Everest look like an ant hill. He stood on the snow encrusted apex for around an hour before suddenly spreading his arms and hurling himself into the void. We watched as he fell, the wind ripping at his clothes and hair, twirling him around and around. His fall lasted around ten minutes, as I said, it was a monster of a mountain. He hit the ground with a sickening thump before vanishing from sight as his insides covered the cameras. The room is currently being sanitized and an appropriate container has been found to gather him up in.

Conclusions of Project Heaven 17:

We have observed nothing that has changed our previous hypothesis. While the methodology of the earlier experiments could be questioned, on the settings of the machine and various other factors such as psychological make-up of the subject and unintentional observer interference, we can conclude that the human mind cannot survive in an environment that gives in to its every need and desire. Without struggle and striving, the human creature creates its own problems to fret and worry over, eventually turning to the morose and the harmful. We will continue our line of research, and some fresh ideas involve limiting exposure to the room for pure recreation times of no more than an hour, but that phase of testing will not achieve endorsement before the new year.

Credits:

Emett Hesky - Lead Researcher.

Ramsey Smith – Technician.

Subject number 17 – John Doe 17

The End

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Pondering - Unhappy Endings

I’ve liked unhappy endings in the books I read, the films I watch and anything else story driven for sometime now.

My earliest memory of enjoying one was an old episode of the Outer Limits. A human was being held captive by aliens and a woman in the cell with him was being slowly changed into an alien. She was upset and he confided in her that the rest of the human space fleet was beyond x planet, ready for another push. She stood up and thanked him, and the door immediately opened as she was led from the room. As she left she said, or he realized, I don’t remember which, that she was an alien disguised as a human all along, and she was reverting to her natural form. He’d just fucked the entire human race. The episode ended a few moments later.

I was about ten at the time, maybe a little older, and that has stayed with me to this very day. I think it was the first thing I had seen that ended on such a sour note that it shocked me.

So why do I like unhappy endings? I think some of it is that life is more variable than the hero always winning, and so an unhappy ending often feels more realistic. In any typical action film full of peril, the hero might do one hundred leaps, jumps, falls, dodges etc. If that was real life, he or she would probably be dead after dodge five. Or if they survived longer, something at some point would occur where their luck would run out. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not arguing for films or books to be the height of realism, I do like my physics bending, special powers happy endings too. It’s just that they don’t stick with me as long as the bitter ones do.

Another reason I prefer the darker ending is that it pays more homage to the people who may have died along the way. How many times have we seen hundreds of people killed in the course of a story, but when everything ends with laughter and parades, its suddenly all okay again, and we don’t need to think about them any more. A dark ending doesn’t mean everyone has to die, but you can bet that the ones that do will be remembered by the ones that didn’t.

On a purely gratuitous note as well, its nice to see the monster/demon/or whatever actually win for a change, instead of always being foiled at the last moment.