Valorous Visitation of a by-gone Vexation

With all the weird dreams I have been having recently, I can't help but wonder if its really just pure coincidence for me to discover this game.

Anyway, yes its a game. And a darn old one at that. It was released back in 1998 (Pokemon anyone?) only in Japan for the PlayStation 1. LSD doesn't stand for the drug in case you are wondering. Its an acronym for Lovely Sweet Dreams. The game is anything but lovely or sweet.

Tell me how this translates into anything sweet or lovely?

Unlike normal games, there is no princess to be rescued in LSD, no final boss to defeat (there's not even random monster encounters), no world to be saved, no quests to complete, no achievements to achieve. The sole purpose of the game is for the player, which would be you or me, to explore the dream world in the game.

That is rather peculiar but intriguing at the same time.

The dream world in the game is actually real. Not real as in really real but real as in its not made up. The game was created based on the dream journal of an employee of the game company, Hiroko Nishikawa, which he has kept for 10 years. So essentially, we are seeing the dream of another person when we play the game.

The concept of the game is rather cool. Frankly speaking, I love it. But I am not so sure about the game itself.

A nightmare. No doubt about it.

I was expecting something more realistic but hey, we are talking about dreams here. But really, I was expecting something more dream-like, like a ghost haunting you, dreaming of happy moments with your crush -

Ok. I realized the flaw in my expectation after thinking for awhile of how to complete my previous sentence; there are no limits to the kind and types of dreams we can have. We can literally dream of anything and everything. Hence, there is no meaningful reason to try and categorize dreams into more realistic or fake.

Perhaps the graphics back in 1998 couldn't portray what the game developer was trying to show? I mean look at all those pixellated figures and images. Or was that exactly what Hiroko dreamt about?

Creepy.

Your first dream starts in a house, with you (playing in the first person perspective) facing the window. Each dream lasts for about 10 minutes during which you are free to explore around till your hearts content. To move to different places in the dream, you either enter tunnels in the dreamscape or run into objects/walls.

And you can die in the dream world, which will definitely happen should you run into the Grey Man during your exploration.

So he kills you in your dream... only for you to dream again so that he can kill you again?

 
I wonder what is the significance of the Grey Man to Hiroko... In any case, meeting the Grey Man is not the only way to die and dying in the dream "wakes" you up and returns you to the main menu, where you can choose to continue exploring a second dream. But before that, you will be shown a chart of some sort that supposedly rates the dream you just had in four categories - upper, downer, dynamic or static.

Looks like some drawings to communicate with aliens.

There is a video file in the game disc titled ENDING.STR which nobody has managed to open to date. It is rumored that the ENDING.STR video file will play automatically once you completely fill the chart but filling it up is very tedious given the random nature of the game.

Perhaps its not a video file but just another part of the game's programming code. Perhaps its really a video file that will be unlocked upon completion of the chart. Whatever it is, its mysterious stuff like this that sparks my interest.

There may be no main objective in the game but it keeps track of your gameplay by the number of days you spent exploring the dream world. Or dreaming, if you would. Reaching your 20th day of dreaming will unlock the Flashback option, which allows you to revisit previous dreams which you have explored.

You can dream up to an infinite number of days if you have the time and patience. The furthest I saw a player go is 79 days.

I haven't played the game yet but I've read its review here. I wonder if I can get it on my PSP.

On a side note, now I am inspired to start keeping a dream journal.

The Empire State Building and Pacific Maoi!?