Dreams, Fiction and Second Life

“The people who say you are not facing reality actually mean that you are not facing their idea of reality. Reality is above all else a variable. With a firm enough commitment, you can sometimes create a reality which did not exist before.” -MARGARET HALSEY

My subconscious has been stirring what I revealed in the last post, and I had a dream that reflected this.  It was based on the Christmas Special of Doctor Who that’ll come tonight.  I’ve been looking forward to it, sure.  But this David Tennant’s Doctor in particular has struck a balance in his character that works.  He is silly, cheerful, joyful and also cold and ruthless.  Sure he doesn’t use a weapon himself, but as has been stated in the show, he makes people his weapon.  Not that that’s a way the way forward, but the simple fact he can show both sides may be a lesson my subconscious wants me to learn.

The dream itself was odd.  I was watching and was the Doctor at the same time, even David Morrissey was there.  Martha Jones was the companion (I never noticed a preference, but I guess it was the default).  After a bit of a replay of the Children in Need clip except with Martha, my subconscious really went crazy and went downright normal.  There was a woman, who bumped into me/Doc tor and we started dancing the tango in between market stores with flowing canvasses to mambo italiano.  Interesting fact: That actually happened to me, back in my bar-tending days.  The canvasses were less flowy and I couldn’t dance well.  After that it became some sort of film noir spy thriller featuring the Doctor.

When I woke up I thought how awesome the dream was, I got to thinking about the nature of real life verses a created reality, be it second life, dreams or fiction…  What is the function of dreams when you try to bring them into waking life and is second life good enough?

I admit that I haven’t taken full advantage of everything it has to offer, and I haven’t given too much of myself to it.  I think I have created only one creation of my own free will and here’s a picture:

My first and only build so far

It is a steampunk style furnace/boiler, being steampunk it had to look doable by the average person, so I wanted it to look like it’d been salvaged by a train wreck, then I had to integrate it with the house.  I enjoyed it, but make mistake, it was very prim heavy and I hadn’t even learned the precision primming many quality products need.  Perhaps I am too picky, I had to make each plank different and made sure the furnace looked supported.

Second Life seems like a shortcut to the dream-whelm.  And that is the beauty and the failing of it.  That anyone can dream and people will have different opinions on what is good enough.  Maybe everyone is settling for the closest thing to the dreams they have and won’t take the time to make sure everything is ‘perfect’ to them, but isn’t it worth it when you find something which is obviously to the standard that the builder wanted?

Maybe I don’t focus on my SL building because it does feel like a shortcut to the worlds I am trying to create in my fiction, but maybe that is the wrong way to look at it.  Maybe I should see it as it’s own thing, but that would be denying Second life it’s own right as a window to people’s dreams and I don’t want to take from those people that do have the focus and the quality control.  Some of SL you need to use your imagination to make things better, other parts fire your imagination.  The trick is finding what you want out of it, what kind of dream you want to get out of it and how you use it.

I guess I haven’t found my thing yet.  That said I enjoy RP in SL because there is an element of imagination through words, and not just what you see on your screen.  Sometimes, just sometimes, I dream about writing an original role play and sim for second life.  Maybe that should be my driving force.

~ by Dashiell Hawker on December 25, 2008.