Malachy Jackson Site

I like to keep note of any dreams I have that I think are particularly noteworthy. Sometimes I write them down, sometimes I just keep note of them by describing them to friends over a messaging app. Lots of art starts out as dreams – Kubla Khan, Twilight, Battle Royale, the whole concept behind the Insane Clown Posse – so I keep them on hand as a bank of ideas. But it’s deeper than this. I love dreams; how real they can feel, paired with how unique they can be, the different things people dream about or the way that people dream. I once had a friend who deliberately deprived himself of sleep believing that sleeping would conjure visions of his ex.

However, whilst fiction inspired by dreams is commonplace, fiction explicitly about or taking place in dreams is rarer. ‘It was all a dream’ is typically seen as a complete cop out. I know of two games entirely about dreams, those being LSD: Dream Emulator and Yume Nikki, but they aren’t like my dreams. They’re all about exploring surreal environments, coming across inhuman creatures and seeing strange sights, whereas my dreams always have people, dialogue and some kind surreal narrative to them. They’re populated by celebrities, people I know and fictional characters. They exist in the brief, blurred flashes everything becomes when you’re extremely drunk.

So, when prompted by a university assignment to make a game in Twine, I decided to string together various dreams I’d had, writing expies of fictional characters and merging their roles together to connect them. The narrative started with a recent dream I’d had, of being in an indentured servitude comedy duo, and spread out into dreams from all across from life.

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