Steal my last days
Take my loved things
But please, I beg of you
Let me keep my precious wings
I have never been so nervous for posting an SCP. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.
Steal my last days
Take my loved things
But please, I beg of you
Let me keep my precious wings
I have never been so nervous for posting an SCP. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.
Picture:
By Bidgee [CC BY 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], from Wikimedia Commons
Special thanks to my army of critiquers:
Y'know, I've always hated dream skips for the reason that there's no way to corroborate what a person sees in their dreams. Yet I apparently hate the idea of magical dream recorders to get around that problem even more.
I guess there's just no pleasing some people. :| Novote.
Fun fact, this is actually a real technology that they're sort of working on. Some entrepeneur named Daniel Oldis and a cognitive neuroscientist named David Schnyer were presenting some proof of concept for dream recording at a 2016 sleep researcher conference.
It's not unreasonable for the Foundation to monitor muscle twitches, neurons firing in the language and visual centers, etc with super advanced tech.
How does that even work? Dreams are so personalized, they can't possibly find a universal language of brain waves and muscles twitches to translate into cohesive imagery. Talking the real, here; if it's conceptualized in our world, there's no doubt the Foundation could have a version that actually works.
There's an article in Discover Magazine that points to some studies where they say they currently they can't do sound, but they can do low resolution pictures. If you dreamed of a face vs a tree for example, the computer can define that.
No reason to think the Foundation can at least do medium resolution pictures and low quality sound.
'These neural patterns resemble more tree-thought patterns as opposed to face-thought patterns' (those studies look pretty dubious from a quick skim - 3 participants?) versus 'we have translated your brain waves into understandable and accurate reproductions of what you are dream-seeing and the speech you are hearing' have such a vast gulf between them they may as well be completely unrelated. It's like saying that since we got to the moon, it's plausible to think FTL travel is around the corner with slightly more advanced current technology.
I don't think completely accurate dream-recording is a deal breaker for my suspension of disbelief in the Foundation universe, but it does just need to be handwaved away with magic.
Alright, due to the number of comments I've gotten about the NIEs, I've included a brief mentioning of thaumaturgy to help suspend disbelief.
I really like what you're doing with the magical element. Connecting the "willpower" and the "magic" is a great concept for a story and philosophically inspiring to boot.
But what was the connection to history?
So, one of the main driving themes I was going for, (most prominent during the experiment log and the first part of the 3rd collapsible) is that history is dictated as much by the events that don’t occur as the events that do. So many people have potential to change the world, yet only so many actually wind up in the history books.
So this morning I thought of a better title. Thanks 19 for confirming that it was, in fact, an improvement.
What was the original title?
Originally I had "When Dreams Come True" to play off of the motif of the realization of one's desires. However, I realized that wasn't really thematically similar to what the article is about, so I decided to go with the current title which is more meandering, which fits more with the tone I was going for.
It’s also just a damn beautiful thought that I appreciate regularly.
I don't know much about voting on each other's 4000 entries, but it seems to be allowed. I upvoted when I read "A disinformation campaign is underway to convince the general population that dreams of flight are common occurrences."
I loved it as a draft and love it here.
The alternative histories you provide glimpses of are interesting, and honestly, I wish there were more entries logged. Additionally, you make the embodiment of SCP-4000 come across as sinister while not being overly cartoony.
+1. Job well done, CK.
I wasn't sure where it was going at first but I think the whole thing wraps up nicely. I will say that I'm not sure the exit interview is necessary for the article. +1
didn't mean to reply, sorry
I'm glad you enjoyed!
I will say that I'm not sure the exit interview is necessary for the article.
Just because I'll take any excuse to explain my own writing, I wanted to keep this because it was always set to be the emotional climax for the piece. Like, sure it doesn't directly relate to the anomaly, but I could justify it being there, and I felt like it was needed to wrap up Pine's character arc.
That final interview is so sad… And my name is Holly so it caught me off guard :p