What do aliens dream of?

[Acatiaant]

Just to help pique my imagination, how do folks here envision alien dreamlands beyond our solar system - around other stars like Algol, Fomalhaut, Betelgeuse, etc.? What beings or monsters would an alien dream of?

[JDS]

Electric sheep.

[Darius West]

Well, first let us address what we know about sleep and dreams in humans...

Humans sleep because we need downtime to maintain our bodies.  Sleep it a time of running repairs when our body sets about healing itself and reversing chemical systems or preparing things we don't need for excretion.

Dreams however are something else again.  When we sleep, our neuroreceptors clear themselves of the extraneous chemicals excreted during the day.  We also record various things to memory.  As we experience and react to the world while awake our neurons become flooded with various chemicals, and these need to be put back where they belong so we can "pay attention" tomorrow.  Now dreams seem to form as part of a rebooting of consciousness.  During dreams our visual cortex, which is also the seat of our visual imagination, is used to generate scenarios during which our adrenaline is set to spike and wake us up.  This is the cause of nightmares, as often the imagined imagined scenarios are disturbing.  Similarly, sometimes we don't make a clean transition, and our mind is awake but our body remains inactive. This can lead to lucid dreams which are great fun and in CoC potentially allow access to the Dreamlands. Of course there is a less positive experience too i.e. we are awake but experience shadowy threats in the room with us because of the excess adrenaline in our system.  Worst of all is the reverse situation where we gain full control over our bodies but are still effectively having a dream or nightmare; this is a schizophrenic episode.

The primary purpose of Mythos monster sleep is not the same as it is for humans.  Yes, they may allow their bodies to repair while they sleep, but they sleep for different reasons:

(1) Hibernation.

The ability to hibernate is useful for an interstellar species.  Space is large and if travelling for great distances, the energy required to maintain consciousness may become superfluous given that there may not be much to do.  Hibernation can also be a strategy for waiting out a threat, or awaiting an opportunity.  For example, going to sleep while the present generation of human investigators lives, grows old and  dies off is one way of dealing with the threat they pose.  Great C'thulhu however is waiting the day when human population reaches a critical feeding threshold according to some theories.

(2) Longevity.

Some mythos species will actively use sleep and their species' powerful regenerative abilities to allow themselves to live forever.

(3) Dreams as a magical technology.

Even human characters will notice that the things that happen to them in their dreams will improve their skills, and the same is true for monsters.  In many ways the dreamlands are like an mmorpg where the benefits are a secondary source of magical power and skill increases in a fraction of the usual time.  Dreams are also a fine place to perform magic whether simply to communicate over large distances or to attack adversaries minds directly when they are not properly prepared.  In extreme situations a monster can even hijack the body of a sleeping person and make them do nasty things.

But the crux of your question is what is a monster's dream like?

Well, some creatures like Hunting Horrors and Flame Vampires probably don't dream at all as they likely can't sleep.   We can see from the behavior of animals that when they dream, their bodies often trigger and they appear to be hunting, and there is no reason to suppose that in an uncontrolled dream, some mythos creatures will dream of hunting or being hunted.  There is no reason that monsters wouldn't have dreams of reproductive content too.  If a monster is able to dream, it might also commune with some sort of hive mind which serves as a species' collective memory.

As to what a monster Dreamland would look like, well, given that the human dreamland is something of an Arcadian fantasy land, what would the monster equivalent be?  A place where Yog Sothoth acts as the mass transit system.  Where fecund entities generate endless wealth and opportunity of an ever more slimy and pseudopoded variety.  A place where the Elder gods and Great Old ones can be met, worshipped and petitioned.  Where there is an endless supply of hapless victim species to use as currency.  A place where you can organ harvest in peace and develop a new monstrous body that is infinitely stronger than your waking world body.  Dreams are often described as wish fulfillment; what does a monster want?  If you know that, you can extrapolate their dreams, assuming that they even dream to fulfil the same biological purposes that Earth creatures do.  There are good reasons why this would be so, but there might be any number of explanations.

Edited April 7, 2022 by Darius West

[Acatiaant]

5 hours ago, Darius West said:

Well, first let us address what we know about sleep and dreams in humans...

Humans sleep because we need downtime to maintain our bodies.  Sleep it a time of running repairs when our body sets about healing itself and reversing chemical systems or preparing things we don't need for excretion.

Dreams however are something else again.  When we sleep, our neuroreceptors clear themselves of the extraneous chemicals excreted during the day.  We also record various things to memory.  As we experience and react to the world while awake our neurons become flooded with various chemicals, and these need to be put back where they belong so we can "pay attention" tomorrow.  Now dreams seem to form as part of a rebooting of consciousness.  During dreams our visual cortex, which is also the seat of our visual imagination, is used to generate scenarios during which our adrenaline is set to spike and wake us up.  This is the cause of nightmares, as often the imagined imagined scenarios are disturbing.  Similarly, sometimes we don't make a clean transition, and our mind is awake but our body remains inactive. This can lead to lucid dreams which are great fun and in CoC potentially allow access to the Dreamlands. Of course there is a less positive experience too i.e. we are awake but experience shadowy threats in the room with us because of the excess adrenaline in our system.  Worst of all is the reverse situation where we gain full control over our bodies but are still effectively having a dream or nightmare; this is a schizophrenic episode.

The primary purpose of Mythos monster sleep is not the same as it is for humans.  Yes, they may allow their bodies to repair while they sleep, but they sleep for different reasons:

(1) Hibernation.

The ability to hibernate is useful for an interstellar species.  Space is large and if travelling for great distances, the energy required to maintain consciousness may become superfluous given that there may not be much to do.  Hibernation can also be a strategy for waiting out a threat, or awaiting an opportunity.  For example, going to sleep while the present generation of human investigators lives, grows old and  dies off is one way of dealing with the threat they pose.  Great C'thulhu however is waiting the day when human population reaches a critical feeding threshold according to some theories.

(2) Longevity.

Some mythos species will actively use sleep and their species' powerful regenerative abilities to allow themselves to live forever.

(3) Dreams as a magical technology.

Even human characters will notice that the things that happen to them in their dreams will improve their skills, and the same is true for monsters.  In many ways the dreamlands are like an mmorpg where the benefits are a secondary source of magical power and skill increases in a fraction of the usual time.  Dreams are also a fine place to perform magic whether simply to communicate over large distances or to attack adversaries minds directly when they are not properly prepared.  In extreme situations a monster can even hijack the body of a sleeping person and make them do nasty things.

But the crux of your question is what is a monster's dream like?

Well, some creatures like Hunting Horrors and Flame Vampires probably don't dream at all as they likely can't sleep.   We can see from the behavior of animals that when they dream, their bodies often trigger and they appear to be hunting, and there is no reason to suppose that in an uncontrolled dream, some mythos creatures will dream of hunting or being hunted.  There is no reason that monsters wouldn't have dreams of reproductive content too.  If a monster is able to dream, it might also commune with some sort of hive mind which serves as a species' collective memory.

As to what a monster Dreamland would look like, well, given that the human dreamland is something of an Arcadian fantasy land, what would the monster equivalent be?  A place where Yog Sothoth acts as the mass transit system.  Where fecund entities generate endless wealth and opportunity of an ever more slimy and pseudopoded variety.  A place where the Elder gods and Great Old ones can be met, worshipped and petitioned.  Where there is an endless supply of hapless victim species to use as currency.  A place where you can organ harvest in peace and develop a new monstrous body that is infinitely stronger than your waking world body.  Dreams are often described as wish fulfillment; what does a monster want?  If you know that, you can extrapolate their dreams, assuming that they even dream to fulfil the same biological purposes that Earth creatures do.  There are good reasons why this would be so, but there might be any number of explanations.

This is great! It gives some ideas of aliens utilizing their dreams for various defensive or offensive purposes.

[Acatiaant]

I hope the new Dreamlands for 7th ed. touches on aspects of alien dreamlands a bit more than past editions, if possible.

Edited April 7, 2022 by Acatiaant