A free to play online game, Deep Sleep is a point-and-click horror game, reminiscent of old school adventure games like Return to Zork. In the game, you collect and use several normal, every day items in order to solve simple puzzles that require little more than logic or trial and error. It is also a very frightening game, one that will most likely give you nightmares. But what is it about?
In Deep Sleep, you are someone, no name, age (though hinted to be an adult), or gender is ever revealed, which helps the player just assume whichever identity they wish. The game starts with a simple quote:
"When you look into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you."-Friedrich Nietzche
Already the mood is set. You're in a bedroom, you've just woken up. You pick up a key and open your drawer. Inside the drawer is a music box. You open it, and suddenly the world around disintegrates. Your bedroom walls are almost non existent. In your bed is a skeleton; who it used to be, you don't know. You are not awake at all, you're dreaming. And you know it.
You go down the stairs, you hear the phone ring. You pick it up.
"Wake up. You've got to wake up. You've got to escape."
You're still asleep, and you can't wake up. You're still in your dream. There's no one else in the building. The hallway is dark, you pick up a flashlight in order to traverse it. You come across a door. You open it. There's something on the other side, a terrible person made of shadow! It inches towards you, if it touches you, you're dead. You close the door as quickly as possible. There is a light bulb on the floor; you pick it up.
You manage to exit the house, but you are still dreaming. You are on a beach, there is a lighthouse near. Behind you, more of those shadow people! You race towards the top of the lighthouse, escaping the shadows. You place the bulb in the search light. The shadow people inch closer to you. You shine the light on them, destroying them! You finally wake up...
Deep Sleep is a short game, with many play through of the game lasting less than twenty minutes. However, it is highly memorable and remarkably scary. Why? There are a few reasons.
First off, there's the atmosphere. The game is dark, not just metaphorically, but literally as well. It is rather hard to see sometimes, and often, you'll increase the brightness of the game just to be able to see. And that's not even counting the puzzles that require the flashlight, which are pitch black. You can't see a damn thing save for what you point at with your flashlight. And in a game like this, where you're always on edge, that's going to heighten the tension ten fold.
That's another thing the game has going for it. The moment you truly realize what's going on, you're on your guard. If you've played any horror games, then you know to expect many jump scares, cheap scares derived from disturbing imagery that comes out of nowhere. As you play the game, you expect these scares ALL THE TIME. And why shouldn't you? It's dark, hard to see, and you're in a dream. This game is perfect for jump scares. But there aren't that many, and the few there are really make you jump. I am not ashamed to say, the first time I encountered the shadow man, I was a bit scared, especially since I didn't know what to do and then died.
The game is great, but what is it about? Well, to find out about the meaning of the game, we need to discuss what Nietzche's quote means, and what dreaming really is.
"Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster as well, and when you look into the abyss, the abyss looks into you." This quote first appeared on Friedrich Nietzche's philosophical work "Beyond Good and Evil". It is a simple warning, of one to care that he/she does not become that which they fight against, a warning that has gone unheeded by many.
On to dreams. What are dreams? They are, scientifically speaking, images and sensations conjured by your brain during your REM sleep. Why we dream, though, we don't know quite yet. However, people have given thousands of possible explanations for why we dream. Some people believe dreams to be a window towards a parallel universe, others believe that dreams are messages from beyond our world. People have been fascinated by dreams for a long, long time.
There are also lucid dreams, dreams where we are aware that we are dreaming. Often, lucid dreams can be controlled, and many actually attempt to have lucid dreams for this very purpose. But how does this come to be? We don't know one hundred percent.
Nightmares, on the other hand, are a type of dream that disturbs the dreamer, giving them negative emotions, like fear or repulsion. Nightmares are common, everyone has them. I've had them. Why do we have nightmares? We don't know. Some nightmares arise from stress, others from illness, terrible sleeping positions, and some even think a bad meal can cause nightmares. However, the thing is, we don't know WHY we have nightmares; the only thing we have are hypotheses.
Deep Sleep explores the concept of diving into the unknown. The player character is searching through the dream world, experimenting with lucid dreaming, only to find himself in a place beyond his control, with elements that mean him harm. The player does not know why, and we never find out (until the sequel, Deeper Sleep, which provides some hints).
So what's Deep Sleep about? Is it about the dangers of diving into the unknown? Is it about how there are things we are better off not knowing about? Or, is it a meditation of what is, essentially, the most frightening thing in the world: the human mind? After all, dreams come from our own minds.
However, there is one element that throws this idea out: the shadow people. The sequel, Deeper Sleep, explicitly states that they are real, NOT a figment of the imagination. So, with this element in the equation, what is the meaning of Deep Sleep?
Well, I believe Deep Sleep to be about the horrors of the unknown. It's that feeling, of not knowing what's going on, what's going to happen, that horrid paranoia that keeps you on edge because you don't know. And what happens when you try to know? You put yourself in harms way. That's why the shadow people attack you in Deep Sleep, because you are treading where you shouldn't be. It's not even about you being in their territory.
We can find out what's in Outer Space, or what's in our oceans, or what's beneath the earth. But the human mind remains our biggest mystery, and there are those that say, with good reason, that this is one mystery that should never be solved. The human mind is the scariest thing we've ever encountered. This is one abyss that stares back at its observer, and that is what Deep Sleep is: an abyss that stares back at the player.
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