Hallucinations

[Gran]

So, with such important thing being discussed over and over, this idea popped out of my tiny little insane mind. I think this won't be the most successful suggestion ever made, I don't even think it will achieve any success, but I think hallucinating would be nice to be implemented.

Hallucinations would be randomly triggered by ingestion of large quantities of alcoholic beverage or by suppression of senses ( i. e. resting on bed in complete silence while wearing a blindfold. See Ganzfeld Effect. ). When hallucinating, a message would pop up, something as as "You feel strange/euphoric/warm" or some other random feeling. Then some other messages would occasionally pop up, fake event messages or simply absurd messages ( "You feel like you were shrinking", "You see a trout in its twenties grab a note", "You see a man in his seventies ride a horse").

It could come in different levels, in a way that some more violent psychotic effects might be noticeable to other chars on the char's description. Also, different levels work to balance the psychotic evolution. Ingestion of alcohol would induce to high level psychosis much more easily and faster than sense suppression.

All would be cured in a certain period of time. If induced by alcohol, then the time would be proportional to the amount ingested. If by sense suppression, it would stop as soon you came out of it.

If you people ask, I'm just suggesting this for the hell of it.

[Doug R.]

How would a hallucination manifest in the game? What would it say?

[Gran]

How would a hallucination manifest in the game? What would it say?

Edited the post as soon I noticed I forgot to mention. You posted first though.

As mentioned, hallucinations could: Fabricate regular messages (but without any basis), create random messages by mixing arbitrary elements ( i. e. "You see [agent] [action] [subject]." "You see [a man who is very old] [kill] [a whale].") or even shoot feeling messages (i. e."You feel faint." "You feel sick." You feel euphoric.").

But if you mean "actual effects", as in, making your attacks weaker, there is nothing as such. Besides messages, I don't think of any other effects. But really, screwing up your senses' input is already a serious effect.

[SekoETC]

Ooh, it would be interesting if it could create "you see X die" messages, that would be a good way to creep people out. Also I've read that hallucinations are more often auditory than visual (well, unless there's alcohol involved, or drugs) so hearing stuff should be more common than seeing things. But if there was spoken stuff that was totally imaginary, it might not work in a multi-lingual game.

[*Wiro]

I adore this suggestion.

[Drael]

Of course one should have some form of hallucinogen to facilitate it other than alcohol. A good moderate idea would be absinthe as a drink. Added herbs give the mind effect.

We need more drugs in cantr. Even some ciggerrettes would be mighty cool. at the moment, tea gives an amphetamine like effect, alcohol makes you heal and both of those are weird. Herbs should make you heal, get energy and give drug like effects IMO.

All this stuff is great for RP.

[*Wiro]

I think the you feel faint message could have its effect replaced with this.

[Gran]

I adore this suggestion.

Funny, I thought you would hate it.

Ooh, it would be interesting if it could create "you see X die" messages, that would be a good way to creep people out. Also I've read that hallucinations are more often auditory than visual (well, unless there's alcohol involved, or drugs) so hearing stuff should be more common than seeing things.

For light psychosis, that might be true. I mean, it is hard to get high enough to start seeing unicorns and such. If it was easy, whole universities would be closed because of mass hysteria caused by people seeing things. The hallucinations could trigger some "You hear [sound]" messages then. Just need to come up with the sounds. Buzzling, static, stomping, etc.

Also thought of hearing voices. It is more complicated. Generating speech is something more complicated too, and would require big effort from the LangD and the ProgD. Maybe just a more generalist message would do the work. Of course, not something blatant like "You hear voices", but only for you to get the idea that you hear or *think* you hear something. It wouldn't be like hearing a conversation, but much more like hearing the whispering from Lost ( I don't know a ready example for this message, but it could be like "You hear the sound of whispering/unclear whispers"].

Another idea is to sort out words that were spoken recently (less than five days) to your char. That would solve language problems, at least. Would be something like "You hear unclear voices. It's hard to understand, but you can hear the word 'Redrum'"

We need more drugs in cantr.

Well, there is a lot of things that we can come up, and even should, in my opinion. I mean, this is mainly a role-play suggestion, and no one currently can force you to get high, so there's no reason to block access to it too. So there must be more than a few ways to get hallucinogens.

Hallucinogenic versions of mushrooms and tea could be introduced, maybe petrol based drugs, and, mostly important, molded bread. Might sound silly, but fungus that thrive on bread were said to be responsible for hallucinations and mass hysteria that drove the witch hunts in Europe.

I think the you feel faint message could have its effect replaced with this.

With the "You feel sick" message or "You see a trout talking with a man in his twenties" message?

[Keyenhancer]

Also I've read that hallucinations are more often auditory than visual

I'm not sure what you read, but I personally experience hallucinations (without being drug induced, or by no known cause according to my doctors). It is something I learned to control, but the majority of my hallucinations were visible - e.g. gnomes, transfiguration of my parents into other things, the death of my mom once (Saw her throw herself into our 50gal fish tank when she actually just walked by it on the way to another room. . ), a never ending bed to a sunset, a stone bed raising me to the ceiling, nothing staying in its place. I also suffered auditory hallucinations, and I could feel everything while in one.

The sensations were usually amplified, sounds consisted of threats to my life, requests to run. . .just run, arguments in my own mind inhibiting my movements (Luckily I have a loving wife who knows to drench me in cold water if I can't bring myself out of it, hehe), the gnomes singing (don't ask), among other things.

Sensations ranged any from my bed turning to concrete and becoming hard and cold under me, to fear that if a task was not completed I would be seriously injured or killed, fear to run, prickliness, etc.

I'm ok now. . . .In the last 6yrs I've only had 4. At any rate, I hope this helps in the hallucinations, as far as what sort of occurrences could come about during one.

Some things I think that could give a hallucination is 75% hunger, alcohol poisoning (if its possible), working too many days in a row or severe tiredness. If food spoiled - eating too much rotten food, could even give a hidden stat that might cause random or easier-to-induce hallucinations.

By the way, I only feel safe saying this here, cause no one knows me here.

[Doug R.]

I think this is something that should be left to roleplay.

[SekoETC]

It's just that if the hallucinations were clearly different from events the game normally produces, the player would know it's not true and might choose to ignore them, but if it was stuff like knocking, "you see X trying to attract your attention from Y", hearing people talking to each other or you or in public, or people dying, you couldn't be sure what was real and what's not. Designing clearly impossible event messages just for the sake of adding hallucinations would be too much work for something that could be ignored as easily as the sneezes. I think it would add to the game if someone could be like "could you stop whispering all the time?!" and the others were like "huh? No one has said a thing in hours". Or if someone insisted on hearing knocking from an empty building. You're right it could be left to rp, but it would be interesting if even the player wouldn't know what's real.

[Gran]

By the way, I only feel safe saying this here, cause no one knows me here.

Well, now we know you're the weird kid who got... idiosyncratic hallucinations.

I think this is something that should be left to roleplay.

I disagree.

It's just that if the hallucinations were clearly different from events the game normally produces, the player would know it's not true and might choose to ignore them, but if it was stuff like knocking, "you see X trying to attract your attention from Y", hearing people talking to each other or you or in public, or people dying, you couldn't be sure what was real and what's not. Designing clearly impossible event messages just for the sake of adding hallucinations would be too much work for something that could be ignored as easily as the sneezes. I think it would add to the game if someone could be like "could you stop whispering all the time?!" and the others were like "huh? No one has said a thing in hours". Or if someone insisted on hearing knocking from an empty building. You're right it could be left to rp, but it would be interesting if even the player wouldn't know what's real.

As it is a voluntary thing, I don't think it would be like sneezes. I mean, were aware of it and chose to see the weird shit. Not the case of sneezing.

And unless really high, you would only get regular fake messages (which could have a far more interesting effect on the regular cantrian, as you said ), but they would intensify in the proportion that you ingested toxic substances.

Hearing some knocking is okay, and might be ignored, but depending on the quantities ingested, I think that would be simply impossible to ignore it.

Also, there would be symptoms that you weren't okay. The person would show signs of it, so even though you said to the town leader that you're okay, he'd look at your greasy, sweaty hallucinating person and ask again if you were really okay or wanted to rest.

More violent hallucinations are for rich people who can spoil money on wine and orgies and who want something to have fun and discuss with their rich friends. And since slavery and torture are not common, this would be the next best thing.

I think that if hallucinations occurred out of nowhere, it would surely be ignored, just as much sneezes are, but this isn't the case.

[Keyenhancer]

Keyenhancer wrote:
By the way, I only feel safe saying this here, cause no one knows me here.

GranAttacker wrote:
Well, now we know you're the weird kid who got... idiosyncratic hallucinations.

Oddly enough there is a book called, 'Hallucinations: the Science Behind Idiosyncratic'. But the term with hallucinations is rarely ever used, in fact the book was the only source that used both together.

Either way, I do believe I found more information on the condition from you, than from any doctor previously. The book is very interesting, as it seems to deal specifically with the 'eccentric' hallucinations, like what I used to encounter (and on extremely rare occasions, still do today). Thanks

Cantr II: A unique world for your enjoyment, pleasure, growth, language skills, and now Health.

[Gran]

Either way, I do believe I found more information on the condition from you, than from any doctor previously. The book is very interesting, as it seems to deal specifically with the 'eccentric' hallucinations, like what I used to encounter (and on extremely rare occasions, still do today). Thanks

Well, I feel honored. I imagine what would you find if I said it right then, because the correct adjective is idiopathic, not idiosyncratic.

I must keep away from these words when sleepy.

[SekoETC]

Nethack has a pretty good hallucination system but then again Nethack has a lot of good features. It's a bit unnatural that items can be seen as any item and they are randomized at each step, but such an approach takes less effort to implement than figuring out which items look alike and could be seen morphing into each other. In there also monsters change into any monster and there are some distorted event messages, like "you hear a soda fountain". This might be getting a bit off-topic but one time I was playing Nethack, and I saw a winter wolf cub and I was like "that can't be real on this level, I must be hallucinating". Well, turned out it was a chameleon and it can also use the abilities of the creature it has morphed into, in this case ray of cold. I didn't die but I think it froze some of my potions and shattered them.