Plural Stories

This submission comes from erinptah!

"I thought I had this down, you know. I would always be the aloof and inaccessible conjoined twin, the shadowy passenger to your outer life. But now I’m triggered. The revolution is on. More people are coming out and singing their songs. I want to belt out my part before we eddy into eternity."

Blurb (from Goodreads): Two identities struggle to coexist in Ronnie Gladden's body, brain, and soul. On the outside, they are Black and male. Inside, a repressed White female identity begs for release and is ready to break the status quo. Grappling with double-binary thinking, an abusive father, and childhood trauma, they imprison their inner self to stay safe from the world.

Why is it worth your time?: A plural memoir unlike any other I've ever read. A series of letters between Ronnie and his headmate (only identified as White Girl, or WG); although both of them identify Ronnie as the core/original, WG's perspective gets significantly more page time. They don't struggle with amnesia or time loss; it seems they've both been aware of each other since WG's appearance at age 4, the struggle is about validating each other and learning to coexist. Possibly the most in-depth reflection on "our physical body has one race, but this system member has a different one" in existence to date.

Plural/1+ Tags: abuse intermediate-focus, creator speaks from experience, people: imaginary friends, relationships: teamwork

Content Warnings: Contain spoilers; see comments!

Accessibility Notes: Print and digital/ebook versions available. Published in 2023, so new copies are easy to get (or have your library get).

Misc. Notes (if any): I didn't tag "type: medical" because Ronnie/WG don't use any psychiatric/DID-related terms in the memoir. (Not clear whether they've actively rejected the diagnosis, or whether they've never come across it in the first place, so they haven't had a chance to consider it.) But the experiences they describe are a typical DID origin story, of a child in an abusive household whose brain instinctively generates headmate(s) for coping and protection.

I'm not sure whether to tag dreamfolk/fictioneers, because none of those are described as full-fledged headmates the way WG is. But they write about internalizing fictional/TV characters pretty intensely ("you—we—brought these characters along in the same way most go and buy clothes"), and transcribe some "dream scene" conversations between them. Wouldn't be surprising if a future memoir said "we now realize those were from a roundtable of fictives having a chat."

"We sometimes forget that the memories that ESV latches onto are always traumatic. This meant that patients who die have had their traumatic memories repeatedly multiplied by ESV until their brains can no longer function. Thus, it is into a memory of endless trauma that divers and their companions descend."

Blurb: A disabled veteran and the burnt-out King of Limbo are recruited to wade into the memories of patients with a sleeping disease, hoping to find its cause and cure. But something isn't right...

Why is it worth your time?: This is a really solid manga with good art, an interesting story, and robust characters. Sci-fi thriller with flavors of Paprika and Inception.

Plural Tags: abuse low focus, memory work, otherworld, dreamfolk, teamwork, setting-specific, visions, nonhumans (AI/robot animals)

Content Warnings: contain spoilers; see comments

Access Notes: Available in paperback and ebook, in English and its native Japanese.

Misc Notes: Six tankoubon volumes in Japan, three big ominbuses in English!

"Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed,
The dear repose for limbs with travel tired;
But then begins a journey in my head,
To work my mind, when body's work's expired:"

Blurb: A poem about traveling to one's companion in dreams.

Why is it worth your time?: It's fucking Shakespeare, the most celebrated author in the English language.

Plural Tags: abuse not mentioned, dreamfolk, intimate and friendly relationships

Content Warnings: None whatsoever.

Access Notes: It's Shakespeare. You can find it EVERYWHERE. Here, here's a link with notes! It's so short, we will also post it in the comments below.

"Gameplay:
- Go to sleep in the bed and open the door to enter the dream world.
- Explore the dream world and collect effects.
- The dream world is very large, so use landmarks to navigate: walk straight in one direction until you come across something to use as a landmark, then change direction and walk straight until you find another landmark, and so on.
- If you get lost or stuck, press 9 to wake up.
- You can save your game at the desk when you're awake." (from the Readme)

Blurb: A young woman who cannot leave her room explores the strange world of her dreams instead.

Why is it worth your time?: This game has a devoted niche following for its surreal, open-ended sense of mystery. It just drops you into an environment with lacking instructions and leaves you to figure it out. There are all sorts of strange little easter eggs, including dream creatures you can't interact with or even see under most circumstances. This is a game that's easy to get lost in, in all senses of the word; I had to play it with the Wiki open. It's something to be experienced, rather than beaten. Also, it's free!

Plural Tags: abuse not mentioned, dreamfolk, enmity (but only if you choose it), visions

Content Warnings: contain spoilers; see comments

Access Notes: There are surely a bajillion Let's Plays of this game, but we haven't seen any of them and can make no recommendations. Being an RPGmaker game, both the old fan-translated version and the new Steam version are Windows-only, far as I know. (We played the fan-translated one.)

Misc Notes: This game may have helped inspire Lisa: the First! There is also a manga and a TON of fanmade games, none of which I have touched. Seriously, if you want a fandom to dive into, Yume Nikki will keep you busy forever.

“Oh, but this was a delightful dream,” Miss Agatha hastened to assure her. "It was a dream of you and a baby. You’ve always had a Madonna look, you know, Emily, but there you were all Madonna. I can see the little thing now with its sensitive wee face—it wasn’t more than six months old—and a patrician dot of a nose and mysterious blue eyes...”

Blurb: Miss Emily and Miss Agatha are two inseparable spinsters and roommates. When they were younger, they taught children together, but now they have retired. Then Miss Agatha starts having recurring dreams that she and Emily have a baby together, named Vanderkoep (Agatha's last name), who grows and ages like any other infant. Miss Emily studiously writes down everything that occurs, but he only ever appears to Agatha...

Why is it worth your time?: It's a short, bittersweet story of romantic friendship and a non-traditional family from over a century ago. This is an odd duck, and I can safely say I've never read anything like it. It's a pretty good story, and at least to 2020s sensibility, Miss Emily and Miss Agatha's relationship feels pretty queer. Their devotion to each other and their dream baby is touching, and even though the ending is sad, I don't feel like the story judges them or their relationship.

Plural Tags: dreamfolk, inner children (for lack of a better term), abuse not mentioned, plural family

Content Warnings: contain spoilers; see comments

Access Notes: Available for free online, on account of it being in the public domain, and the text-only transcription was so poor I decided to clean it up and repost it myself.

Misc. Notes: Dunbar, the author, was active in the women's suffrage movement in the USA, and herself only married at 41. Her work had feminist themes, and I think this story is no exception.

“Sometimes there are births. When an Earthling human believes so strongly in a living, nonliving or otherwise fantastic creature that he sees in his dreams, that creature is born from the river. These Earthlings are called Creators. If the Creator of the creature ceases to believe or forgets, then the creature will no longer exist and it will be as if he had never been."

Blurb: A suicidal young lucid dreamer joins forces with her dream man, two winged telepathic unicorns, and another lucid dreamer to save the Earth's dreamworld from destruction. Based on Julie Brady's own long-running lucid dreams.

Why is it worth your time?: For most people, it isn't. If you want a plural story that really takes advantage of the dream setting, watch Paprika. As a fantasy novel, Dream a Little Dream is not very good--simultaneously grimdark and schmaltzy, with a dragging plot, and the Piers Anthony trademarks of boobs and vampery. That said, it may scratch your id for escapist fantasy about the power of dreams and fantasy to help someone survive a brutal reality, and it's of historical interest as Julie Brady's dream diary.

Plural Tags: dreamfolk, in-system romance, imaginary friends, otherworld, creator speaks from experience, abuse intermediate focus

Content Warnings: contain spoilers; in comments below

Access Notes: Available in paper, ebook and audio book forms.

Misc Notes: In the Author's Notes, Anthony writes, "An aspect of [Julie's] mundane [real-life] existence is in Nola [the main character], just as her dream existence is in Kafka [the setting of Dream a Little Dream]. Julie has the talent of lucid dreaming--that is, knowing and controlling one's dreams. This story took form gradually as she recorded those dreams. When it was ready, I took it over and reworked it into a formal novel. As with all of these collaborations, the story is the collaborator's; I merely do what is necessary to make it presentable."

Brady herself says, "I enjoyed writing this book, which, incidentally, was taken from a serial dream of mine over the course of a year or so. I used the serial dreams I had to escape the horrors of my life. [...] At first, the idea of publishing my journal seemed crazy. I don't consider myself a writer [...[ The main thing that appealed to me was to share what I had seen in my sleep with you. The idea of my dreams living in print thrills me no end and is as close as I may ever get to an achievement I could be proud of."