Entering the Dreamworld

Close your eyes and make it just so
The adventure game or role-playing hobby is about escapism in the same way reading a novel, watching a movie or listening to a radio drama is. It is about laying aside the cares of the day for a few hours and day dreaming. In role-playing it is playing make believe on the table top, usually with friends who share the cooperatively created alternate world or setting in which characters that do not really exist have fantastic adventures. The game gives the participants more control over every aspect of the created, shared make-believe reality than any novel, movie or radio drama could possibly do because it is being created in real time, during the game and perhaps most significantly, cooperatively. That shared experience, the act of cooperating in the creation of setting, characters and action is at once empowering and liberating. Anything is possible, but the unexpected may happen at any time. I think in some ways it may parallel the dream experience.
While dreaming we seem to be in control of our dream selves. We make decisions and react to what we perceive to be the environment surroundings us. Unexpected things may happen in the dream, but we generally choose how we react to them. We are in control, but also not quite...we are both observer and participant. At times we even seem to be able to shape what comes next in our dreams, to will it into happening. Yet we view it all as it unfolds around us, with sound, smell, touch and taste, perhaps even experiencing pain or pleasure. Strong emotions such as anger or fear can remain with us even upon awakening because in the moment, the dream feels very real. Our minds have escaped into the dreamworld.
We can talk about daydreaming - the act of imagining an alternative to reality while being awake as a pleasurable mental escape. Playing out entirely in our mind, the daydream can take us far away to a place remembered or imagined, often a place with some element of strong appeal. It has some aspects of dreaming while asleep, but seems less real and unexpected things rarely occur in a daydream. The shared social experience of group tabletop role-playing takes daydreaming into a collective reality where others talk as if the imagined is actually happening...and it is, at least within our imaginations. It has the potential to become immersive in the same way a book or movie can. The shared game experience can be talked about afterwards and again, as a shared memory, it mimics a "real" experience. It is a thing which happened..."we were all there."
Have fun making some game "memories"!