inspired by the Twilight Zone

So, I just watched one of the coolest Twilight Zone episodes ever. The basic premise is that this guy goes to a psychiatrist and tells him that he has been awake for 84 hours, about 4 days straight, because he has a heart problem that would cause him to die if he endured too much shock. He's not been sleeping because he's had a series of dreams, all continuations of the previous one: in the dream he goes to a carnival and this hot dancer lady tries to kill him. The dreams make his heat beat fast, so he's afraid that he has another dream he'll die from the shock of it. After telling the doc his problem, he leaves and sees the receptionist, who happens to look exactly like the girl in his dreams. Scare witless, he goes back in the doc's office and proceeds to jump out the window. The scene then switches back the office, where the doc calls the recepitionists and tells her that the patient who just came in like two minutes ago laid down on the couch and fell asleep and died. (Important note: in the beginning, the guy went and laid on the couch, creepy music played, and then he got up and told about his problem). Turns out that the entire scene was the final dream, and he had died after falling asleep on the couch.

The shows ends with the narrator saying something along the lines of "They say a dream can last a second...a whole lifetime could be spent in a dream."

I pondered this episode and the quote for a minute or two, and naturally my mind went on a hay ride of imagination...



So. I want to base a roleplay off of this.


Perhaps:

The world in which our characters live is bizarre, twisty, and often illogical, sometimes normal. Everything to them is oddly familiar yet not, and they think they've lived there their whole lives. I mean, it's entire parallel existance to our own reality. Their world is just a dream in which they've all met(somehow, we'll figure that out), but they don't know it's a dream.

They all live in different countries or different states around our world, but are somewhow connected.

In the dream, when someone dies, it's because they've woken up (but, ofcourse, the rest in the dream don't know it).

The plot could be that after having this strange and bizarre dream life, something happens to where each of them are killed and wake up. How they are killed and what happens after they wake up is up to the course of the plot, but it has to be something exciting and weird.

After waking, the person should have a recollection of the dream, like how you normally do. But, ofcourse, they go on with everyday 21st century life...until everyone that was in the dream somewhow meets(I'm thinking like they all go to an international peace for Africa concert or something like that and run into eachother, or something else that would force them together).

The roleplay would start in the dream world and progress to the morning they wake up.


Everyone thinks that's their life, and our reality is suspended to them. Their entire life has been lived in a few minutes of REM sleep, where dreams take place.

Everything is up to the roleplayers. All types Fantasy, especially Dr. Suess-esque and macabre is welcomed. You can be whatever you want, no specific time period- just modern overtones. You can use your own dream experiences, too (Like marrying an old wrinkly african man, like in one dream I had :-[ ). It's yours to sculpt, use your imagination. Just remember all the cracters must interact and are living in this world- they don't know it's a dream.

Do you understand it? If not, I can try to explain a little bit more.



Comments, critique, and suggestions are all welcomed.


If you're interested, just post a basic profile- you don't need a history or a detailed description, you can lay that out in the roleplay.