Intro: Memories are a fickle thing, so much of the memory itself is based on the person and how they felt during the situation in which it occurred. Memories that are more difficult to swallow the brain hide from the conscious mind in an effort to protect it. These memories, however, if damaging enough are persistent, rearing their ugly heads in different ways showing you madness, chaos, and the things you hid away from for so long.
In comfort Hides Horror: neverending nightmares dives into depression and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and dream theories. The person who designed it took inspiration from his own life to create the game, stating in an interview that he was "trying to create that feeling of bleakness and hopelessness” in Neverending Nightmares. I honestly believe he truly captured this essence as a whole, going through never-ending loops, having three separate endings shows the vastness of the dreamers aka, the main protagonist Thomas Smiths' experiences. The game endings you can get, are as follows.
Wayward Dreamer: After waking up from a bad dream, the younger Thomas goes into gabby’s room and kisses her goodnight.
Destroyed Dreams: you can achieve this ending after you’ve had to run from the hellish version of yourself, you then wake up in a hospital bed with gabby next to you either as your sister or wife im not really sure begging you to get up. After you wake up gabby rejoices.
The Final Descent: in this ending Thomas wakes at his desk to find a note from Gabby stating that she is leaving him because he couldn’t handle the loss and tragic death of their daughter. There is a picture that you can see in this ending implying that the little girl shown throughout the game was his daughter, not gabby the wife herself so let's dive into each ending and the meaning behind it!
Ending One Wayward Dreamer: Wayward Dreamer is an interesting ending because it’s not necessarily the ending that sticks out the most. But it is the most wholesome, and caring ending I’ve ever seen in an indie horror game where the main character doesn’t encounter a spooky monster at the end, he just simply, after his nightmare goes to check on his sister, kissed her on the forehead, and then it ends. Anticlimactic, but I honestly think it was a psychological reprieve from the mental insanity our heroine had to go through considering how brutal the other two endings were. Wayward Dreamer was complex and an emotional tongue-tie since in one instance he is having these childhood nightmares that a lot of children have, I.e. their toys coming to life and reoccurring nightmares which can happen after a traumatic event which this child does go through since he does see his sister dead at the end of a long path she lead him through in the nightmare. A Child's mind is one chaotic event since said child is growing and developing, their mind is like an etch and sketch, anything can happen. But when the child is shaken, jarred (traumatic events) that’s when things get stir crazy.
Ending Two Destroyed Dreams: This ending/dream is a result of the broken child and is one of the complexities and underlying traumas. This character is broken, plain and simple this character is running away from the version of him that he hates the most. In the hospital. Thomas walks past an eye chart that Optometrists use to test someone’s vision, which reads “Everything’s a lie” which is very telling of the person’s life. He’s running away from the “HE” that he hates, or the “LIE” he created in order to possibly cope with reality. He wakes up in a hospital bed like ive stated before with his wife or sister there next to him. Who it is, I am unsure, he has both arms a bloodied mess. In two endings he rips out his own veins, and my theory to go along with this imagery is that he does this to take on the pain so he doesn’t have to burden anyone else with it. As a child, we don’t know how to take things inwardly as well. So we cry and ask for help and are outwardly emotional about it. This allows us to begin to learn that, even though it's a very basic instinct (to cry) we know to ask for help. This is, however ever-changing depending on the Child's upbringing. If they were told not to cry as they got older, since Thomas is a guy maybe he was told to “be a man” there could be many things happening here.
Ending Three The Final Descent: in this chapter, as stated above in the ending descriptions, Thomas wakes at his desk to find a note from Gabby stating that she is leaving him because he couldn’t handle the loss and tragic death of their daughter. And when this ending occurred a scene from the start of the game came into my mind where a little girl is being stabbed. The sleeve of the person appears to be Thomas, so is he placing guilt on himself for his daughter's killing? Did he actually murder his own daughter? We may never know. This was the first ending I got and now having played the whole game and seeing how each ending not only shows our character's OCD but his delusions as well. how things are out to get him i.e the dolls coming to life, his dead daughter following him, the big monster that chases him in the hallways. And in this nightmare we see him grinding up against his own hand as well, which is a reference back to the VERY beginning of the game, in the opening scene So is he grinding up against his own hand in disgust for the act he committed if he did kill his own daughter? The beautiful things about games such as these it leaves a creative room for the imagination.
Upon Awakening: Final Thoughts This game was a unique experience for me to go through. Seeing how the developer implemented his own experiences of OCD and depression into the universe of the game was something very interesting, and almost abstract in which it was executed. Taking the very thing you fight with daily and turning it into a creative piece of art to be viewed by the masses. From the nightmares of a child to the traumatized adult who can’t seem to piece together his own reality, even his nightmares. Down the rabbit hole, sinking further into the mind's chaos with only the flicker of the candlelight to keep your sanity intact.
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