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Amiel
2016-08-16, 07:53 AM
What horrific events or creatures should be encountered in a sleep disorders research clinic?

Lacco
2016-08-16, 08:04 AM
Nightmares personified.

Bogeymen under the bed? Or in the closets? These should be the least of your trouble.

Whole dimensions under the bed? Closets that try to eat you?

Darkness that brews in the mind of men. The things you keep inside by sleeping.

And something larger. Sandman? Or just a

The landscape could change according to the dreamers. The problem is - the players are awake. And while you are awake, they want to feed on you... but if you go to sleep, you are theirs to play with...

BWR
2016-08-16, 09:09 AM
You always have the Russian Sleep Experiment. (http://creepypasta.wikia.com/wiki/The_Russian_Sleep_Experiment)

Geddy2112
2016-08-16, 09:35 AM
Wendigo, causing wendigo psychosis where people have nightmares about eating each other, then do it

LooseCannoneer
2016-08-16, 09:56 AM
You could have doors that cause the person stepping through to hallucinate that they're falling once they're in the other room.

Elvenoutrider
2016-08-16, 10:48 AM
If it is a sleep disorder center the horror could come from wondering what is real and what is fantasy. Constantly make the players second guess themselves. draw out the map, draw your players attention to something across the room and erase or move scenery and doors, then tell them that its been like that all along.

Have a monster (or ghost) in the facility that can only effect sleeping people. The players will have to take stimulants to stay awake at the cost of combat ability. If one of them falls asleep, they start taking mental damage until someone can wake them. They need to finish the adventure to be able to leave. This will add tension and force them to keep moving scare to scare.

Lacco
2016-08-16, 01:49 PM
You always have the Russian Sleep Experiment. (http://creepypasta.wikia.com/wiki/The_Russian_Sleep_Experiment)

THIS! THISTHISTHISTHISTHIS!

Also, no map. Provide them with an "evacuation plan" - you know, "you are here, here's the exit"... and then completely ignore it. Place another wing where the original "exit" was.

Remember: in nightmare, every choice you make is wrong!

While they are awake, they can see all the strange stuff, but can't affect it. When dreaming, they can affect the strange stuff... and it can see them.

Segev
2016-08-16, 01:50 PM
PCs who nod off blink and find themselves somewhere else entirely within the facility. Perhaps they sleep-walked to here; if so, did they do anything on the way? If not...how did they get here?

Let them have conversations with NPCs...only to find those NPCs asleep in another room shortly thereafter, with no way for the NPC to have moved there without the PC seeing it. Or other evidence that the NPC was there the whole time. Perhaps using observation cameras to see a sleeping person in a room, allowing the player to realize that the NPC to whom they're talking is the one that should be in the room. When they get there to check...it IS that NPC.

Have one of the cast of NPCs be somebody that the others insist is "just a dream." Sometimes. Others, have them insist that said person exists; the dream is where they don't. Let the NPCs be appropriately spooked that they seem to be sharing similar dreams about the same non-existant person...or the same person being fake. Potential lynch mob hysteria scenario with that person as target.

Sleep is not restful; allow no refresh mechanics based on getting sleep to come into effect. If you do this, introduce ways to induce restful sleep later...but make the vulnerability of being that knocked out evident. Possibly after introducing dream-world monsters.

Simple hallucinations, particularly for those suffering prolonged sleep deprivation. Not inherently dangerous, but will add to the atmosphere. Suggestions include whispers from just out of sight, flashes of creatures or people moving (which may or may not be legitimate shadows or moving cloth - curtains or the like), and phantom aromas or misplacing real aromas until sight confirms something else.

One of the patients is a kleptomaniac. A skilled one. Little things keep vanishing, and, until she's caught, it might seem almost spooky.

The facility has a cat to both provide some measure of comfort therapy and to keep down a legitimate, non-supernatural mouse problem. The cat sometimes picks somebody over whom to stand guard, and fights violently any attempt to remove it. Left alone, it occasionally hisses warningly. Not at the person, but at empty space just to their left.

Bohandas
2016-08-16, 02:25 PM
Maybe a Freddy Keruger expy?

Shinizak
2016-08-16, 02:49 PM
I can't give you the actual window dressing for what you want the fear to be, but I can give you a useful tool taught to me vie extra credits (admittedly they are video game videos, but they translate well for table top games, and they routinely help me.)


This Segment talks about how to create the interest curve in video games, but it still translates well to table top RPGs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LScL4CWe5E

This one uses the interest curve to create the tension and release cycle YOU MUST WATCH THIS for it is the basis by which horror is made rather then jump scares
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyiAR2BXtKU

This is their segment on horror protagonists, it's not a 1 to 1 relationship with tabletop games, but it should help you (and your players) understand how the game should be played, or what KIND of adversaries should be encountered.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lawxkSB13J8

This is their segment on Horror monsters, ow they are done, what scares us, the types of monsters, etc. This is probably the most directly related video to what you want, but it's meaningless without the other 3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mHCG4zbCPM

Also probably the most related video to your question, but it is meaningless without the first 3 videos.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weTznlEkzfk

Cealocanth
2016-08-18, 10:29 AM
I can't give you the actual window dressing for what you want the fear to be, but I can give you a useful tool taught to me vie extra credits (admittedly they are video game videos, but they translate well for table top games, and they routinely help me.)


This Segment talks about how to create the interest curve in video games, but it still translates well to table top RPGs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LScL4CWe5E

This one uses the interest curve to create the tension and release cycle YOU MUST WATCH THIS for it is the basis by which horror is made rather then jump scares
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyiAR2BXtKU

This is their segment on horror protagonists, it's not a 1 to 1 relationship with tabletop games, but it should help you (and your players) understand how the game should be played, or what KIND of adversaries should be encountered.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lawxkSB13J8

This is their segment on Horror monsters, ow they are done, what scares us, the types of monsters, etc. This is probably the most directly related video to what you want, but it's meaningless without the other 3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mHCG4zbCPM

Also probably the most related video to your question, but it is meaningless without the first 3 videos.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weTznlEkzfk

Seconded. Extra Credits has taught me more about worldbuilding for TTRPGs than anything, with the exception of basic practice.

One thing that they didn't cover is that part of horror is the corruption of the familiar. For a horror setting to work, it needs to be a twisted reality that almost mirrors our own, which connects the fear into our real lives. Most horror movies have normal people getting assaulted by a monster or something, but you can also do successful horror in common genres, like the Western (Deadlands), or the Space Opera (Dead Space), or Fantasy (Evernight). That shouldn't be a problem here, though.

Kami2awa
2016-08-18, 02:17 PM
Sleep paralysis and the strange creatures people see when it happens. Are they real?

Shadow people.

Succubi (also incubi). Not the D&D ones, but the demons that prey on people as they sleep.

Dreams that are portents of the future or of death.

"Dream worlds" that are really a coherent plane beyond our own.

Encounters with beings on a higher plane of consciousness.

Air looms. (google it)

Someone transmitting messages into dreams. Eyes in the dark. One moon circles.

And potential for mundane, non-supernatural horror. An abusive doctor could get away with a lot if their patients are known to hallucinate.

Segev
2016-08-19, 09:40 AM
Sleep paralysis and the strange creatures people see when it happens. Are they real?

I'm aware of sleep paralysis and its hypothetical cause (no clue if it's been proven or just remains a theory), but I have not heard of people reporting seeing creatures while enduring it. Could you elaborate, please?

Kami2awa
2016-08-19, 12:52 PM
Sleep paralysis is often associated with hallucinations, which can be of people or monsters present in the room with the paralysed person, or even demonic voices. This has been suggested as an origin of the myths of various creatures that prey on sleeping people, such as the succubus, witches or vampires. It is sometimes called "old hag syndrome" for that reason.

CharonsHelper
2016-08-19, 01:13 PM
You always have the Russian Sleep Experiment. (http://creepypasta.wikia.com/wiki/The_Russian_Sleep_Experiment)

I think that just gave me nightmares.

Segev
2016-08-19, 01:24 PM
Sleep paralysis is often associated with hallucinations, which can be of people or monsters present in the room with the paralysed person, or even demonic voices. This has been suggested as an origin of the myths of various creatures that prey on sleeping people, such as the succubus, witches or vampires. It is sometimes called "old hag syndrome" for that reason.

Huh. I would guess that's due to still being partially asleep. The hypothesis is that sleep paralysis occurs because your conscious mind has awoken enough to be aware of your body's position in bed, but you've still got "sleep software" running that is designed to keep you from getting up and sleepwalking and the like, so your motor control is still cut off from your body. If your subconscious "dream generator" is still running, too, that might explain the hallucinations. Your conscious mind is awake, but your brain isn't filtering "imaginary" vs "real" properly yet, for the same reason it hasn't yet returned the signals to flowing down to your body for getting up and moving.

Strigon
2016-08-19, 03:40 PM
All right, this advice is from someone who has a horrible phobia of anything even tangentially related to the medical field, and had to have a sleep study done in his childhood.
This should make the advice either very good, as I know what there is to fear, or completely useless because I'm scared of things no rational human would be afraid of.

Having gotten that disclaimer out of the way, let's begin.
I'd start by making it look like the doctors are the bad guys, performing inhumane experiments. Let that build up for a while.
Then the real scary stuff starts happening. Patients start going insane from lack of sleep, because they won't let themselves sleep. So now you have psychotic, hopefully violent patients going around as well.
Sleep paralysis is a good thing to throw in, perhaps within the first few nights, but the more you sleep in the clinic, the stranger things get. You eventually start sleepwalking, and then later if someone happens upon you while you're sleepwalking, you seem awake and alert. But you also seem slightly different; almost like something is trying very hard to seem like you, but getting slight details wrong. These episodes last longer and longer, until eventually you go to sleep and never come back.
You have some leeway with the entity that takes your place; you can play it as a savage but intelligent beast-like entity, only capable of emulating humanity but really completely inhuman - a la taken from Alan Wake - or you could make it an alien, but very intelligent consciousness, far beyond humanity if you prefer that route. Either way, you now have a supernatural enemy, one that can take anyone, and one that can hide right under your nose if you're not careful. Be sure to make them very strong and completely immune to pain or fear, to up the ante.

For bonus points, make all of the people who suffer from this come from one consciousness, so as one learns, they all learn. Every time you defeat one, all the others, whether they were already made or came into being later, learn from that defeat. This also lets you drop in creepy hints in the backstory, for example, maybe they can come across experiments from when the doctors first encountered this entity? (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EF9WxnttEj4)

This only happens when you sleep in the clinic, and the evil thing tries to get you to do just that. Eventually it takes one of the doctors, and things go downhill from their. He won't let you leave, yada yada yada. Have fun with it.

Bohandas
2016-08-19, 08:36 PM
I'm aware of sleep paralysis and its hypothetical cause (no clue if it's been proven or just remains a theory), but I have not heard of people reporting seeing creatures while enduring it. Could you elaborate, please?

Apparently there's a theory that some stories of alien abductions and so forth result from the not-yet-fully-awake mind interpreting sleep paralysis as being strapped down or drugged or whatever

Dr paradox
2016-08-20, 03:25 PM
All great stuff. Coincidentally, I'm running a D&D campaign right now with a fey-horror tinge, where dreams are a liminal space that borders on the realm of the fey. Usually bad stuff happens rarely, but they're in a part of the world where fey creatures commonly show up in dreams and try to piggyback the sleeper back to the real world.

The party and town is currently being attacked by orcs, because orcs have immense control over their dreams and are aware of what a huge danger it is to have this many "amateur" dreamers around. That's the relatively mundane threat for now, but as time goes on the dream angle will get stronger, and more screwed up fey monsters will slip through.

Segev
2016-08-21, 02:47 PM
The party and town is currently being attacked by orcs, because orcs have immense control over their dreams and are aware of what a huge danger it is to have this many "amateur" dreamers around. That's the relatively mundane threat for now, but as time goes on the dream angle will get stronger, and more screwed up fey monsters will slip through.

An interesting twist could be to have fey "allies" help take out orcs and defend the town, at least for a little while. To the fey, they're establishing a beachhead. To the townsfolk, it might seem a boon...until the true horrors of the fey start to show once they HAVE their beachhead secured.

tomandtish
2016-08-21, 08:19 PM
Sleep is not restful; allow no refresh mechanics based on getting sleep to come into effect. If you do this, introduce ways to induce restful sleep later...but make the vulnerability of being that knocked out evident. Possibly after introducing dream-world monsters.

Simple hallucinations, particularly for those suffering prolonged sleep deprivation. Not inherently dangerous, but will add to the atmosphere. Suggestions include whispers from just out of sight, flashes of creatures or people moving (which may or may not be legitimate shadows or moving cloth - curtains or the like), and phantom aromas or misplacing real aromas until sight confirms something else.


Also be aware that unconsciousness is not the same as sleep. If you are unconscious and wake/are woken as soon as the unconscious part ends, you are NOT getting any benefits from rest. I can speak to this from personal experience.

In 2006 I developed a (still) undiagnosed autoimmune disorder that resulted in severe swelling in all my joints and glands. The only thing that helped with the swelling was huge doses of steroids, and then huge doses of pain killers. The steroids kept me twitchy and the pain killers kept me groggy.

So I'd lie in bed and twitch, but be unable to fall asleep. On about day 5 I finally passed out (and yes, they determined I did actually pass out) for about 4 hours, and then woke back up. Then passed out again about 24 hours later for another 3-4 hours. Rinse and repeat. None of this was at all restful.

Began actively hallucinating on day 8 (severe paranoia and delusional behavior had started before that). They finally had to break the cycle by knocking me out and keeping me out for 3 days.

I bring this up because it's important to know that if they are passing out, they are not resting. You may want a mechanic for "you'll be unconscious for x hours, and anything after that is rest if you don't get woken up".

Inevitability
2016-08-25, 12:54 AM
I think that just gave me nightmares.

That's ironic.

nyjastul69
2016-08-25, 01:15 AM
You always have the Russian Sleep Experiment. (http://creepypasta.wikia.com/wiki/The_Russian_Sleep_Experiment)

Yikes! I'm as far as 'after 9 days the first of them started screaming'. 😱

The longest I've ever not slept for is 66 hours. The final 12 hours or so were very weird. It messed me up for a few days. I can't even imagine what these people suffered through. My limited understanding is that there is threshold crossed where even if you haven't slept the brain cycles through a sleep process and you start hallucinating. Anywho, thanks for the link.

Edit: Well I guess it's good that it never happened. (http://www.snopes.com/horrors/ghosts/russiansleep.asp)

Not bad fiction though.

Dr paradox
2016-08-25, 01:21 AM
An interesting twist could be to have fey "allies" help take out orcs and defend the town, at least for a little while. To the fey, they're establishing a beachhead. To the townsfolk, it might seem a boon...until the true horrors of the fey start to show once they HAVE their beachhead secured.

Oooh. Interesting. There are some Doppelgangers loose in town right now, I could have one of them approach the players with this proposal.

AMFV
2016-08-25, 06:13 AM
What horrific events or creatures should be encountered in a sleep disorders research clinic?

Well it largely depends on what exact sort of horror you're going for. There are a lot of different horror aspects that involve sleep or lack of sleep.

If you're going for existential cosmic horror, then you'd have some kind of power beyond the veil sending people nasty-grams in dreams, or that they're connecting to the dreams of something much less pleasant (In his house he lies dreaming). That sort of dealie. If that's the case I'd aim for the doctors being part of the cult or something of that nature.

If you're going for more standard horror, you could always have the place be haunted by the ghost of a previous experiment. Maybe there was a NASA experiment in sleep deprivation and the victim perished from lack of sleep, as that will lab animals. Once the Ghost latches onto a victim he (or she) prevents them from sleeping until they suffer the same exact fate, as they start getting less and less sleep they start experiencing hallucinations.

There are a lot of other smaller things you could do. Maybe the character notices that the people conducting the experiments seem less and less human and more and more alien every time they go to sleep. You could have this be psychosis or genuine, but it's one of the big primeval fears that of being suddenly an outsider in a group. Maybe he notices that they're plotting against him or suspects that they are, auditory hallucinations could start mid-way through the experiment, and then actual hallucinations.

The main thing is that you want the characters not to have a strong ability to tell apart what's real and what's not. That's a big part of good horror involving dreams and nightmares is that the sense of what's realistic comes into serious question. Dreams are one of sleep's great mysteries and are therefore a good sense of horror. Also dreams are an opportunity to bring back things that terrify us from our subconscious and our past. Hallucinations becoming real, not knowing what's real. That's what's really terrifying.

I'd avoid the Russian Sleep Study, because it doesn't really touch on any of the real horror themes that involve sleep, it's a generic demon/monster/alien story put into a sleep lab. The thing with horror is that the setting should be meaningful, if it's horror about sleeping or lack of sleeping then it should be important to the story. For example if the prisoners were trying to avoid falling asleep during the experiments because that's when they'd see the monsters and gradually be replaced by them, that would be more fitting with the theme that they're going for. Although that's a common thing I see with Creepypasta, they tend to be more into body horror and grossout stuff rather than actually paying to the themes that can take something from being Friday the 13th style stuff to being actually terrifying.

Telonius
2016-08-25, 07:48 AM
One event: a patient closes their eyes for a moment, and awakens believing they've actually been asleep for 8 full hours. Or, flip the perspective if the PCs are undergoing "treatment." They close their eyes, and are immediately transported to the dreamscape, where they have frightening visions for 8 full hours. Then they wake up, seeing that the clock hasn't moved, and the nurse standing exactly where she was.


Apparently there's a theory that some stories of alien abductions and so forth result from the not-yet-fully-awake mind interpreting sleep paralysis as being strapped down or drugged or whatever

The version of this I heard is that it's also the source of the "succubus" stories that are common throughout most cultures. At the point in the sleep cycle that sleep paralysis happens, apparently the brain can't receive information about what's straight in front of the eyes, leaving a blobby black thing that it has to "fill in." The genitals and lower torso, however, are actively transmitting signals. Back in the Middle Ages, a devilish figure would be a natural fit to fill in the blank. Nobody believes in succubi anymore, but aliens are a live possibility to many people; so that's what they interpret it as being.

I've actually experienced sleep paralysis once when I was a child. I'd never heard of succubi or alien abductions by that point, so I just saw it as black ooze seeping out of the wall. Scared the heck out of me, and my parents just figured I'd had an awful nightmare. Kind of glad it did happen, though. My daughter had it happen once (she saw a big black cloud), and I was able to calm her down a lot quicker than I otherwise would have.

Segev
2016-08-25, 08:53 AM
The version of this I heard is that it's also the source of the "succubus" stories that are common throughout most cultures. At the point in the sleep cycle that sleep paralysis happens, apparently the brain can't receive information about what's straight in front of the eyes, leaving a blobby black thing that it has to "fill in." The genitals and lower torso, however, are actively transmitting signals. Back in the Middle Ages, a devilish figure would be a natural fit to fill in the blank. Nobody believes in succubi anymore, but aliens are a live possibility to many people; so that's what they interpret it as being.

I've actually experienced sleep paralysis once when I was a child. I'd never heard of succubi or alien abductions by that point, so I just saw it as black ooze seeping out of the wall. Scared the heck out of me, and my parents just figured I'd had an awful nightmare. Kind of glad it did happen, though. My daughter had it happen once (she saw a big black cloud), and I was able to calm her down a lot quicker than I otherwise would have.

I hadn't heard the part about the brain failing to receive non-peripheral vision that has to be "filled in" before. That's interesting.

Telonius
2016-08-25, 10:56 AM
Yeah, not sure if there's any research to back it up, or if it was just somebody spitballing a theory when talking to a reporter. But that would certainly explain a lot of the cross-cultural similarities with dark, shadowy, or gray creatures. The people's brains are really experiencing the same thing. The fact that it's a real experience is also why people tend to get really upset when you tell them it was just a dream or they're making it up - they actually were conscious when it happened, they aren't "crazy" for believing it, it's just that their wake-up process hadn't fully booted when their eyes opened.

Anyway, you could play with that as well. Have an actual succubus involved, maybe one that only the party (and the victim) can see.

Segev
2016-08-25, 11:12 AM
To throw some fuel on the paranoia fire: Given that the vast majority of people wake up in dark rooms, all colors are muted to bluish greys and blacks. So if there is Something right in front of your eyes, it would appear primarily as a greyish thing, no matter its real color. Especially before your eyes properly focused to see its outline.



Speaking of bedtime-related (if not sleep-related) horrors, don't forget the monsters in the closet and under the bed. Often "childish" fears, but they're real.

(I never had those fears, but then, my closet doors were accordion-style and were always closed, growing up, and my Dad made me this really nifty boat-shaped bed that literally had no "underneath" for a monster to hide in. I was very sad when we had to chop it up to get it out of the room in which it was constructed when my sister took over that room after I moved out.)

Traab
2016-08-25, 07:03 PM
I would go with a heavy "not sure if im awake or asleep" vibe. Where the players are never sure if the danger is real or not. Lots of illusions, lots of fake monsters turning into real ones. Lots of entrapment due to all the wires and sensors that get attached to you in a clinic, even straps binding you down. Can you escape before the bad things come back? Are they back now? Is this real? Oh god am I asleep and this is a nightmare? Why cant I wake up? Is this real? Am I hallucinating and attacking the doctors? What should I do?!

Lots of "You blink, and suddenly things start to blur around you" type of comments. Did the player just nod off? Is he hallucinating this? Is it a real monster? How will you find out? The big plus side of this is it gives you as the gm a ton of leeway for avoiding tpk wipes as your players, instead of being messily eviscerated, find themselves waking up strapped to their beds. The orderlies restrained them. Some fun could be had with a real monster that also can invade your mind, making you question your sanity, then striking for real when you are weakened and confused. Like a freddy kruegar who is also in the physical world. Or you could go with some sort of nightmare demon who is in disguise as the doctor running the place. He uses this clinic to feed off of people.