Faces

The Faces in the Hypnagog are not a species; they’re not even conscious, so far as anyone knows. They’re classified as personal hallucinations in an already-illusionary setting: force fields and transitory signals, anthropomorphized only in the minds of those who see them.   Their expressions and apparent dispositions seem to be connected to the negative aspects of the viewer’s emotional energy. There are very few reports of the Faces projecting a pleasant or reassuring disposition. Instead, the disembodied visages leer, stare, grimace, judge, sneer...as if the viewer’s own buried self-deprecative urges are rising to the top in the Hypnagog’s responsively reflective aether.   Despite their disconcerting, often monstrous appearance, the Faces are more of an annoying nuisance than a threat. Usually, they just get in the way: a traveler turns this way and that, only to find more Faces blocking their path through the Hypnagog. They are otherwise harmless, though if they become an ongoing problem, one might consider seeking help from a Somnicist specializing in Empathic magix to dig out their root cause.  

“They come, the Faces, as one slibers past the perceptualimitations of one's current. These are the recently deseized, sequing their lovied-ones in the Slurry. These are lived ones looking for their resentiently deisist. These are peeple failing, asleep for the last time in one place and wake-ing altswhere. Slaughing, crying, they poke and pity the still-stuck. Sometimes they dissemble in 13s; the venery for this is "A Trisk of Faces". Other-wise call them a Remissage. One day you will face your own among them.”

— Dr. Zaddius Momole, after spending four weeks in the Hypnagog studying the Faces

 

“Poor ol’ Zad. He sure didn’t talk like that when he went in there.”

— Dr. Nuk-Nuk Wompalfa, a colleague of Dr. Momole, who should have known better

  Though Dr. Momole returned with many notebooks full after his four-week trip to study the Faces, no one could make any sense out of his scribbled ramblings. It is to be hoped that, with continued convalescence at St. Notham’s Retreat, he will soon feel better and be able to explain some of his findings.