Story Philosophy

The basis of how Sleepy Planet approaches story, narrative, and immersive experience.

Then came the existentialists—Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir—who picked up where Nietzsche left off. They said, “We’re free now. We get to create ourselves.” But wow—what an obligation that is. It’s not just a gift, it’s a burden. Suddenly, it’s up to us to define who we are, how we live, what we stand for.

That’s where Sartre’s quote comes in—possibly ... See more

Peter Spear • Zach Lamb on Meaning & Crisis

Whether through imaginative engagement or literal neural synchrony, the psychology of narrative suggests that we crave stories aligning with how we actually think and remember. And how we think is often non-linear: full of associations, symbols, and relational webs. Thus, storytelling that “mirrors the mind” – with its tangents, recursions, and net

In such a framework, the individual consciousness does not generate archetypes; rather, it tunes into them. Archetypes, in this model, become informational packets or dynamic structures within a symbolic matrix, activated not by rational intent but by experiential resonance. Certain life events, emotional intensities, or altered states — such as dr... See more

Reassessing the Theory of the Collective Unconscious: Symbolic Utility, Philosophical Depth, and…

Michael Filimowicz describes many such “anti-narratives” that push the boundaries – some becoming more like games or improvisational theatre, where narrative order is disrupted deliberatelymedium.com. These forms require more work (sometimes called ergodic literature, meaning the reader/player must exert effort to traverse the storymedium.com). B

Mythopoeia is powerful because its focus is unabashedly meaning without the need for historicity and “hard” logic—it is the intuitive quality of dreams brought to bear upon the waking world. It is important on one hand because it makes for better fantastic worlds and tales; on the other it bears a power of its own that cannot be found in any other ... See more

Modern Mythopoeia

Sleepy Planet is an ambitious attempt to mirror ecological and psychological complexity in a narrative experience: likely featuring networked storylines, rich symbol systems, and user-participation that is more about being in a mythic environment than “winning” or completing a set plot. In spirit, it aligns with the movement toward storytelling as

The key is that environmental storytelling shifts emphasis from ego to eco: the hero is not a solitary victor but part of a web of life. Entangled narratives portray how a change in one part of the system reverberates through the whole – much as in reality, where, for example, the loss of a keystone species can transform an entire ecosystem (the wa

Some researchers even speak of “mythic cognition” in AI – using archetypal narratives as a framework for AI-generated storiesincreasinglyunclear.medium.comdegruyterbrill.com. While that’s nascent, it points to a fusion of the oldest storytelling with the newest technology. Importantly, this union can help in creating stories that feel meaningful

Evolutionary psychologists propose that storytelling has an adaptive function: it helps us make sense of non-routine, uncertain or novel situations collectively (pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov). We tell stories to each other to explain the unexplainable, to find patterns in chaos, and to navigate uncertainty together. In a complex world, stories that reflec