My First Friend, Humphrey - Chapter 3 - GreySpark - OMORI (Video Game) [Archive of Our Own] (2024)

Is it a dream? An alternate universe?(TW: mental illness, spoilers)

In this post, I will be discussing a fictional phenomenon resulting from dissociative disorder that exists only in the OMORI universe. I want to impress two seemingly contradictory points:

1) Headspace is simply NOT possible in the real-life.
2) Headspace is still not a alternate universe, its just a dream.

Rather I would like to put forward a soft science fiction explanation using all the information we’ve been given about the topic.

Part 1: Headspace is NOT possible in the real life.

The true nature of Headspace is much close to that of a coma than secret universe. If a coma is sleeping, but longer. Then Headspace is dreaming, but longer. Headspace is not its own universe, just an extended dream that continues in the back of the patient’smind during waking hours. We know this because whenever Sunny returns to the dream he find things have changed while he is awake. For example, when the Playground Kids enter Jawsum’s employment, and when Omori detains the Deep Well Creatures while Sunny is absent.Furthermore, Headspace creatures do not have sentience anymore than characters in our real-life dreams. Rather they are characters manufactured by the unconscious recesses of our minds. They only appear to have sentience, when in reality they are only puppets being manipulated by the sleeper’s mind.Headspace being only a dream would also explain why every world is tailor made to the individuals symbolic ideas. Much like real-life dreams, every part of Headspace has a symbolic meaning. And if it was just a fantasy world, locations and characters would be more generalized. However, all that being said, I have reason to believe Headspace Disorder has fictional traits that do not exist in real life. Those being:

Dream Stability

Dreams in real-life are very limited in scope and spatial awareness, and more importantly, remembrance is extremely limited. Dreams are not really like real places with clearly defined parameters and object permanence. In fact, most sleepers forget their dreams immediately. Headspace is nothing like this at all. Sunny is capable of maintaining an entire island, and remembering every chest he’s opened. Mr Outback even mentions this. Noting that Sunny has an unusually large world and a big imagination.

However, Sunny’s cognitive skill alone is not enough to change the nature of dreaming itself. Even if it was only a few areas, the level of stability and permanence of the Headspace dream is atypical of real-life dreams and therefore must have some fictional feature. Though it is important to note OMOCAT stated in an interview that only people with“big imaginations” are capable of having White Spaces. (We will be returning to that interview later) So having those skills make having the disease possible in for the “dreamer” but are not enough to make it possible in real-life.

Inter-Dream Communication

On the topic of Mr. Outback,he does indicate that Headspace is a shared phenomenon, and more importantly exhibits a self-awareness of his own place in these shared dreams. Thisis the main evidence people give for the alternate universe theory. After all, if Outback has a life outside of Sunny’s Headspace he must be an autonomous individual separate from him to some capacity. Outback goes further to even say that Headspace has existed since the beginning of time and even says he’s 33000 years old. An age that feels so oddly specific.Why not say he’s 1,000,000 years? or a billion? Why that age specifically?Outback’s age is roughly the same age as the Venuses of Willendorf, the oldest surviving pieces of human representational art.The oldest of which being only 4000 years off Outback’s stated age.

This means Headspace has been around for as long as Humans have been capable of creating representational art pieces/ stories.

Headspace has existed for a long time. And its a place people“visit”. But the question is, if multiplepeople can visit this place, does this imply that there can be cross communication between dreamers?

Yes. I think there is some evidence for this in Black Space, from the Stranger’s dialogue.

The Stranger in this conversation speaks with knowledge that only Basil himself would be privy to even saying“let my words reach you one last time”Implying this isn’t just some Headspace creature like the rest. It’s Basil. It’s the real basil speaking to Sunny throughdreams.

Seriouslyjust read these statements:

How does Sunny’s mind know Basil waited for him at all? How does it know Basil has things he wants to say to him?

Add the weirdMr. Outback stuff. Add the strange propertiesthat are impossible in real-life dreams. Add OMOCATs comments, its all paints the picture that Headspace is not some run of the mill dream.

But is it really another world? Is it a dream or not?

Part 2: Headspace is likely not a alternate universe.

All of this seems incrediblymagical. And by real-life standards it would be, but REAL WORLD is not the real world.

We already know the movie and videogame characters of real life don’t exist in Faraway Town or vice versa. Their world is like our world but slightly different. The biggest difference of all being Headspace.But what do we know about it for sure? Without further ado, lets see what OMOCAT has to say. Look at how they respond when asked about Basil’s White Space.

Notice how OMOCAT in this interview uses psychologically driven language like “mind” and “memory”

u/xDal-Lio -OMOCAT interview from Cydonia streaming translated in english

They even talk about it from “personal experience”, if that doesn’t ground it in reality, what will?

At this point I’d like to add that I use the term“Headspace” rather liberally,White Space is the foundation of Headspace, the latter cannot exist within an individual without the former. Think of White Space as the canvas and Headspace as the drawing. The OMOCAT states outright that “White Space is based on the ability of some people to completely isolate their minds when something traumatic happens”. This has lead many people to suspect that Headspace/White Space are not an alternate world but rather a symptom of Dissociation. Darly Talks has already done a full video on the topic and I would encourage everyone to watch it.

This theory of White Spacebeing connected to Dissociation is almost confirmed. Based on OMOCAT’s interview above and some hints in the game (like Humphrey soundtrack H2O HLC being a nod to Dissociation) I think this should just be accepted as the foundational truth. However, Dissociation doesn’t explain everything; people in real-life experiencing dissociation don’t get to visit Headspace headspace overnight. The closest real life equivalent to Headspace would probably be “Lucid Dreaming” a phenomenon where a sleeper is able to control their own dream.

But Lucid Dreaming has no attachment to dissociation, but like Headspace is more adaptable to certain individuals rather than others. As stated in the interview above, some people can’t make a White Space.Perhaps at this point it would be premiant to build a profile of who is more likely to be“able to do it” in OMOCAT’s words. Based on what we can guess its probably:

Sunny, Basil and Hero

OMOCAT doesn’t outright state whether Basil has a White Space, but as stated before, Basil communicates to Sunny in his dream through Black Space, so I would conclude it more likely than not that he has one since his mind is stated to be the very source of Something’s existence. Hero on the other hand is a more dicey proposition, we know he was locked away in his room for almost a year based on Kel’s account.Something also of note is how Hero is the only Headspace party member to have a Black and White afraid emotion. He used to have it be purple in the 2018 demo, but they went out of their way to make sure it was black and white for the final release of the game.

The implication here, at the very least, is that Sunny understands that Hero has been effected by Mari’s death in a way close to his own. It also explains why he’s also the only character to get his own room in“The Docks” the deepest area of Black Space. (read my post explaining all the areas of Black Space for more info) But overall, the information we’ve been given is not enough to confirm where Hero had his own White Space. Its a coin flip. 50/50 whether he had one. But lets assume he’s more likely to have it than the others, this creates a profile of intelligence and creative individuals being the deciding factors of who gets a Headspace or not.

Part 3: Sunny’s Choices vs Default Headspace

So what does this all mean? What is Headspace?A Lovecraftian entity?Based on everything addressed thus far, I have reason to believe that Headspace is a medically explainable phenomenon within the OMORI universe, and within said universe the collective unconscious is a very real thing. Meaning Headspace is a shared dream that’s been ongoing since Humanity became sentient. This would explain Outback’s comments about his age and why so many people have access to it. Headspace is not another world, its a shared endless dream. One that will go on until humans die out, or maybe even after.Traumatic events and dissociation allow an individual to escape reality and set up a new Headspace on this collective foundation by hiding away “truths”. Keys appear in these locking them away. Outback talks about it in a way that implies Black Space and the keys are a baked in part of the White Space experience, one a repression of the other.

Lets consider what Daddy LongLegs has to say.He says, after White Space, sleepers will then have multiple dreams. Each dream being redefined as a “world” in this context. Like real-life dreams, Sunny did not make these worlds, his mind did, and LongLegs said he“stumbled through them”.All Sunny’s worlds used to be separated but then later where combined, probably by Sunny himself or even Omori. On the topic of Omori, another interesting take away is how LongLegs implies that there was a period of time Sunny was in control of the dream but then allowed Omori to take over later on.

This means that Omori himself, ironically, is the only part of the Headspace phenomenon that is actually unique to Sunny. Meaning that repressing one’s self is only optional, and entirely of Sunny’s own choosing.

It is unknown whether the inclusion of the“three great creatures”of Headspace was also Sunny’s doing, or if they are a defined part of everyone’s Headspace. The fact that they have defined roles, “Oldest, Wisest, Favorite” implies that it might be a set of characters different to everyone’s Headspace, vaguely based on the Freudian Id, Ego and Super Ego.However its also mentioned they existed before Headspace, implying that they are imaginary friends that predated the creation of White Space and thus, might just be unique to Sunny, calling upon them to help him set up Headspace, giving them titles he just made up. But again, its uncertain. Since there is no evidence to Sunny having these imaginary friends refenced in Real World, not even mentioned in passing. So all of it is unclear. I could discuss the roles each member actually played in Sunny’s Headspace, but that is not relevant to the broader discussion here.

CONCLUSION

Headspace is a shared dream of humanity only accessible by imaginative individuals through dissociated dreaming. Every “Dreamer” starts with a White Space and Black Space and from there can explore other dreams all built on the bedrock of the shared dream, but the actual nature of the dream itself is built unconsciously by the mind and is different for every person. Older “Headspace creatures” or dream characters can move between individuals Headspaces at will, and even dreamers may do so to a certain extent. Optionally, Dreamers may choose to repress themselves and forget themselves entirely.