Mother, I’m watching Contra play video games again…

dad stop bothering me i'm doing void plunges in the pool complex with mother

"Why I'm Leaving The Left (Wall)" by Natalie Wynn

Its a Monobloc chair. There is little use to chair knowledge so this is my moment

“There’s a lot of things that’s it’s not too late to be.” I took a lot of comfort in this, so thank you.

I feel like a Contrapoints Minecraft stream would cure my depression, stop climate change and would eventually lead to world peace.

As an armchair psychoanalyst, I think there is an obvious connection between the pools and aquariums in your dreams and your obsession with The Sea. Getting a bit of the archetypal mother vibe, perhaps a subconscious wish to return to the womb?

"are women bourgeoises" is totally a disco elysium quote loll

Adam Conover interview and liminal game stream, Mother has been good to us today

I know it's basic but in the first few minutes, I'm kind of captivated by the simple beauty of the walls, lighting, water, etc. It's amazing how far games have come visually that we get to just take something like this for granted.

the most horrifying thing about this game is that the player character is wearing dress shoes in a swimming pool place.

"I have not been here before" like yes hun you have 😫. we stan a queen with no object permanence.

The footstep sounds made me just realize that the character is wearing shoes... in a pool

Natalie, coincidentally, I was actually super interested in lucid dreaming when I was 14. Our Dark Mother's understanding of human nature during all of its phases knows no bounds.

the fact that she was making actual progress when she was in that duck pool just to then continue to walk all the way back to the start of the level 😭😭 i was literally screaming at my screen

Hey, if trans people are gonna go through a second puberty, we also get to go through a second phase of weird interests like lucid dreaming and liminal spaces. It's just part of the process, surely

That's so interesting: the only dreams I remember take place in massive indoor pools/baths and aquariums and they're always so vivid

And here I thought new main channel video called "Pools". Would've eaten it up

Intellectually, this game is very tranquil and relaxing. Instinctively, this game terrifies me. I’ve been surfing the comments looking for warnings of jump scares.

I love how it's never acknowledged there's been roughly a 2-13 month break between the streams. Natalie behaves like we were here just yesterday. It's like a mental "What do you mean it's been months, I'm literally a dedicated streamer." And we're all like "Yes." It's not like I'm complaining though, I love to get to be boiled alive to this!

What ive learned over a lifetime of anxiety dreams, is that is that if a dream has a distinct and important meaning that you should pay attention to, you'll immediately be able to tell upon waking up and remembering it. Let's use a made up but rather common anxiety dream motif as an example; if you have a dream where you are a being hunted by some kind of monster in a labyrinth, where every move turns out to be a dead end, you'll often wake up immediately being able to tell that it was clearly about your real life situation. On the other hand, If you need to perform cryptic symbol analyses to conjur some sort of meaning even though you feel none, that dream isnt meaningful in the same way, and is likely just some imagey you like, or random thoughts you were having, maybe replying images/spaces you've seen. Don't focus on the visual imagery on it's own, like quacks do, focus on the _feelings and anxieties_ you were having in the dream, and how those connect to the imagery Honestly really careful with dream analysis, certainly freud's dream analysis is not in line with the modern science on this subject. Dreams do not simply represent hidden desires, his analysis was just wrong. Theres trauma dreams, anxiety dreams, random imagery dreams that dont mean anything and are just your brain relaxing or replaying stimuli similar to what you've previously seen, and then, yes, also desire dreams. But desire dreams are a small minority of dreams

I love your voice and your vibe, Queen. Thank you for existing and broadcasting 🙏

as someone who accidentally fell asleep to this live stream at work, i can testify that this is good content to go to sleep to

I am constantly having dreams about a large mansion with a medieval chapel attached to it, and there is a lady dressed in a mid-Victorian mourning gown with a veil over her face. So I am either being haunted or its a manifestation of my yearning to own a home. Who knows.

I hate you for zooming into that damn hole that sucked the ladder in 😂 I never pushed back my iPad so fast hahahaha

Gutted that I missed YET ANOTHER nat stream. I gotta stop spending time with loved ones

“I think the left wall strategy is pretty good. It’s taken us to the duck. Has any other strategy taken us to the duck? I don’t think so.”

This game feels like walking through a contemporary art gallery in Spain

Watching this stream, I could just *feel* how warm the water would be. This game is truly beautiful and relaxing.

Hmmm.... a pool is a public space that is oddly intimate. And aquariums are also a space where people (fish) are on display. Not to be basic, but it kinda sounds like dreams about your status as a public figure.

Just woke up and missed this live 😢 About lucid dreaming. You have increased chance to get this when you wake up after few hours of sleeping and then go to bed again. At least works for me

Anyone reminded of the book Piranesi?

Every now and then I'll be really interested in lucid dreaming but never be bothered to go through the process of reality checks and all that. Falling asleep is hard enough for me as it is. I've kept a dream journal since I was in high school and it's a nice record. I used to be the person who was obsessed with dream interpretations but grew out of it. Nowadays I just accept that dreams are my subconscious mind processing my day, memories etc. Most of my dreams are pretty boring though. Just mundane things related to my real life, in low saturation and kinda blurry like my imagination. I've never had fantastical dreams. The closest to that would be dreaming that I was a part of some scifi game.

Natalie please finish pools in another stream! I don't play games on my own, haven't got the right tech, but I now have far too much emotional investment in 'pools'. It's beautiful, it's liminal, it's weird, it's giving dystopian roman bathhouse sort of, it is filled with beautiful water graphics, it reminds me of the Basilica Cistern in Turkey complete with classical hellenic looking sculptures hiding in the water ( if you are able you should DEFINITELY visit if possible while in europe!) I need to know where pools is leading, literally, but have no desire to watch someone else play it, you have the perfect vibe of calming my paranoia with your presence, it feels apotropaic against whatever lurks beyond (in the pools). I love this video, immaculate combination of vibes

if you take away the pool bit this is just like switching tube lines on the london underground, right down to the "have we been down here before?"

Hey i've practiced lucid dreaming :) I kept a dream journal too and i thought it was more the practice of remembering, writing and rereading dreams. I noticed my awareness while dreaming improved to a point where I kind of just started influencing dreams. I stopped when dreaming started to become quite repetitive and eventually, I lost interest :) Great hearing your perspective Natalie!

I always remember my dreams, they're usually so vivid. They often involve wandering around large cities looking for hotel rooms, or otherwise my childhood home and environs, and either way usually at one point I visit a lavatory, presumably because my bladder's filled up overnight and that's how my subconscious incorporates that signal into the narrative.

“I feel good about the ladder,” Yeah? I’m bloody terrified!

This is just so good, the best vibe, thank you for making my summer happier

Stress causes lucid dreaming. I lucid dream most nights because I’m in a constant state of “not allowing myself to be vulnerable”. You just need to travel around and couch surf with strangers for a decade and you’ll never have trouble lucid dreaming again.

14:39 that awkward moment when the void rejects u 💔💔

I remember returning to my elementary school for the first time as a teen, liminal af experience

This reminds me of the novel Piranesi.

DC Metro was really striking to me as a tourist too. The concrete reminds me of a bus station from my childhood in the UK.

I really wish the character sounded like they have bare feet. That would be excellent nostalgia for childhood visits to the pool

Whoa... I also dream like this... I've been a lucid dreamer since childhood, same as my dad. I rarely have recurring dreams, but echo-y architecture is one of them. I wish I knew what it meant, but I always enjoy walking around in them. (Same as slow-motion plane crashes, I got those so often that I learned how to turn away from the crash and walk into a different dream.) Keep thinking about lucid dreaming before you fall asleep, I bet you can get good at it! My dad always told me: Try to find your hands. ❤

this is lowkey asmr. love it

Man screams into the void "Why me?". The void simply answers "Why not?" .

Hello Contrapoints. Thank you for making these calming videos. A lot is happening to me right now that I can't explain, most of it psychological. I'm in a hotel room right now that stinks and is room 116, which is 911 if you flip it around. Anyway, this is a super calming video, and yoopers are from northern michigan! I'm not originally a yooper, but you know. That's that.

Anytime you stream it’s pure comfort

I love the dreamlike games, these flooded labyrinths show up in my dreams a lot too

Anytime I want to have lucid dreams I eat some sharp cheddar cheese an hour or two before bed, works every time like magic. Probably related to early onset heart issues but it's fun ride, cheese and dreams.

Im so psyched this popped up on my feeeeed!! Contrapoints gaming aaaaa and its some weird ass aesthetic i adore

That’s funny. I also have a lot of dreams involving aquariums. Not so much indoor pools but I also spend a lot of time on water slides on cruise ships. The dreams typically shift and then I am in the ocean or on a beach.

Watching this while hungover was definitely a good choice.

Spatial awareness is at least partially centered in the amygdala, which also governs fight/flight. I have a stupid theory that anxiety can worsen spatial awareness. Fight me.

Well done getting this far, looking forward to seeing more of the pools!

Her voice is so so soothing and lulling ✨✨

ok i'm going to need to see a part 2 to this I never thought I would love a game about wandering around a bunch of pools so much but I do 😭

Lucid dreaming is super fucking coconuts. I struggle with lucid dreams and sleep paralysis when all I yearn for is a night of deep restful sleep. Like, I don’t want to have agency in this weird-ass dream, let me rest!

natalie talking to the terfbot was quite amusing

Just hoping and wishing and praying I'm not alone... love the video!!

The hair is giving me Willow Rosenberg, I love it

I wish I didn't remember my dreams, I really only have nightmares of being chased by people who want to murder me.

I can't believe I missed this! But about lucid dreaming, if you're able to sleep with your eyes open, that's how I (accidentally) did it very recently - and if you're not used to lucid dreaming, you might be frightened by a lot of slipping/sliding in your dreams, which is exactly what happened to me, too. But you can train yourself to control that, or so I've been told. That said, it was admittedly interesting, as frightening as it was at times.

I have tried to produce youtube videos and podcasts several times and always when I edited or even tried to listen to it I cringed so hard that I did not release it. It was especially frustrating when I produced a podcast with a friend, because I had to tell him to not upload it

Is this connected to the back rooms? This feels closer to the initial idea I used to associate with that whole scene.

I love the topic of lucid dreaming so, I'm just gonna jump right in. I'm also a 14 yo sometimes haha. My "technique" for lucid dreaming is actually kinda odd. Discovered it by accident. I just have to sleep in a way that my arms go numb (is that the term in English?), as when blood isn't properly flowing to them (?) It happened to me once that I fell asleep whilst looking at my phone, with part of my weight over the arm holding it. Slept, "woke up" holding my phone, but then I see that nothing made sense on the screen so, it hit me "ah, this is a dream." A dream in which I felt as uncomfortable and tired as I must've been actually feeling. So, since I had had that sort of fake awakenings before, I kinda knew that there was the possibility that if I went back to sleep in that dream, I'd go into another dream, so to speak. And I did. It's not like I had control over how the "next" dream would be, but I'd be aware. I'd "wake up" again, and repeat. Some weeks later or smth I slept over my crossed arms, and I had a very similar experience, and used it as an opportunity, and now turned it into a pseudo-technique that works 3 out of 10 times, which is not a lot but it's more than I would've been able to with most of the techniques I found online, well, back when I was actually 14 haha.

I was given ketamine for a hospital visit and the K-hole I went down looked like a very digital/matrix version of this game. It was so peaceful, despite the fact that I thought I died. 😂

"has any other strategy taken us to the duck? i dont think so" iconic

i hope she still finishes the game, this was so relaxing i cant believe i watched this all in one go😭😭

If you want to lucid dream, wake up early and eat something and then go to bed again. That’s how Christopher Nolan did it for Inception. I sometimes set an alarm for like an hour later and hit the snooze button. It’s like channel switching for me. Ideally on a warm day with the window open.

Dream journaling really works. That worked for me when I was into dream journaling in HighSchool

I never play games, but this is the one i play all the time now. i love it :,)

FYI I have wake-induced lucid dreams when I sleep at weird times and in weird places, like half sitting up and laying my head on the arm of my chair in the afternoon.

As an Architectural Designer and 3D modeler I am entranced by this, and sitting here working out how I would do it. Edit: Its now feeling like I'm trapped in a weird pool based mental asylum.

Thanks Contrapoints ! The video game videoing on you tubes is so SOPHIE too 🖤 Yin tubs

Mother, this is what I found about pools in the Dream Book: * Emotions: Pools often symbolize your emotional state. The clarity of the water can reflect how you're feeling. Clear water suggests calmness and peace, while murky water indicates emotional turmoil. * Self-reflection: Pools can also represent a desire for self-reflection and introspection. Dreaming of being in a pool could mean you're ready to explore your inner thoughts and feelings. * Renewal: Pools can symbolize cleansing and renewal. Swimming in a pool could represent a desire to let go of negativity and start fresh. * Escape: Pools can also represent a desire for escape from the stresses of daily life. If you're feeling overwhelmed, dreaming of a pool could be a way of wishing for some relaxation and peace. To get a more specific interpretation of your dream, consider the following factors: * Your actions in the pool: Were you swimming, floating, or wading? These actions can provide clues about your emotional state and how you're coping with challenges. * The condition of the pool: Was the pool clean and inviting, or was it dirty or murky? The condition of the pool can reflect your emotional state or how you're viewing a situation in your waking life. * The people in the pool: Were you alone or with others? If you were with others, consider your relationships with those people and how they relate to the dream's meaning. 4o

Indoor pools, aquariums - the dark devouring mother, frustratingly caged, comfortably contained. The irresistible infinity of the water, the permutational flexibility, the danger made controllable, the negotiated risk. A life of deep thought is an intoxicating abyss, an unending forming and re-forming of nothings and everythings, necessarily bound and limited by the human body, the medium, the platform, the borders of thought that mean a thought that can never be finished must find a way to finish anyway. A safe and functional human life involves limits, discrete beginnings and ends, ons and offs, closed systems, arbitrary cut-offs, roads never taken and forms of argument never used. Tangible beings interacting with intangible concepts, converting them imperfectly, introducing artificial structure, touching the divine but ever unable to bring it home or recreate it. Or maybe there are just mad vibes in there.

I always dream my shoes get stolen or disappear, I just thought I'd leave this here

i've ridden thousands of more roller coasters in my dreams than real life

This inspired me to buy the game and played it obscenely well. This isn't a brag cause all the achievements are for exploring. One even rewards you for not taking the most obvious path.

This place looks like an accessibility nightmare. So many head injuries 🙀

theme park dreams are a solid 65% of my dream content (but I guess I grew up in Florida so that makes more sense for me). i feel so seen... maybe sharkboy and lavagirl were onto something...anyway these streams are perfect background noise for remote work + see u at the liminal roller coaster of the subconscious !!

A lot of my dreams are about bathrooms and underground parking garages, so I feel like this game is somewhere in the same neighborhood.

Your streams have been missed, welcome back

A blind Minecraft stream would make my day

did anyone catch what book about limerence she mentions at 9:00 ? i can’t understand what she says at all 😞

more like contrapool cause she is going pool mode haha

that was a fun stream. I was playing a steam game, so your achievements fooled me into thinking I got achievements. lol.

This game reminds me of the book Piranesi by Susanna Clarke, especially when we start seeing the statues. Very dreamy

I tend to dream of dark indoor aquariums with TWO orcas in them. Always dark, always orcas. And I’m scared of them.

omg gamer girl Natalie "for the" Wynn!!!!!

I have lucid dreams a lot and they all seem to take place in mundane circumstances

Im constantly in theme parks in my dreams too. I have no idea why. Wonder if that’s common

Pregabalin, amytriptiline, propranolol and weed make me lucid dream. Currently on the first one daily

I don't know why either but i get the indoor pools too

Someone please tell me how I got jumpscared by a giant rubber duck 😭

Hi, Nat. A question about games: Would you consider playing and streaming the Little Nightmares games? They have a sort of dark Studio Gibli vibe to them. They are a little bit liminal, at least in some parts for me. And they are not long, and pretty linear so they are doable on stream. They would b a good option for Halloween.

Déjà vu in the liminal space, like trees in the forest