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The Gray Man seen in Kyoto. | ||||||||
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The Gray Man (identified in the game files as SYMSPY.MOM
, hence also known as the Spy) is an entity that unexpectedly appears right in front of the player on B-Type days throughout certain locations in the dreamscape. Upon appearing, he slowly moves forwards in a straight line.
Upon getting too close to the player, a bright flash will occur and the Gray Man will disappear. He may appear more than once in an area consecutively, and may even teleport around rapidly. Gray man won't be chasing the player purposefully, he just moves forwards in a straight line during all his presense.
He is sometimes viewed as the main antagonist of the game due to his hindering nature. He seems to appear most often in Happy Town.
Appearance[]
The Gray Man wears a dark grey trench coat. He also wears a hat of the same color that appears to be either a bucket hat, a fedora or an Asian conical hat. His hands appear to be inside his pockets and his face has no detail, as his model is colored flatly instead of textured. He appears to be "gliding" instead of walking, as his feet never move and he has no animation.
Effects and purpose[]
The Gray Man's main purpose appears to be to startle the player and possibly to force them to explore the dream world carefully. His most prominent ability consists of erasing the saved flashback data upon interacting with the player. If all flashback data is erased, the option disappears from the menu. If encountered during the flashback session, the remaining compilation of dreams will be erased and the session will end shortly after.
The Gray Man has the most negative influence (both horizontally and vertically) on the background chart (the main character's mood) of the dream (-10;-10) of all the existing objects in the game. It is notable, that such substractions are way too big for the chart's marker to complete, so that, the expected extremely downer and static dream becomes weirdly upper and dynamic one, usually resulting in different rare events being activated, such as the Astronaut's landing. Normally, the Gray Man should cause drastically downer dreams, but the dream's rating in this term oftentimes becomes obviously opposite to the downer side of the chart, which happens because of the chart's marker forced teleportation to the opposite side of the chart. This is the main reason of the sudden appearance of green, blue and pink link colors after the interaction with the Gray Man.
Spawn mechanics[]
Accurate details of the Gray Man's spawn mechanics remain unknown, however, numerous studies have shown that his spawn isn't random, and is fully dependent on the generation the player is currently in. The generation changes as the player moves, triggers the events and loads different chunks of the map. When the required generation is reached, the Gray Man appears. Loading and unloading chunks of the map on purpose can be abused to force the Gray Man to spawn faster, although not guaranteed.
There are seven different locations, where the Gray Man can spawn:
(Chances of spawning is based on speculation.)
- Happy Town (Highest chance of spawning.)
- Violence District (Second highest chance of spawning.)
- Kyoto (Third highest chance of spawning.)
- Temple Dojo (50/50 chance of spawning.)
- Clockwork Machines (Third lowest chance of spawning.)
- Moonlight Tower (Second lowest chance of spawning.)
- Monument Park (Lowest chance of spawning.)
The chance of spawning is more of a speculation, than of a real proven statement though. Happy Town is considered to have the highest chance of the Gray Man spawn, as there's slightly more triggerable events, comparing to other locations
Theories and Speculations[]
- The Gray Man could be a result of hypnagogia, a state of sleep where the mind can sometimes imagine a threatening entity or presence. A sense of dread comes with this experience, causing one to only remember the fear.
- In the "Alien Theory," the Gray Man may represent an alien probing the conscious mind in a dream, hence the "mind-erasure" effect. Though fantastical and unlikely, this idea is backed up by the examples of alien activity present in LSD: Dream Emulator, including the Starship in the Violence District and the UFOs in The Natural World.
- In the "Sexual Texture" Theory, the Gray Man may represent a rapist and/or murderer. The player's mind may be trying to mentally block the Gray Man to prevent repressed memories from being re-awakened due to those memories being traumatic, thus the resulting effect of memory loss. Similarly, they may be a recurring unpleasant figure in the real world that the player's mind is trying to forget, much like the reference to someone dangerous in the "I'm being chased." Text Dream.
- The Gray Man could be a reference to the sedative antihistamine "Diphenhydramine", which is found in the allergy medicine Benadryl. When taken in high doses, the drug becomes a deliriant and has been known to create instances of a "Hat Man" or "Shadow Figure," which could be similar in appearance to The Gray Man. Diphenhydramine can also cause temporary memory loss.
Evading The Gray Man[]
To avoid a memory-erasing encounter with the Gray Man, run away while keeping him within your field of vision. The game places him initially within the vision of the player, so running backwards is the best method for escaping. If you are far away enough to the point that he does not trigger, he'll continue to indefinitely walk in a straight line. Running too far away from the Gray Man however can cause him to respawn in front of the player, so this should be avoided.
Looking up also completely nullifies the Gray Man's trigger, much like how other triggers can be avoided by walking backwards or looking up/down.
A third technique is to keep him in your line of sight while strafing to an object that statically links to a new location.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- In the game "Yume 2kki", there exists an enemy character who is similar to the Gray Man, possibly inspired by him as the games contain similar themes of dream exploration.
- The "Spy" nickname originates from the Gray Man's model name, SYMSPY.MOM.
- In the files, there is an object named SYMDOG.MOM, most likely belonging to a similar classification as the Gray Man, as his object name is SYMSPY.MOM. More info about this is on the TCRF page for LSD: Dream Emulator.