thoughtfulI love this technique, people naturally want to tie things together and so we do, we connect the dots as it were.
Our group had some problems, one of which was the idea that soon as we can reliably talk to the Aliens then they cease to be so alien.
So what brought me back to write up a post on Sign in Stranger, was this post on Rudy Rucker's blog. Rudy is a SciFi author of very strange books, they will stretch your brain. In this post he is talking about the next book he is working on. How to make these alien characters better, by making them talk. But how would these characters talk.
In this book one kind of Aliens, talks in strings of Nouns, another in strings of Verbs. Rudy tells us that:
"Nouns seem easier to string together than verbs, by the way. I’m still getting the hang of it. These are alien modes of thought! So I need to practice."
This reminds me of a brain altering exercises of Aleister Crowley's. In this exercises, your choose to restrict your speech; Such as avoiding a common word or pronouns of the first person. anding using negative feedback, ie pain to reinforce it. I am sure we can't do this at the gaming table.
I just had to develop these thoughts, I don't know were to go with them now. I just find it interesting how these old techniques of changing your thinking are rediscovered. How they make your own thinking alien.