When my son was 6 years old, he went through a period of persistent nightmares. Every night for weeks, my wife and I would be woken in the early hours by terrible screams. Then, at a holiday party, several family members including my son shared a roleplay adventure about fighting nightmares. My son did not have a nightmare that night and, with one or two exceptions, has not had a nightmare in nearly a decade since.
As a child, I struggled with nightmares myself so I became very interested in what had happened with my son. Over years of research, the connection between roleplay-type activities and potentials of the human mind became all too clear. For example, the mental strategies employed by Viktor Frankl in the concentration camps bore remarkable resemblance to the strategies of contestants in memory competitions. While the power of visualizing techniques is nothing new, there is an unfortunate irony in the narrow view of how we should be using these techniques today.
Roleplay is the heart of ceremony and, as such, is the heart of society itself. Uniforms, titles and countless other symbols in our everyday lives collectively serve as a roadmap to help guide each of us to a dignified life honored by others in the community. What’s more – roleplay is just fun! Theater and holidays such as Halloween raise the general level of happiness in a community. People like to live in places where values are shared by way of tradition and commemoration.
Rylomi is a storytelling garden where people of the Hudson Valley can grow and nurture the principles we need. It is a place of meaningful play. It is a place powered by symbolism that allows us to participate in the human experience more deeply.