I was inspired by an episode of a television show called Shameless that has always stuck with me. One of the main characters, Lip, struggles with alcoholism, and goes through his everyday life while drunk. This causes him to view the world differently; more as a bystander. He describes it as sleepwalking; he has been physically present the past few years, but not mentally present. When he finally gets sober and wakes up, he doesn’t recognize himself or the people around him anymore because he isn’t used to the world with a sober state of mind. He is looking at everything with new eyes and doesn’t really know what his purpose is anymore. I wanted to create a feeling of being pulled in and out of reality. Dialogue between Lip and his girlfriend about a very human problem set the scene but the rest has a dreamlike quality that separates the listener from the scene. I wanted to alter the listeners sense of space and perspective to create the feeling of only being loosely connected to reality. I thought the idea of someone feeling like they’re sleepwalking in everyday life, while they’re awake is really interesting and I wanted to explore that with my soundscape. Lip’s girlfriend, family, job, and other obligations kept him in reality, but his inner unresolved problems kept him in a perpetual dream state.
