LSD: Dream Emulator iceberg

LSD: Dream Emulator iceberg is an iceberg chart topic. On r/IcebergCharts, the highest-scoring available chart on it, "The LSD Dream Emulator Iceberg", was posted by u/Mender_Man on 10 December 2020 and had about 396 upvotes when it was collected. The subreddit has 1 other chart on the same or closely related topics; see Other versions. A text version, "LSD: Dream Emulator Iceberg" by Jozuno, is hosted on IcebergThreads, where it had 661 views as of 29 October 2026.

The IcebergThreads author describes it as: "An iceberg for the PS1 game LSD: Dream Emulator, developed by OutSide Directors Company Co., Ltd."

Entries reflect the chart authors' choices and are not verified fact.

"The LSD Dream Emulator Iceberg" by u/Mender_Man (10 December 2020)

Tiers

Tiers and entries from the IcebergThreads version. Notes after a dash are shortened from the author's explanations.

Tier 1

• Rarest PS1 game – LSD:DE is one of, if not the rarest PS1 game out there.
• Gray Man/Spy – The most famous figure related to LSD:DE. He appears in front of you, slowly sliding towards you. Get too close, the screen flashes and he disappears. He’s only confirmed to delete Flashback data,…
• Bright Moon Apartment – Most commonly known as Bright Moon Cottage. The map that you first spawn in on the first day. Has many strange NPCs and textures.
• Giant Baby – Also known as the Giant Head. Appears on Bright Moon Apartment's 4th floor, and headbutts you, linking to Violence District.
• Doubleface – A very unusual looking NPC that can appear in the Bright Moon Apartment. It can spawn outside, or behind the bar inside.
• Texture sets – The game has 4 texture sets, Normal, Kanji, Downer, and Upper (Sexual).
• Loud footsteps – The footsteps in the game are rather infamous for being loud and annoying.
• Violence District – The most infamous location in the whole game, due to being violent and unnerving.
• Gunman – An ominous looking soldier figure in the Violence District, when approached he slowly turns toward the player and shoots them.
• The developers were on drugs – A joke often made in the expense of the weirdness of the game, and the developers. This is factually untrue.
• Increasingly weirder dreams – A semi-myth about the game which says the closer you get to 365, the weirder the dreams get. This is somewhat true, except the game runs on cycles/psuedo-RNG and does not depend on how far you are…
• LSD:DE creepypasta – A poorly written internet horror story revolving around LSD:DE, circa 2011. It relies on shock value and nothing else.
• LSD & Remixes – The album the released coinciding with the release of the game itself and Lovely Sweet Dream. The songs in the album are used in the intro FMVs.
• Siivagunner rips – Parody remixes/mashups of songs featured in LSD & Remixes.
• Come On And – A song heavily associated with LSD: Dream Emulator, due to it being in the FMV most commonly seen at the start. It is Osamu Sato's most remixed song.
• Linking – A major gameplay element. Walking into any wall, object or NPC can cause the player to link, which causes them to teleport to a different location.
• Flashing water – If the game is improperly emulated, the water in-game quickly flashes from the water color to white, causing strain on the eyes.
• Osamu Sato – The creator of LSD: Dream Emulator. He is a Japanese artist, photographer and musician, and is most well known for LSD: Dream Emulator and his other obscure media.
• Dream graph
• In-game OST – LSD:DE has a rather large collection of songs that can play in-game, due to creative use of sequenced music files and soundfonts.
• Temple Dojo Ambient D – A particular track featured in LSD:DE that is famous for being used in various ROBLOX games.

Tier 2

• Ghost Women – NPCs in the Violence District. When approached, they either teleport away, or fall towards the player, their head coming off in the process. After falling down towards the player, it causes a link to…
• Dying Woman – In Bright Moon Apartment, on the 3rd floor, the last room near the sky painting has a bed. In the bed, depending on the day there’s a woman that over time slowly decays into a skeleton.
• Father and Daughter – A pair of "NPCs" in the Natural World, which is actually just a 2D texture. Infamous because the bridge that leads to them can summon the Abyss Demon.
• Abyss Demon – An NPC that can appear when you try to approach the Father and Daughter or the floating castle in the Natural World. It comes up from the void below, and can be startling due to the sudden loud noise…
• Lovely Sweet Dream – Hiroko Nishikawa’s dream journal that the whole game is based on. It was published alongside LSD & Remixes and the game itself.
• LSD Revamped (game) – An in-progress remake by Figglewatts, made in Unity. It’s attempting to be as faithful to the original as possible. It also had modding capabilties.
• Japanese PSN re-release – In 2010, LSD Dream Emulator was added to the Japanese PlayStation Network. Currently the only way to buy a new copy.
• Day 365 and the "ending" – Beat day 365 (the number of days in a normal year), and a short video called “ENDING.STR[0]” plays. Then the counter resets to day 1, implying that a near year has begun. Any previous progress on the…
• LSD Dream Emulator wiki – The most well known and complete wiki for information on the game. However, since it's hosted on Fandom, sometimes people can make poorly researched edits.
• Natural World maps – On the top right, bottom right and bottom left corners of the Natural World, there are maps of the Natural World itself. The five major maps in the game are labelled on them.
• Alternate cover arts – The instruction booklet included with the game has pages that can be used as alternative cover art for the game case.
• Flashback – A feature eventually unlocked after playing the game enough. According to the instruction booklet, "If you select this option, notable scenes you remember up to this point will be replayed." It is…

Tier 3

• Moonlight Tower dreams – Whenever a dream starts in Moonlight Tower, it is extremely short. Noticeably shorter compared to starting in any other area.
• Glitch textures – When playing for extended periods of time without saving (the actual cause is unknown), one area’s textures in addition to garbage data are applied to the textures every other area, causing graphical…
• Dream graph video event – When the eyes, nose/mouth, and neck of the dream chart are covered, an event will play where the game will play every video dream in a row.
• Linen – Name for the mascot of LSD: Dream Emulator. Osamu Sato uses this mascot in more than just LSD:DE, especially in his modern day work.
• LSD Meaning – The LSD in the title means “Link Speed Dream” officially, but has many alternative meanings from the intro FMVs.
• Violence District random stretching – While in Violence District, the game has a rare chance to stretch the whole area upwards, making everything taller. This can also rarely be caused by looking at the Starship.
• Non-walkable water in the Natural World – In most areas in The Natural World, you can walk across the water. However, in certain locations the water isn’t walkable. Either you fall through the water and below the map, or there is an…
• Lucy in the Sky with Dynamites – A CD that came with the limited editions of LSD Dream Emulator. It’s an hour long, continuous music piece.
• Uboa on the TV – In Bright Moon Apartment, there’s a TV that can occasionally be found on the 2nd floor has a disturbing image on the screen. The face on the bottom left of the screen bears a striking resemblance to…
• Kyoto Buddha connections – In Kyoto, there are NPCs and objects that reference Buddha. It’s also notable to mention that the instruction booklet, under Kyoto’s description it says “Buddha’s temple and pagoda can be seen there.”
• Strafe/backwards running – Usually, the player cannot run backwards or while strafing. However, using the L1 or R1 buttons to turn around while running makes you able to run backwards and sideways.
• SomeOrdinaryGamers Let's Play – The first complete 365 day let's play on YouTube (playlist linked does not have last episode).

Tier 4

• HAPPY TOWN messages/art – In HAPPY TOWN, the floor is very colorful with all sorts of faces. There are also words and art displayed on the ground using said tiles.
• Alien theory – The theory that the player has been abducted by aliens, and their dreams are being monitored/probed by aliens, including the Spy. This is based off of lots of depictions of UFOs in the game.
• Flesh Tunnels is a womb – The theory that Flesh Tunnels represents a womb. This is supported by the layout of said flesh tunnels, and the tiny baby-like NPCs that are literally called Fetuses.
• "This is not a game." – A quote from one commercial for LSD Dream Emulator, where it says “'こんなの、ゲームじゃない” which translates to “This is not a game.” Osamu Sato himself it says it’s a piece of art instead, with the…
• OSD310 – The official YouTube channel of OutSide Directors Company, which is now defunct. It has videos related to LSD: Dream Emulator.
• Set text/video dream days – There is a list in the game's data the determines which days show text or a video instead of allowing for gameplay. For example, day 2 is always a text/video dream.
• Texture cycle – Every 10 days, the game adds a new texture set into the mix. There are four in all, and the entire cycle repeats every 40 days.
• Darkening sky – A rumor that the more times you died by falling off cliffs in-game, the sky would gradually grow darker. This is untrue, as the skies operate on a 240 day cycle.
• Clockwork Machines out of bounds area – Occasionally when linking to Clockwork Machines, you can spawn standing in an area out of bounds. Walking one step will cause you to fall through the floor, ending the dream.
• Rooftop spawn – There is a chance that linking to the Violence District can have you spawn on top of a building. Walking off can either end the dream or have the player land safely, with the outcome depending on the…
• Falling through the mountains – Sometimes it's possible to fall through the world while spawning at or walking around the mountainous area of the Natural World.
• Dynamic texture set translations – The Dynamic/Kanji texture set uses excerpts from Hiroko Nishikawa's dream journal, or a Kanji symbol simply stating what the texture is representing (e.g. "floor")
• Moonlight Tower is in Kyoto – Linking in the chunk that contains the tower in Kyoto always links to Moonlight Tower, implying the tower in Kyoto is Moonlight Tower
• Abandoned part of Kyoto – In the bottom right corner of Kyoto are a bunch of boarded up houses. There aren’t any houses like these ones anywhere else, and the ground adjacent to some of them appear to be “cracked.”

Tier 5

• Tokyo Planet reference in Kyoto – The Giant Baby Heads in Kyoto, depending on the texture set, shows a different kanji symbol when approached. When these kanji are placed in a certain order, it spells out “東京惑星,” which means “Tokyo…
• Wall clipping – A glitch that involves using the L1 and R1 buttons while walking/running forward, which clips your hitbox through a wall/object to pass through it.
• Sleeping while playing the game – A video by 2GuysGaming, where he shows footage of himself supposedly playing LSD: Dream Emulator while he was asleep.
• Astronaut link – If the player's internal position on the graph is (4,3), in the cycle that the Astronaut in Bright Moon Apartment goes back and forth between the roof, it will float downwards and towards the bar.…
• Potential US localization – Osamu Sato reportedly said that he had hoped LSD: Dream Emulator would be localized. Due to how poorly his last game Eastern Mind: The Lost Souls of Tong-Nou did over in the west, no plans went…
• Hanged woman chasing – Rarely, the hanged women in Violence District can come down from the lamp posts and chase the player.
• Stars – Objects that can spawn in the sky alongside the sun, moon and clouds. They are extremely hard to see, especially at native resolution. The typical appearance of these objects is only appearing as a…
• Nanshu – Nanshu is a character from another game that Osamu Sato worked on, Chu-Teng. In LSD: Dream Emulator, his face is used in some of the Upper textures, specifically Temple and Sun Faces Heave.
• "Corrupted" music tracks – A misconception that spread about the OST (most likely my fault). It was that some tracks were corrupted and unplayable in .PSF form, or in-game. However, all but one of these was found to be…
• Teleport triggers – There are certain triggers on maps that teleport you to different places, and they are often very sudden. They are most likely related to map patterns, as they are not always there.
• LSD Demo Movie 1997 – A video that was uploaded as a preview to the game before it released. It has many interesting differences from the final game, and since the video is pre-rendered CGI it’s unknown how much of this…
• Debug info – In the LSD Demo Movie 1997, along with the LSD website, there’s gameplay footage and pictures with what seems to be debugging info displayed on screen. It is possible to get debug info out of the…

Tier 6

• Tokyo Planet leitmotif in Moonlight Tower – Moonlight Tower A (the in-game music track) has the same chord progression as Tokyo Planet's main theme. This is notable because LSD:DE predates Tokyo Planet.
• Floating Lips heart – When viewing the Floating Lips from HAPPY TOWN in LSDView 0.1.0 (no other version), there’s an unused heart that appears in the animation.
• BEAMS Logo – In HAPPY TOWN’s Upper texture set, there’s a texture of the logo of the company BEAMS, a Japanese clothing brand.
• The Grey Man - The Aquabats – A song possibly based off of the Spy. It's about the “boredom that can sometimes prevail in an everyday predictable American life.” But, it's most likely unrelated.
• HAPPY TOWN whale – An incredibly obscure NPC in HAPPY TOWN. Standing in a specific place by the lake north of the castle, a whale will come out of the water and fall back down.
• Muscletrainer – An external program that allows the user to edit their position in-game, and track their location in the Natural World.
• Violence District ghosts and Giant Baby similarities – The ghosts in the Violence District warehouses and the Giant Baby in Bright Moon Apartment. look similar to one another, mainly due to their pose and the way they drag themselves forward. It’s…
• Osamu Sato knows about LSD Revamped – Osamu Sato has made several comments on LSD Revamped in the past. "Now there’s even some guy who has taken it upon himself to revamp LSD and make it run on the PC. All on his own, of course. Without…
• LSD Revamped footage in official music video – On the musicmineinc YouTube channel, there’s a music video for Come on and (2018) - LSD Revamped. It uses gameplay of LSD Revamped alongside footage of the actual game.
• Kyoto bridge Geisha – In Kyoto, rarely there can be a geisha that spawns standing on a bridge. When approached, they slowly turn towards you. Linking with them brings you to Black Space.
• Violence District is the sunken city – In the Natural World, there is a giant lake with what appears to be a city submerged under the water, with buildings with resemblance to the highrises in Violence District.
• Japanese LSD:DE wiki – A Japanese wiki that isn't finished, however has more knowledge of the game than the Fandom/Osamu Sato wiki.
• Literal emulated dreams theory – The theory that the player character is in-game is having their dreams actually emulated by some sort of software.
• Game was named LSD for attention grabbing purposes – It was named to "...attract the hippie and psychedelic subcultures" according to Osamu Sato in an interview.

Tier 7

• Circle button – The circle button is listed as having no use in-game in the instruction manual, however that is false. Pressing it when being confronted by the Gunman and Black Wolf makes them fall over and stop…
• Temple dream loop – It is possible to be stuck in a loop where every dream you spawn in Temple, and when you fall down the pit, you end up at the part of the chart that spawns you back into Temple. This makes an endless…
• LSD Promo Magazine – A magazine that was handed out to advertise for the release of LSD: Dream Emulator. It’s similar to he manual, and also has a few extras.
• LSD Promo Videos – Flash videos that would play on the offical LSD: Dream Emulator website. This includes the Demo Video 1997.
• Lovely Sweet Dream and Followers – A fan anthology featuring many different artists, released in 2011. It has an English translation.
• ZDUMMY.STR – A file located in the game files, in the ZDUMMY folder. It’s purpose is so the game’s actual data was close to the center of the disk, shortening load times. There is an alleged image of this file,…
• Link colors – The color that the screen turns to when linking is dependent on the player's current graph position.
• Objects travel the dream world too – Under the CHARACTER section in the Instruction Booklet, the last sentence roughly translates to “They wander the dream world, too.” This heavily implies the player isn't the only one able to travel…
• Graph mechanics – The position on the graph determines every random event in the game. Depending on the square you land on the previous day, it determines what field you will spawn in the next day.
• Giant Baby trigger on different floors – A glitch that allows the player to look down and still trigger the Giant Baby event in Bright Moon Apartment.
• Flying train in HAPPY TOWN – A rare event that happens when the graph position is (4~9,3~9). The train in HAPPY TOWN will suddenly stop, before starting up again, and moves forward off the track while suddenly ascending.
• "Too horrifying to recount." – A reference to an older version of the Background page on the Fandom wiki, claiming that some text dreams simply said “Not having a dream that night.” or “Too horrifying to recount.” Since then,…
• Ghost Sailor died in a plane crash – When approached, the Ghost Sailor in Violence Town will disappear until you get far away enough again. Sometimes, when they disappear, it will cause a plane to spawn. More often than not, the plane…
• Rare Spy locations – The Spy very rarely appears in the sub-areas of Kyoto, HAPPY TOWN and Violence Distirct. This is compared to how often they are seen in the main fields.
• Speedrun.com categories – Self-explanatory. There are categories for LSD Revamped as well.
• Black Space missing tiles – Black Space has tiles where there is no floor, causing the player to fall. They are invisible compared to the black background of the sky. They act as a barrier to prevent the player from going any…
• Giant Hoop & Stick girl – Occasionally the Hoop & Stick Girl in Black Space will be much bigger than normal.
• Monument Park Zeppelin link – Looking up at the Empire State Building in Monument Park at a certain angle can spawn the Zeppelin. Sometimes (depending on the graph), the Zeppelin will land, and force a link to Clockwork Machines…

Tier 8

• Spy is actually benevolent – A theory that the Spy actually isn’t evil, and that he’s purposefully erasing your dreams so you don’t have to remember how “terrible” they were.
• Trigger bypasses – Looking up, down, or backwards while going over a trigger (something that prevents movement) can allow you to bypass it and not activate it. Certain methods work differently with different triggers.…
• Odd and Even day differences – Depending on whether the day number is odd or even, different objects show up in-game.
• Timer variable – A variable that counts the time spent in a particular field, and it resets when going to another. Possibly related to how certain fields influence how long a dream lasts.
• LSD Twitter bot – An unofficial Japanese Twitter bot that posted dream diary excerpts and LSD meanings every hour, by @CorvoPassero. Seemed to have shut down in March in 2019, with no more updates since then.
• Gunman's victim in the demo movie – In the LSD Demo Movie 1997, during the HAPPY TOWN part, the camera is hit by a figure that looks a lot like the victim that the Gunman shoots in one of the warehouses. It’s speculated to be an early…
• Original soundfont samples – When listening to some of Osamu Sato’s other works, if you’re familiar with LSD: Dream Emulator’s music, you might recognize some samples he uses.
• SYMDOG.MOM – An unused model in the game files that resembles a dog. It has animations for walking and turning around. This isn’t the same as the Black Wolf, as they look very different. Possibly related to the…
• Bright Moon Apartment unused water closet – In Bright Moon Apartment, on the 1st floor behind the WC door, there’s actually a room there. It can be seen by wall clipping or LSDView. There are also unused textures for a bathtub and curtains as…
• Bright Moon Apartment lion textures – In STG00, the folder for Bright Moon Apartment, there is an unused texture of the lion's face from the Natural World. It has unique texture variants not seen anywhere else despite being unused.
• Flesh Tunnels sumo ring roof – In Flesh Tunnels, above the sumo ring, there is a fully modeled roof that cannot be seen in its entirety without cheats.
• Reset code – When pausing the game and then holding down select and triangle buttons at the same time, all graph values are erased and the day variable is set back to one.
• Invinicibilty frames – When a dream is starting/ending, or a player has just linked, in both cases when the screen is fading in/out, you have invincibility frames where you cannot link or fall into pits. This can be…
• HAPPY TOWN's true appearance – It is implied through the Dynamic (Kanji) texture set (which looks “corrupted”), the FMV that plays when riding the ferris wheel, and the walls lining it in the Natural World, that HAPPY TOWN looks…
• Origins of the leitmotifs in the music patterns – Osamu Sato has stated that the music in-game has leitmotifs from other works.
• Sky colors are on a 240 day cycle – Sky colors are not random, but are chosen from a hard-coded list.

Tier 9

• Looking up at the Spy – Related to trigger bypasses. Looking up while walking towards the Spy completely nullifies his trigger, making him harmless. This most likely works because triggers are most likely activated by the…
• The Opera Singers are actually ghosts – The ghosts in the Violence District warehouses have triangles for heads. The Opera Singers in HAPPY TOWN have triangles floating where their heads should probably be. Are the Opera Singers ghosts…
• Ghost Sailor isn't actually a ghost – Following the trend of ghosts having triangles for heads, the Ghost Sailor in the Violence District looks like a completely normal human. This could imply that the Ghost Sailor isn’t actually a…
• Different startup FMVs per copy – Allegedly happens with actual, physical copies playing on actual hardware. The explanation behind this is very complicated... and I don't really understand it anyway.
• Monument Park Sphinx sounds – Strange, deep rumbling noises can be heard when getting close to the Sphinx in Monument Park.
• Natural World inaccessible islands – There are several islands in The Natural World that aren't meant to accessed, although some can be via invincibility frames.
• Monument Park was a last minute addition – It’s the last map in the games files, STG13 (Black Space is STG12). It is added onto Kyoto, which already had a “sub-map” accessible (Temple Dojo). It reuses melodies from some other maps (mainly…
• alt-J – A indie rock band that, with permission of Osamu Sato, used LSD: Dream Emulator for some of their album art/music videos. There was even a fully playable Violence District at one point on their…
• Prince and Princess were murdered – Reference to way back in the olden days of the LSD wiki. The original page for the Prince and Princess apparently said something along the lines of “...the king and queen were actually ghosts and…
• Come On And voices – Come On And samples high pitched voices that are in the background. It is unknown what they say in English, since nobody's translated it.
• Original resolution textures – The Static textures in-game appear to be handdrawn, which means that there could possibly be original resolution versions of these textures out there somewhere.
• Natural World noises from the abyss – A strange noise can be heard near the map at the bottom left part of the Natural World, seemingly coming from nowhere except the void itself. When sped up, it’s revealed that it’s the bird tweeting…
• Lions climbing trees – It is possible for the lions in The Natural World to walk over trees when chasing you.
• Bright Moon Apartments negative emotional aura – Before you rag on me for copying the Mario 64 iceberg, hear me out here. The Violence District obviously and purposefully gives a negative aura. But personally to me (and one other person I know),…

Tier 10

• Soviet-era stamps – In one of the video dreams, it shows closeup shots of multiple soviet-era stamps. All nine stamps have been identified, and @higashi_O2J on Twitter posted the findings.
• Links dictated to "moods" in-game – Refers to a phrase in the manual, and most likely refers to how the Graph determines everything.
• Bright Moon Apartment is a real place
• Bright Moon Apartments is a retirement home – While it is known that Bright Moon Apartment is based off of a real place, one could also gather that it could represent a retirement home. This is more or less based off of the Dying Woman, and how…
• HAPPY TOWN is life, Violence District is death, and Black Space is purgatory – This is all based on the Dying Woman. When the Dying Woman is alive, she links to HAPPY TOWN, which is (usually) pretty bright and happy. When the Dying Women is actually dead, she links to the…
• Spy diphenhydramine connections – Diphenhydramine is a type of recreational drug that is used to treat allergies. It can be known to cause hallucinations, including (but not limited to) a shadowy figure or a man with a hat.
• Glitched Father and Daughter
• Bugged Clockwork Machines track – There is a track in Clockwork Machines that doesn't play, due to the fact that its BPM is set to zero.
• Original Cinematic Event 6 – Cinematic events 5 and 6 both use the same video, but with different headers. It's possible the original event 6 was overwritten
• White Space – According to some obscure pre-release screenshots, Black Space's sky used to be white instead.
• Feburary 1998 textures
• Giant Geisha circle button link – Using the circle button on the Giant Geisha in Kyoto in a very specific spot causes her to run directly at the player causing a link.
• The game isn't random at all – Everything is determined by the graph ("random" events), cycles (textures, sky colors), a list (event dreams), or a psuedo-randomly generated seed for the given dream.

Other versions

Other charts from r/IcebergCharts grouped under this topic, ordered by score:

• LSD: Dream Emulator Iceberg (Version 3) by u/Mender_Man, 19 October 2023 (50 upvotes)

See also

• Iceberg chart
• R/IcebergCharts
• Yume Nikki iceberg
• Dreamcore iceberg

Sources

• Featured Reddit chart: u/Mender_Man. The LSD Dream Emulator Iceberg. Reddit (r/IcebergCharts). 10 December 2020. Retrieved 29 October 2026.
• IcebergThreads version: Jozuno. LSD: Dream Emulator Iceberg. IcebergThreads. 22 February 2026. Retrieved 29 October 2026.