I have a short stoy in the anthology of specualtive fiction tales, Thirteen.
In MIND GAMES...
Loner and consummate video game player, Angie, is just about to wash out of college. As a last chance to make easy money before she does, she signs up for a psyche department sleep study. They're using video game scenarios in directed dreaming as a new form of therapy. But it quickly becomes more than yet another game system for her to beat.
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Therapy has changed a lot since the days of Sigmund Freud.
Martina reset the program to a higher difficulty setting, while I lay on the bed in the lab and slept to specification. I had a moment to anticipate my next challenge during the transition from level 12 to level 13.
I’m no psychology major, but I took intro to psych last term so I knew this much: from the early Freud-inspired analysts, to university-educated psychologists, and all the licensed therapists and self-help books working from a ton of different beliefs and philosophies, it seems like it had mostly been a safe and plodding field of practice. Couches and clipboards. Talking and tissue boxes. Prescription pills.
I felt sorry for their patients. How dull.
In the guise of my favorite avatar, Tangie, I was dressed for action, and ready for adventure. Meatier than Barbie, she was way stronger than Ken. Tangie stood among towering shapes my mind took for trees without actually looking at them. We were doing a night setting this time, starting outdoors.
People running the experiment didn’t know it yet, but I was probably going to be kicked out of college at the end of the term. I spent more time playing vid games than studying because you can’t slack off or you’ll fall too far behind and lose the Intimidation Factor with the guys—and then you’ll just be another girl. When I saw the flyer on campus for this paid sleep lab in the psych department, it was like my last chance for easy money before getting the boot and having to face the real world.
All things bow to trends, and the big thing in therapy these days was to embrace old folk wisdom. Instead of ignoring the accumulated experience of centuries, the theory was to go ahead and slay your dragons. Defeat your demons. These old phrases were being put to the test.
We hadn’t actually done demonic figures yet, or gone up against any dragons for that matter—I assumed I would be encountering them at higher levels. My programmer-therapist, Martina, had explained that the game needed to work up slowly, to minimize emotional trauma when a patient hit their ‘fear mark.’ I told her not to worry, me being made of stern-enough stuff, but she insisted on following protocol.
Communicating with my mind in the dream-state, Martina facilitated the game in a setting borne both of her programming and my subconscious. She began the short checklist to make sure my brain and her equipment were simpatico in the new dream scenario, quizzing me on what I saw of my surroundings and my avatar.
“Do you still feel six feet tall?”
I do.
“Are you fully equipped?”
I am.
“What is the Insight you acquired last level?”
That the bad guys usually come in fours, like I have four older brothers? Yeah, sure.
“Remember, this is about confronting your fears.”
What fears?
I could hear her exhale, but she didn’t argue with me. Instead, she reminded me, “Fear is what holds us back—keeps us small, silent and isolated. Anywhere in your life where you experience feelings you are embarrassed about, limitations you’re secretly ashamed of, and disconnection from other people, there is fear behind it.”
