Mind Reading

[Super Squirrel]

This could very easily be placed in with Non-Gaming Discussion because of the intense level of psychology and neurology behind it but it still pertains to gaming.

 

In a recent/ongoing situation involving my character Cas on The Savage Earth at www.herocentral.net I found my character facing what I believe was continious mind reading. This was, hands-down, the hardest role-playing moment for me. It was difficult because I had to strive to post all In Character thoughts the character was having while trying to figure out, Out of Character what I was doing and distinguishing the difference between the two.

 

For example, Out of Character I know that I would like to engage into combat. But because I think this out of character, does that mean I would think of it in character? At the moment, the character was trying to not think about things so I decided, no. But it got worse.

 

I will explain this dilemna by example. My character is a story teller. Now you all know the story of Repunzle. I mentioned the name of the story only here on this board. If someone was completely reading your mind what would they have gotten? Would they have thought of the name only or would they have thought of the entire story even if they had never heard of it?

 

This is while you are aware of a situation and trying to not think of it. Now look at mind reading another way. A mind reader is delving into the mind of someone driving a car. The driver comes to a stop sign and stops. Do they get the notion of Red Shaped Object with word Stop means come to complete stop before proceeding? Or would they get the mental thought "stop sign" and nothing else? Or perhaps they would get nothing because they are behaving out of a conditioned reaction?

 

On a side note, I wish to expend my thanks to Keith Curtis for running a magnificently devilish game/scene that has given me many hours of thought as I drive to and from work (not to mention two tylenols).

[Agent X]

When you brought up Rapunzel I thought of the name Rapunzel; a flashback to a Golden Book, a cartoon picture of a tower, a prince, and a redhead with long hair; Drew Barrymore (tangent); Fractured Fairy Tales from the Bullwinkle Show; and another tangent - Rumpelstilskin. That pretty much happened within a second or two and took some time to "remember" as I wrote. Hope that helped.

 

As for, thinking about "nothing" when someone is reading your mind - that is only going to work if they are reading surface thoughts.

 

Writing all your thoughts down seems to me to be pretty much impossible. I would just go with the high points.