Journey to the Center of the Mind: Difference between revisions

{{quote|''"Come along if you care''<br />

''Come along if you dare''<br />

{{quote|''You lock the door''<br />

''And throw away the key''<br />

A relative to [[Fantastic Voyage Plot]], except instead of traveling into another character's physical body via [[Applied Phlebotinum]], they [[Mental World|enter their mind]]. The problem this is supposed to solve can range from recurring nightmares to [[Easy Amnesia|memory loss]] to [[Single-Issue Psychology|psychological disorders]], and even the odd [[Convenient Coma]]. Expect to see some psychological aspects of the character [[Anthropomorphic Personification|manifested as physical beings]], a la ''[[Herman's Head]]'' (See [[Ghost in Thethe Machine]] and [[Enemy Without]]). Since it lays bare all the innermost thoughts and feelings of a character, it can be used as an extreme case of the [[Big Ego, Hidden Depths]] or [[In Another Man's Shoes]].

A closely related plot is the one where the main characters enter [[Dream Land|the dreams of their sleeping cast mates]] or the [[Happy Place]] of [[Convenient Coma|comatose friends]]. If there's [[Mind Control]] involved, expect a [[Battle in Thethe Center of Thethe Mind]] to free their friend in an [[Orphean Rescue]].

Compare the malicious version, [[Mind Probe]], or a single person variant, the [[Vision Quest]].

* Interesting variation on the trope: Instead of one character doing this to another, the ''audience'' takes a [[Journey to Thethe Center of Thethe Mind]] into the protagonist's head in the final episode(s) of ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion (Anime)|Neon Genesis Evangelion]]''.

* ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh!]]'': Shadi goes into Yugi's mind to investigate why he has a Millennium Item. He's understandably surprised to find not one but ''[[Split Personality|two]]'' minds there!

** [[Yu-Gi-Oh!: The Abridged Series (Web Video)|"By the way, have you ever seen Labyrinth?"]]

* ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh! GX]]'': During Jim's duel with Judai while he's possessed by Haou, Jim uses his magic replacement eye to take a trip into Judai's mind to figure out what's going on with him. He finds the former [[The Ace|Ace]] surrounded by images of his dead friends and listening to to a repetitive loop of [[Hannibal Lecture|Hannibal Lectures]]s from that season's villains, sinking deeper into despair and [["I Know You Are're in There Somewhere" Fight|farther out of reach]].

* In episode 12 of ''[[Pani Poni Dash!]]'', alien technology causes Rebecca's class to get stuck in Himeko's dreamscape, where they encounter all matter of weirdness, including [[Idiot Hair]] on everything, a restaurant that serves nothing but crabs, and a fat thug who claims to be the Archangel Michael guarding the door to Himeko's heart.

* The ending of ''[[Darker Thanthan Black]]'' turns into a ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion]]''-[[Shout-Out|esque]] [[Journey to Thethe Center of Thethe Mind]] for {{spoiler|Hei, after Amber uses the Meteor Fragment on him to trigger the Tokyo Explosion using his quantum-manipulation abilities.}}

* With the help of a stray Unown, the ''[[Pokémon (Animeanime)|Pokémon]]'' anime's heroes go into a Larvitar's mind to find out what exactly went wrong to make him so untrusting of humans: an incident involving poachers that left its Tyranitar mother injured and the two separated when it was still in its egg!

* If Road from ''[[D .Gray Man-man]]'' is not [[Eye Scream|stabbing your eyes out]] for the hell of it, she enters your mind so that she can start [[Mind Rape|raping it]]. {{spoiler|Lavi}} did not enjoy the little tour of his own subconscious fears and insecurities.

* In ''[[Ciel: theThe Last Autumn Story]]'', one of the main characters falls into a coma after overusing her magic powers, and her closest friend and love interest have to pull one of these in order for them all to wake up safely.

== ComicbooksComic Books ==

* In a villainous example, one story arc of the ''[[Sleepwalker]]'' comics had the Thought Police enter the mind of Sleepwalker's human host in an attempt to capture him.

* The final arc of ''[[Spider-Girl (Comic Book)|Spider-Girl]]'' has the titular heroine journeying into both her own mind and the mind of her father, the original [[Spider-Man]]. The first version is a typical [[Mind Screw]], but the latter is much more serious, as May struggles to save her dad from being [[People Puppets|possessed by the Green Goblin]].

* Done in Paul Jenkins' run on ''[[Incredible Hulk (Comic Book)|Incredible Hulk]]''. Bruce Banner travels into his own mind to try and strike a deal with his Hulk personalities, each of which represents a different aspect of Bruce.

* [[Grant Morrison|Grant Morrison's]] run on ''[[X-Men (Comic Book)|New X-Men]]'' featured a trippy, one-issue-long sequence with no dialogue (save one line on the last page), in which telepaths Jean Grey and Emma Frost travel into Cassandra Nova's mind in order to rescue Professor Xavier. In a later issue, when Jean discovers {{spoiler|Emma's been having an affair with her husband}}, the confrontation takes place in Emma's mind.

* There was an issue of ''[[The Brave and Thethe Bold]]'' (#31 of the revived series) that had [[The Atom]] literally shrinking down inside of the Joker's brain at the request of some scientists. He is given a tour through Joker's childhood after accidentally walking through the wrong synapses and absorbing some memories.

* This is the whole point of the movie ''[[The Cell]]'', where in trying to connect to those who are in a comatose state, this normally therapeutic tool then gets used as a [[Mind Probe]] on a serial killer by the police and {{spoiler|then turned around on the therapist by the serial killer into a [[Mind Screw]]. Later, the whole experience then makes the therapist improve on the whole thing to make it a true [[Journey to Thethe Center of Thethe Mind]]}}

* ''Dreamscape'' revolves around government agents entering people's dreams for various purposes.

** This also happened during ''[[Discworld (Literature)/A Hat Full of Sky|A Hat Full of Sky]]'' by [[Terry Pratchett]]. The Nac Mac Feegles entered Tiffany's mind in order to {{spoiler|bring her some sheep's wool, Jolly Sailor Tobacco and turpentine, all things she relates with home and Granny Aching, to help her fight the Hiver that was controlling her mind.}}

** There are also some short scenes in ''[[Discworld (Literature)/Thud|Thud!]]'' which show Sam Vimes' mind as a permanently rainy, yet apparently empty city.

* In Simon Spurrier's [[Warhammer 4000040,000]] [[Night Lords]] novel ''Lord of the Night'', the eldar trap Sahaal in his own mind. The psyker Mita is caught with him and at first thinks it's a daemon world. She explains the situation, he persuades her, and she frees him.

* The protagonists of James Morrow's ''Blameless in Abaddon'' enter the mind of God Himself, where they converse with Biblical characters and dinosaurs playing Scrabble. They discover that God is a Platonist, and hence everything they encounter is the Idea/Essence of that thing. They also learn some counter-arguments to the best theodicies;<ref>A theodicy is an explanation/defense for why evil exists if God is good</ref>; they intend to use them in the prosecution of an upcoming trial against… God Himself.

* This trope is a typical day at work for a soulscaper in ''[[Burying the Shadow (Literature)|Burying the Shadow]]''. They heal injuries and illnesses of the mind from the inside.

* In a ''[[Star Trek: theThe Next Generation]]'' episode, Counselor Troi enlists the aid of a powerful alien telepath to enter the mind of her comatose mother.

** In ''[[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine|Deep Space Nine]]'', O'Brien and Bashir interrogate a special agent this way. He turns the tables on them by {{spoiler|creating a part of his mind that looks like the room they started from and trying to trap them there}}.

* ''[[Red Dwarf (TV)|Red Dwarf]]'': "Terrorform," the gang has to rescue Rimmer from his personal demons as manifested on a moon that has transformed itself into a manifestation of his psyche. In "Gunmen of the Apocalypse," the crew link a virtual reality machine up to Kryten's brain and enter his subconscious to help him fight off a computer virus that he had contracted in order to come up with an antidote.

* Natch, there's a ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)|Buffy]]'' example. When Buffy goes catatonic in "Weight of the World," Willow uses magic to enter her mind.

* Likewise in the ''[[Angel (TV)|Angel]]'' episode "Orpheus," the eponymous drug traps both Angelus and Faith inside his memories until his soul is restored.

* In a ''[[Supernatural (TV series)|Supernatural]]'' dream episode, Bobby was trying to get killed by his dead wife (who he killed), Dean fought and killed a doppelganger personifying his massive ball of self-loathing and Sam was tied down in a Christ-pose and used his psychic powers(?) to kill the [[Big Bad]] of the episode by bringing back his [[Abusive Parents|Abusive Dad]].

* In the season four (two part) finale of ''[[House (TV series)|House]]'', Chase attempts to use medical hypnotism to unlock House's memories of a bus-crash. We can see both the inside of the bar he visited beforehand, and the bus he rode on. Most details are obscured or not present.

{{quote| '''House:''' God, I hate Beer brand beer!}}

* In ''[[Smallville]]'', [[Superman|Clark Kent]] does one of these to get some data from Lex Luthor's head and save his [[Brought Down to Normal]] cousin Kara. It should be noted that the machine used for the trip had killed everyone who tried to use it before, but, well, it IS [[Luckily, My Powers Will Protect Me|Super]][[New Powers Asas the Plot Demands|man]]. Inside Lex's head he found [[Anthropomorphic Personification|2 Lexes]], the adult, [[Corrupt Corporate Executive|ruthless]] Lex, and a child one, referred to as [[Shout-Out|Alexander]], who is good and helps Clark on the trip, while fearing the other one will attack him. Said kid coincidentally serves to revive [[Status Quo Is God|Clark's faith that Lex can be redeemed]]. For a while, [[You Can't Fight Fate|at least]].

** Then there was other one, when one of the criminals from the [[Phantom Zone]] tries to [[Body Surf|take over]] Clark's body, trapping him in a imaginary world where he is a schizophrenic patient who [[All Just a Dream|has hallucinated every bit of the series so far]] (The Phantom Zone is a book on a shelf, Jor-El is a brand of shampoo, and so on). It is the [[Martian Manhunter]] who [[Journey to The Center of The Mind|enters his mind]] to save him.

* In the ''[[Fraggle Rock]]'' episode "Boober's Dream," Boober goes on a [[Journey to Thethe Center of Thethe Mind]] to confront his [[Keet|fun-loving and irresponsible]] [[Gollum Made Me Do It|alter-ego Sidebottom]], who has gotten out of control. When this fails, he enlists the rest of the [[Five-Man Band]] to [[Dream Land|journey with him]] and put a stop to Sidebottom's antics.

* Played with in ''[[Taken (TV series)|Taken]]''. Several characters enter a crashed alien spacecraft, and see visions from their minds - a soldier sees his mother and her delicious cookies; one sees cockroaches, his greatest fear; one of the main characters sees her dead grandfather that she never met, who claims to be how she views him in her mind. In the end, {{spoiler|it turns out the resident child psychic has been pulling these images out of peoples minds and making them see them - there wasn't even an alien crash.}}

* The episode "Numbskulls of the Beast" from ''[[The Legend of Dick and Dom (TV)|The Legend of Dick and Dom]]'' sees the heroes use magic to get inside the head of the [[Big Bad]], to find where he has hidden the [[MacGuffin]]; They aren't particularly interested in why his wrath is represented as [[Surreal Humor|giant red teddy bears]], or what's with his mind having security guards (who are flying Brooklyn-accented [[Everything's Better Withwith Penguins|penguins]]) and cable cars.

* This is the central premise of Tim Schafer's ''[[Psychonauts (Video Game)|Psychonauts]]''-- traveling—traveling into the minds of others and sorting out their emotional baggage (literally) and psychological problems.

** Likewise, the action-adventure ''[[Alundra (Video Game)|Alundra]]'', in which we discover that people's dreams and subconscious minds contain a lot of [[Block Puzzle|block puzzles]].

*** And the [[PSPlayStation 2]] action-RPG ''[[Dual Hearts (Video Game)|Dual Hearts]]'', which sadly got lost in the shuffle of case of [[Kingdom Hearts|many games]] with [[Shadow Hearts|"Hearts" in the title]] coming out around the same time.

* The "Dive To The Heart" segments from several [[Kingdom Hearts]] games. They generally take place early on and represent the player character's Keyblade powers awakening / resurfacing.

* In the [[The HitchhikersHitchhiker's Guide to Thethe Galaxy (Videovideo Gamegame)|Hitchhiker's game]], Arthur Dent travels inside his own mind. He's looking for his common sense. It's pretty tiny, so it takes a while to find.

* ''[[Max Payne (Video Gameseries)|Max Payne]]'' featured several labyrinthine dream sequences including one in which you are injected with about three lethal doses of a psychotic drug, and get a phone call from your dead wife who screams "''[[Breaking the Fourth Wall|WAKE UP MAX, YOU'RE IN A COMPUTER GAME!!]]''"

* One of the scenarios in ''[[Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan|Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan 2]]'' involves the Ouendan entering the dreams of a six-year-old boy to help him with his bed-wetting problem.

* In the dating sim/RPG ''[[Ar Tonelicotonelico]]'', part of wooing the girls involves journeying into their minds. This also unlocks new costumes and abilities for them.

* [[EarthboundEarthBound|Magicant]].

* Happens in ''[[Drakengard]] 2'', in which the protagonist, through [[Hand Wave|sheer force of will]], enters Manah's mind to cleanse it of [[Demonic Possession]], ending in a rather creepy [[Battle in Thethe Center of Thethe Mind]] against lots of shadowy clones of Manah's younger self. [[The Faceless|But with only]] [[Red Eyes, Take Warning|red eyes]].

* One of the Quests in ''[[Romancing Sa gaSaGa 3]]'' had you go into a character's mind and save her from the being conjured by the poison she drank {{spoiler|Turns out that the entity causing her nightmares was also making her unable to walk; she becomes recruitable after said mission}}

* At least two examples in ''[[City of Villains]]''. {{spoiler|The villain Psymon Omega has you enter his mind and destroy his fear of commitment, the unknown, and the past. Similarly, the famous singer Johnny Sonata has you enter his 'personal hell' and destroy his soul so he can get out of a [[Deal Withwith the Devil]].}}

* In ''[[Pokémon Mystery Dungeon Explorers (Video Game)|Pokémon Mystery Dungeon Explorers]] of Time/Darkness'', the player and partner are sent into Azurill's nightmare to find out why he won't wake up.

* In the ''[[Xenosaga (Video Game)|Xenosaga]]'' series, there is a machine called the Encephalon which does this. In the entire trilogy, there have been three of these uses - once when retrieving KOS-MOS's memory banks from a black box in Episode I ({{spoiler|shown as Miltia before and after the Gnosis incident began}}), and in Episode II, the crew has to dive into MOMO's head ({{spoiler|shown as the subconscious of the girl MOMO was based off of, combined with a little of Jr.'s}}) to figure out what the hell Albedo did to her back during the [[Mind Rape]] of the previous game. The third incident is in Episode III, where the crew dives into Shion's subconscious ({{spoiler|shown as Miltia before the whole thing with the Gnosis started}}) without even knowing they had done so. All three of them were pretty much [[Mind Screws]], ''especially'' the KOS-MOS one (where it doesn't even ''use'' KOS-MOS's memories, instead an amalgamation of Shion and Jr.'s).

* In [[Lunar 2 Eternal Blue Complete|Lunar: Eternal Blue]], Ronfar goes into Mauri's mind to free her from Zophar's influence.

* [[Final Fantasy VI]] does this. There's a side quest where you can go into Cyan's mind and help him overcome his (justified) angst.

* [[BaldursBaldur's Gate]] 2 has several dream sequences where the [[Player Character]] wanders around a recreation of their childhood home floating in a void, while [[Big Bad|Irenicus]], Imoen and their [[Super-Powered Evil Side]] spout cryptic foreshadowing at them.

* In [[Ar Tonelicotonelico|Ar Tonelico I and II]] the main character can 'dive' into the 'cosmosphere' of the Reyvatails in your party, which is directly similar into exploring a person's inner mind and consciousness. It is a major game play mechanic as not only does it give you an intriguing look at their inner-selves, but is a requirement to unlock more powerful [[Magic Music|song magic]] for the Reyvatail you are diving into.

* This happens multiple times in ''[[Batman: Arkham Asylum]]'', thanks to [[Mad Scientist|The Scarecrow's]] fear toxins. They typically involve a lot of [[Mind Screw]], some [[Fission Mailed]], and oh yeah, a [[Kaiju]]-sized Scarecrow trying to drive you permanently insane.

** In the Wailing Caverns dungeon, the player is literally fighting creatures summoned by a sleeping druid. The final boss is essentially his mental jailer--whenjailer—when you kill it, he wakes up.

* In [[No More Heroes]] 2: Desperate Struggle, {{spoiler|Henry's recovery from his [[Harmless Freezing]] involves fighting a little girl with [[Humongous Mecha]] arms (AKA Travis' [[Fetish Fuel Station Attendant]]) in his mind.}} It's a relative [[BigNon LippedSequitur Alligator MomentScene]] in the game, and coming from [[Mind Screw|this]] game, that's saying a lot.

* This is shaping up to be a major plot element in the ''[[King's Quest]]'' [[Fan Sequel]] ''[[The Silver Lining (Videovideo Gamegame)|The Silver Lining]]''.

* Classic RPG ''[[Wasteland (Videovideo Gamegame)|Wasteland]]'' contains a boss fight where a character has to fight his/her way though the mind of an insane robot.

* There's an educational game called [[Exactly What It Says Onon the Tin|Journey into the Brain]].

* ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20161027035747/http://www.9thelsewhere.com/ 9th Elsewhere]'' is about the journey inside the mind of a troubled teenage author with writer's block, where the voyagers are the protagonist (the aftermentioned troubled writer) and the oddball muse assigned to her by a musing organization.

{{quote| '''Psycho Mantis''': Once, just once, I would like to see a mind that is not a goddamn metaphor.}}

* We get a glimpse inside of {{spoiler|Zombie}}'s mind in [[Hanna Is Not a BoysBoy's Name]] when he {{spoiler|is possessed by Lee's ghost.}}

* [[Carmilla (Literature)|Carmilla]] does it to Samantha Everheart in the third 'Hive' story of the [[Whateley Universe]] when Samantha is going into a [[Heroic BSOD]]. (It's Carmilla's fault this is happening, so she has to fix it.)

* In ''[[The Tick (animation)]]'' episode "The Tick vs. Proto-Clown," The Tick gets literally knocked into orbit by the titular monster and goes on a journey through his own mind while the rest of the heroes have to deal with Proto-Clown.

* In an episode of ''[[Teen Titans (Animationanimation)|Teen Titans]]'', Cyborg and Beast Boy go into the depths of Raven's mind, where they meet embodiments of all the facets of her personality.

* ''[[SpongebobSpongeBob SquarePants]]'' did the dream version in the episode "Sleepy Time." Naturally, Spongebob managed to ruin the dreams of everyone in Bikini Bottom, and he awoke to find a group of annoyed friends and neighbors, insisting he stay out of their dreams because they get enough of him during the day.

* ''[[The Spectacular Spider -Man]]'' has {{spoiler|the symbiote forcing Peter to go through one after he attempts to remove it}}.

* ''[[The Batman (Animation)|The Batman]]'' had an episode where Batman and Dr. Hugo Strange entering the mind of the Joker to find out where he hid Detective Yin before she's killed by a bomb. The latter was quickly side-tracked by trying to psycho-analyze the Joker (which he was just looking for an excuse to do) while Batman {{spoiler|pulled the Joker into ''his'' mind, and tricked him into revealing the location by [[I Never Said It Was Poison|making him thinking they already knew]] }}.

* An opening of ''[[Arthur (Animationanimation)|Arthur]]'' had the titular character enter the mind of his teacher and the mind of a classmate (later revealed to have dyslexia). The first mind was a giant homework factory, the second was a giant picture slideshow.

* This once happened to [[Beetlejuice (Animationanimation)|Beetlejuice]] when Lydia became trapped in his mind. She ended up helping his pathetic, wimpy "will power" defeat "Prankenstein," the part of Beetlejuice's personality that goads him into playing tricks on people.

* In "Memory of a Memory" of ''[[Adventure Time (Animation)|Adventure Time]]'', the main duo Finn and Jake have to retrieve a spell from their friend Marceline's memory so that she can awaken from her slumber. {{spoiler|Turns out that they were tricked by [[Jerkass|Ash]] (Marceliene's Ex-Boyfriend) to retrive the memory of a break up in order to rekindle his relationship with her, Or to explain it another way the "Memory" that Ash was refering to after [[The Reveal]] was not the memory of the spell at all.}}

* There are people who have [[wikipedia:Astral projection|tried to do this in real life.]]

[[Category:JourneyMind toManipulation the Center of the MindTropes]]