Your Mind Makes It Real: Difference between revisions
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Often [[Cyberspace]] ICE (intruder countermeasure electronics) is said to work by channeling lethal voltages into the brain of the invading hacker, but any techhead with an ounce of sense would put at least a fuse or circuit breaker, not to mention a voltage regulator, on any line connected directly to his brain. Authors who put a little more thought into the matter who don't come up with some variant of the [[Brown Note|motif of harmful sensation]] imply some kind of malicious out-of-band signal which triggers a nasty (usually fatal) seizure in its victims or [[Explosive Instrumentation|blows up their computer]]. Presumably most users do not know about such things, given their willingness to use an interface that could turn them into a vegetable or corpse at a moment's notice.
As an extension, perhaps to justify this trope, such systems often propose that the user's mind actually ''is'' inside the machine, having been [[Brain Uploading|literally downloaded]] out of his physical brain. Thus, destroying the machine would leave the user with a blank
An increasingly common justification of this trope is [[Synchronization]]; directly wiring your brain to the machine gives you [[Technopath
This tends to apply to video game levels that are [[All Just a Dream]] or a virtual reality simulation as a function of gameplay: If your character dies, it's still a [[Game Over]].
When you are [[Talking in Your Dreams]] with someone else and they go to kill
Frequently pops up in a [[Holodeck Malfunction]]. See also [[Self-Inflicted Hell]]. When your mind actually changes the physical world, it's [[Clap Your Hands If You Believe]]. If a computer generated or magical illusion changes the physical world, it's [[Hard Light]]. When you're trapped in a virtual world, and have to win or die, its [[Win to Exit]]. Compare [[Puff of Logic]], [[Magic Feather]].
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* [[Justified Trope|Justified]] in ''[[JoJo's Bizarre Adventure]]'', where this is the power of the Stand Death 13: it pulls its victims into a dream of an amusement park and then kills them while they're trying to figure it out.
** In a later example in the same series, the trope is used to make people believe {{spoiler|that they are snails due to subliminal messaging}}. Yeah, didn't make all that much sense in context either.
* Half of the [[Story Arc
** Attempts of the writers to give a scientific explanation for this ([[Virtual Ghost|Noah's brains were kept alive in a feeding, protective sphere, and directly connected to the VR world he existed in]]) were mercilessly shot down by the same writers when Noah happily walked off in Mokuba's body, without ever considering taking his brains with him.
* One of the many plot points in ''[[Chaos;Head]]'' is based completely around this trope.
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* Also, ''[[Sliders]]'' did an episode that ripped off ''Nightmare on Elm Street'', but with these evil nerds that called themselves "The Dream Masters". The nerds were defeated once the characters banded together, realizing that it was all just a dream, and overpowered the nerds' minds, resulting in an inability to be harmed.
** There was a [[Crowning Moment of Awesome]]/[[Crowning Moment of Funny]] where Rembrandt is cornered by the nerds and is about to be killed. He goes, "I wish I had my gun right now." The gun materializes in his hand, and he blows a few nerds away.
* The classic episode of the ''[[Star Trek: The Original Series]]'', "Spectre of the Gun", has the landing party trapped in a surreal nightmare that recreates the Shootout at the OK Corral. Spock realizes the whole experience is an illusion that is only as real as their minds accept it to be, but, as McCoy says, only someone as emotionless as a Vulcan could have the [[Heroic Willpower|iron-hard certainty]]
** Another episode, "Shore Leave," is full of this - the landing party is investigating a seemingly abandoned planet as a possible "shore leave" destination for the crew. Except whatever fleeting thought anyone has, happens - McCoy makes a crack that the place is like something out of "Alice In Wonderland" and the White Rabbit comes bounding out complaining that he's late; Sulu spontaneously thinks of samurai and nearly gets run through BY a samurai; a female redshirt crew member jokes that she feels like it's a setting fit for a fairytale princess and suddenly she's wearing a 14th-century gown and being wooed by a knight. After later run-ins with everyone from Japanese fighter planes to Don Juan to Kirk's old college girlfriend, an old man suddenly comes running out of the bushes and explains to everyone that he is from an advanced civilization that built the planet as a sort of holodeck for themselves. He gives Kirk the thumbs-up to let the rest of the crew beam down and be their guests for a couple
* One episode of the original ''[[Twilight Zone]]'', "Perchance to Dream", [[Justified Trope|justified this]]: the character at risk of death was suffering from a severe heart condition, bad enough that having a particularly scary nightmare would give him a lethal heart attack. Unfortunately for him, his last few dreams appear specifically designed to ''give'' him said heart attack...
* One episode of the most recent version (2003 series) of the ''[[Twilight Zone]],'' aptly titled "Placebo Effect", featured a doctor dealing with a chronic hypochondriac patient. Normally keen on giving him placebos, she's horrified to find he actually IS showing signs of a terrible, previously unheard-of disease. It turns out that the disease was fictional, and after reading about it in an old sci-fi novel, the hypochondriac somehow "made it real" by believing he suffered from it. Soon, everyone in the hospital has caught the disease and appear to be near death. {{spoiler|The doctor manages to cure him, and thus everyone, by telling him that a meteorite crashed which contained an antidote for the "space virus." By believing her, he is cured. However, pessimistic thoughts overwhelm him, and he believes the crashed meteorite will create a new Ice Age and destroy humanity. The final shot shows the nurse motioning the doctor outside, to see the the city besieged by a massive blizzard.}}
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* In ''[[VR 5]]'', dying in VR does not kill you, but it leaves you brain-dead. (In fact, it's claimed that dying in something as primitive as a ''flight simulator'' will have this effect!)
* ''[[Lexx]]'': "Patches in the Sky". We're told, offhand, that "If you die in a dream, you die for real," as if it's obvious.
* ''[[War of the Worlds (TV series)|War of the Worlds]]'': "Totally Real", the loser of the VR game lost his
* ''[[First Wave]]'', a number of times.
* ''[[Doctor Who]]'':
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== Tabletop Games ==
* The RPG ''[[Shadowrun]]'' uses the "lethal biofeedback" version in its cyberspace; however, a hacker can avoid the feedback by using what's referred to as a Cold ASIST interface (as opposed to the Hot ASIST interface that most deckers use). However, not only does Cold ASIST [[Nerf|forgo all the massive bonuses to your die rolls]] that Hot ASIST grants, (which is why hackers use Hot ASIST, despite Cold ASIST being the default user mode for all legitimate users of neural interface technology), but all the other deckers will [[Easy Mode Mockery|mock you viciously]] before they [[Curb Stomp Battle|Curb Stomp]] your [[Nerf
* ''[[Dungeons and Dragons|Dungeons & Dragons]]'' has several illusion spells (most notably of the Shadow sub-school) that function this way, e.g. ''[http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/shadowConjuration.htm Shadow Conjuration]'' and ''[http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/shades.htm Shades]''. These spells create illusory constructs or facsimiles of spells from other schools, and have reduced effects on characters that successfully "disbelieve" them. Naturally, they always have this reduced effect on objects and creatures with low intelligence, such as constructs.
** Though it's unclear why as Shadow spells use material from the Plane of Shadow to create quasi-real duplicates of regular spells.
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** The Nightmare Lands domain and boxed set for ''[[Ravenloft]]'' has creepy fun with this, too.
** One of the first ''[[Dragonlance]]'' game modules had the player characters travel into a living nightmare to end its hold over an elven kingdom. Many of the monsters the players encounter are in fact creations of the dream, and can be made harmless if players state they don't believe in them. Unfortunately, quite a few of those monsters are very real, and will attack the players anyway, and it's very difficult to tell the difference.
* Mostly averted in ''[[Mage: The Awakening]]'' with the [[Dream World|Astral Realms]]. Attacks in the Astral Realms don't harm health, but instead reduce Willpower (a person's reserve of mental and emotional strength). If a person loses all of their Willpower (not necessarily from being attacked) they return to the waking world, unable to maintain their Astral self and completely emotionally drained, but otherwise unharmed. There are however ways in which the person can be damaged or destroyed ''mentally''. For example, being attacked by an ideology until the person's identity is completely buried beneath fanaticism, being drawn into the hold of an insanity realm until one's personality is utterly destroyed from that insanity, or going to the Dreamtime unprotected, where one's mind will be completely washed away by a consciousness which is incompressible to and uninterested in human perspective or individuality (essentially, your sense of identity is lost among the thoughts of something which has existed before there was life). In these cases, the body becomes a completely healthy vegetable. It's not entirely averted, since there are beings capable of inflicting actual damage from the Astral Realms (though this could be more to do with magically being able to target their body directly, rather than because
* For its predecessor, ''[[Mage: The Ascension]]'', this was the very basis of the game. Reality was defined by a popular consensus. Mages were just people who realized this and as a result could do crazy 'magic'... [[Mundane Made Awesome|like build spaceships and have kung fu that breaks your mind]].
** The Digital Web, ''Ascension's'' mystical internet is very much born of the cyberspace stylings one normally finds in [[Cyberpunk]] fiction, but you can enter it. Assuming you're one of the titular mages.
* Subverted by two small-press RPGs, ''Shattered Dreams'' and ''Dreamwalker'': while dreaming in either game can kill
* The "stigmata" enhacement to the Illusion advantage from ''[[GURPS]]: Powers'' can cause small amounts of damage to the target, but only to the point that he falls unconcious from the wounds.
* ''[[Warhammer 40000]]'''s warp where all of mortal emotions go to become horrifying demons.
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* In ''Iji'', you can "crack" computers and enemies with your nanofield, but if you fail the crack you are booted out by your target's security system with negative effects depending on the difficulty of the crack. Especially odd since it's not virtual reality. I assume the computer interface is just that realistic. On the other hand, you ''are'' standing right next to whatever thing you're trying to hack and, in fact, probably touching it, so it could just be zapping you. Also, doors mostly just increase their security, and supply crates will break or explode as retaliation, and enemies mostly just realize you're standing there and stop standing around in a peaceful manner. And maximizing your crack level removes all harmful effects of failure.
* Weirdly played with in ''[[System Shock]]'': being kicked out of cyberspace doesn't cause much injury, but does max out fatigue (physical exertion).
* ''[[Max Payne (series)|Max Payne]]'' and its sequel have "dream sequences" which can kill you. Inverted somewhat in that they're caused by various [[No One Could Survive That]] poisonings and injuries, so ''surviving'' them is the
* ''[[Shadow the Hedgehog]]'' has two levels that take place in Shadow's memories, trying to help people aboard the space colony ARK, which went out of commission fifty years ago.
* In the [[Nintendo]] game ''[[Eternal Darkness]]'', you have a Sanity Gauge that, when low, will cause hallucinations that are [[Mind Screw|often freaky]], but ultimately harmless. However, when your Sanity Gauge has run out entirely, anything that would normally only reduce your Sanity will start taking chunks out of your health instead, most likely due to this trope.
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** It bears mentioning that Placebos have something like a 60% effectiveness rate. Even on ''cancer''.
** One anecdote is that a nurse in World War II had run out of morphine and had to stabilize a wounded soldier to keep him from going into shock. She filled a syringe with saline (salt water) and injected it in, telling the soldier it was morphine. ''It worked.''
** The really crazy thing is, [http://www.wired.com/medtech/drugs/magazine/17-09/ff_placebo_effect?currentPage=all the placebo effect is getting stronger]. No, this is not about diseases that are neurological and therefore, sort of, "all in your head". ([[Rule of Cautious Editing Judgment|Which is not to say that they don't matter, but anyways]]...) Or at least, it's not ''entirely'' about diseases like that. Quite simply,
** The Placebo Effect is a major reason why medical pseudoscience like homeopathy and reiki continue to flourish despite the complete lack of supporting evidence.
* Applied in the theological theory of [[Pandeism]]: miracles and revelations occur not because a God is watching over us and intervening, but because the Universe-creating entity has become us (and the rest of the Universe) and believers in any religion are able to unwittingly tap into their own little bit of Creator-power.
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