A couple of months ago I watched an episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, as I was trying to finish up the series. I was so surprised to see the old psychology theories they were mentioning in the episode. They were going back to Freudian and Jungian theories of dreams and how the ideas could be potentially significant for their case during the episode. I wondered “Why would a show set hundreds of years in the future still believe in theories like this?” I don’t know. Maybe dreams can help us with investigative cases and I’m just too biased to believe it, too.
In contrast, I recently watched Arrival with my partner, and I was fascinated with the futuristic psycholinguistic concepts shown in the movie. I turned to my partner after it was over and I said “I want more of that!” Maybe I’m just not looking in the right places, and if that’s the case then I’m definitely open for suggestions! But rather than suggesting similar movies, my partner suggested that I should try and make one myself. I agreed with him, and even asked him if he’d like to make a story like that with me, to which he also agreed to.
The inspiration for my video game comes from this series of thoughts and interactions, but it also comes from so many other interests and ideas I’ve had for some time now.
I watched a video about the concept of death a few years ago by a popular YouTube channel named VSauce. The host of the video, Michael Stevens, signed off by reassuring the audience that while death may be scary to think about, our energy never really goes away, even after we die.
I spent hours recently looking for this video, but could not find it. So I took to Google and found the next best thing, which also touched on this topic. In this NPR segment, host Michael Norris invites Aaron Freeman, a writer and performer, to talk about how to plan a funeral. It’s an oddly reassuring speech of the same theory Michael talked about in his video, where energy cannot be created or destroyed.
I also recently saw an report about preliminary research on the brain during death. It was speculated that the human brain, based off of this experiment and other people’s account on near-death experiences, had “High-frequency neurophysiological activity in the near-death state exceeded levels found during the conscious waking state.”
I wanted to explore this difficult concept in my game, but also include potentially futuristic psychological ideas to help me explore more for my future writing. I didn’t want to make my game just anything cathartic without actual meaning. I wish I could develop it more to show that, but I guess I will just have to keep these experiences in mind for later. I would definitely consider my game to be in its rough draft stages, but I still hope people enjoy it.
Ultimately, I wanted to do something that was reassuring like Michael’s and Mr. Freeman’s comments. I wanted more of what movies like Arrival were doing.
While I couldn’t develop this enough to emphasize the meaning of death in the game’s universe, I still tried to show the various influences through the final stages where the reader’s brain and heart are introduced. The brain acts like something of a mother, representing something nurturing and powerful. While the heart acts as a daughter, biologically helping the brain and representing the soul that goes along with our brain’s conscious.
Who knows what could happen in our brains during those near death experiences. Who knows whether our concept of time would be so warped to have us think we’re having our life flash right before our eyes, or maybe living out an entire life again from the beginning. I hope this article and my game give my audience the chance to explore those thought provoking ideas. Specifically where lines include the brain and it’s ability in this death experience. In contrast, lines about the heart getting weaker as we die leave room for more philosophical thoughts on how exactly human souls might work during or after death.
