The Temple of the Exploding Head

I love making things up … obviously. I look around and see all that is there and I wonder, I embellish things, I make them wilder than they ordinarily would be. One doesn’t need to be an author to engage in such antics, it’s just natural, to add import to the things around one, to imagine motive or sinister intent to a harmless passerby. Therefore, when my tales wander in a direction that requires some sort of scientifical authoritative backing, I simply make it up. I created the following after witnessing how different my wife is when she sleeping than when she’s awake. I noticed a similar change in my grandmother when I was a kid.

MENTRALYSIS is the science of communicating with sleeping, unconscious or comatose subjects. It is a forbidden science, unknown and unapproved by the Sisterhood of light. In the league, you’re not supposed to do anything without the approval of the Sisters, scientific study included. Sciences invented by the Xaphans in particular are forbidden by the Sisters. A tenet of the science is the assertion that one’s SS (or Sleeping Self) is different in terms of wants, needs and objectives than the WS (or Waking Self).

Mentralysis was invented by the famed jeweler Vehelm of Waam in 0000845AX. Vehelm was one of the many Doomed Men in Xaphan space, picked to court the dreaded Queen Ghome I of Trimble. Ghome would pick her suitors for the throne of Trimble by force, selecting them usually for their money or other material possessions she wanted. If they refused, she would attack with her powerful Tri-Court Alliance. Vehelm was known throughout Xaphan space as a genius maker of rare jewelery, and Queen Ghome coveted some of his works for herself. To court Queen Ghome was to dance with death and most of her suitors were eventually killed in her deadly Garden of Zama. A tiny, studious man, Vehelm was not expected to survive.

But, survive he did, quickly becoming one of her favorites. He was said to have constructed, or, in some accounts, repaired and enhanced, Ghome’s Bower Chest where she kept her prized possessions. Eventually, he made his way into her bed chamber. There, he made a significant discovery. In her sleep, Queen Ghome would cry out, would mumble in apparent agony. After many nights of wittnessing this, Vehelm came to the conclusion that Ghome seemed to be remorseful and sorry for the horrendous atrocities she was guilty of committing during the day. He hit upon the notion that, if he could communicate with her while sleeping, that she might indeed be a very different person than she was when awake. He secretly constructed the first Mentralysis Deck, a computerized device that could hone in and lock on to one’s Beta Waves. He also created a machine language code-named Serenity that could interpret the nightmare of thoughts, memories and the primal urges of the Ego and allow cogent two-communication. With Serenity 7, he was successful, and, as he suspected, the saintly voice he heard through his Mentralysis Deck, was crying out for help.

What happened afterward and the tragic fate of Vehelm of Waam is another story…

MENTRALYSIS ARCHETYPES:
The fledgling science of Mentralysis escaped Vehelm’s death and made its way to the Ephysian Hospitalers on the Gold Coast of Hoban. The Hospitalers continually refined and expanded Mentralysis, making a secret full-time study of it. They determined through analysis that there are seven archetypes of people depending on how different their Sleeping Self is from the Walking Self.

DO: Diametric Opposite: The SS is radically different from the WS in terms of wants, needs and personality. The SS and WS are actively at odds with the other.

SC: Significant Change: The SS is significantly different from the WS in terms of temperament, needs and wants, though there might be some similarities.

NC: Noticeable Change: The SS is similar to the WS, but will vary in topical ways in terms of likes/dislikes, loves and wants. These topical changes shall be noticeable and readily apparent, though the basic personality of the SS and WS are the same.

U: Ultra: The Ultra is a median point. The Ultra might display traits of any of the other 6 Mentralysis archetypes. The Ultra will always display/demonstrate skills and abilities in the SS that is not possessed by the WS. The SS will manifest skills and talents the WS does not have or has not trained/studied for.

MC: Moderate Change: The changes between the SS and the WS are not readily apparent, though topical differences will become apparent with detailed analysis. The MC archetype is the most common and documented.

RC: Relative Comparison: The changes between the SS and WS are very difficult to determine. In an RC, the SS is very underdeveloped and beholden to the WS. RC’s are often quite young and develop into other archetypes as they age.

L: Like: There is no identifiable difference between the SS and WS. The SS does not appear to exist in an L archetype’s mental makeup. The L archetype is often temporary, manifested most often in children and disappears by early adulthood. An L archetype often changes into an RC.

There is a final classification known as G, or Gamer. Any of the above classifications can be a Gamer. Mentralysists have discovered that the Sleeping Self, when boosted with certain neural stimuli, have very specific, very detailed dreams. Gamers can dream of places they have never been, and their dreams are accurate to the smallest detail. The stimulation required to create a Gamer can be very dangerous to the Waking Self and is practiced with extreme caution. A synthetic and rather caustic neurotransmitter known as H4 is used to creating a Gaming Session. Those stimulated into the Gaming State often-times do not wake up.

copyright 2013, Ren Garcia and Carol Phillips