Braindance. Cyberpsychosis and real-world mental problems

I left my favorite for the end – the braindance. These implants greatly interfere with the perception of reality and allow you to live in a virtual space of extremely realistic simulations. A common pastime among the poorest members of the community in Night City is to use braindance to enjoy the lives of the rich for a moment.

Braindance affects not only sensory impressions, but also emotions, memory, or the sense of reality. So if such hardware malfunctions and stimulates the wrong areas, or does it in a chaotic manner, there is a fairly high probability of causing symptoms that resemble psychosis. However, from outside, the use of braindance itself is, in principle, a kind of psychosis – the perception of the environment becomes completely altered, and a critical assessment of this change is absent.

The concepts presented here are, of course, mere surmise – we don't know how these types of implants would affect the human mind and body. However, based on the existing knowledge, I can say – with fair degree of certainty – that although some implants can cause psychotic symptoms or even meet the diagnostic criteria of a disorder episode, the disorder wouldn't really resemble cyberpsychos (the romantic vision of a man becoming a machine loses to the prose of life), but rather like schizophrenia or mania, and besides, it wouldn't be derived from the mysterious loss of humanity, but rather the malfunctioning of synapses.

Therefore, you can install implants to your heart's content – their number does not matter. Be careful with those that directly interface with the limbic system, including manipulating dopamine or serotonin levels. They shouldn't cause illnesses unless they crash or are attacked by a Netrunner, although even if it were otherwise, corporations would still hush it up. Even if the implant causes a psychotic episode, it will probably disappear after "turning it off and on."

Body modifications in reality

Let's leave the fantasy for a moment, and focus on more down-to-earth subjects again. Body modifications are not science-fiction, but rather something we see almost every day – the simplest form of them is... tattoos. The fact that the cyberpunk variety of them are shining and moving doesn't really change much. Piercing or scarification are a similar story, not to mention medical implants such as a pacemaker or prosthetic limbs.

Is there a connection between actual modifications (I'll skip the medical ones here, since a real cyberpunk changes body for style, not for health) and mental disorders? The answer to this question is not clear, although we can assure you – tattoos do not cause mental illness. But if you inverse the cause and effect, it gets more ambiguous.

Tattoos, as a rule, do not cause mental disorders. Unless the tattooist from Far Cry 3 does them.

There is research showing that people with certain personality disorders are more likely to have body modifications. However, it is not entirely clear whether this is due to mental problems, a random correlation, or is perhaps related to culture. Not so long ago, tattoos were identified with the prison subculture, and among the prison population, some personality variants are more common than in the general population. In such a situation, more tattoos may simply be the result of a purely pragmatic social affiliation – both healthy people and deeply disturbed people will wear them.

However, some therapists consider body modifications acts of auto-aggression – after all, they cause skin damage, pain, and are a form of self-expression, hence also your more brutal side. You could also consider them a desire to shock, or rebel against established schemes. Some of them also have a fairly direct link to sexuality – for example, piercing in the nipples or clitoris – which, combined with the pain of the procedures, can cause consternation in a more sanctimonious reader.

Even today, there are people who are addicted to modifying their bodies.

After all, when talking about cyberpsychosis and body modifications, it's hard not to refer to real psychoses. The type of delusion depends to some extent on the personality. Our inner fears, hopes, needs are manifested in them; we often learn things we're afraid to learn.

Remember

In a world that is so heavily invaded by technology too complex to comprehend for most of us, the body's struggle with the machine becomes an important existential dilemma. Therefore, people suffering from real psychosis are often afraid of losing control and getting lost in the metal jungle of modernity. Patients very often get the terrible impression of being controlled by remote cameras, having secret implants in their body, or that someone has inserted a transmitter in their heads, and now communicates with them through it. Stories straight from Cyberpunk are often very real and traumatic experiences of people struggling with serious mental issues.

And I think that may be the most important message of this text. While we have fun reasoning about non-existent problems from an RPG game, millions of people around the world cannot tell such experiences apart from the reality around them. And I don't want to build here some false division into "us" and "them," which we created for comfort in society – because such distinction is non-existent. Given the statistics, a few percent of readers can relate to what I write here, and some will even know much more than I do, because they are struggling with diseases or mental disorders affecting themselves or their relatives.

Cyberpunk, contrary to appearances, touches on damn important subjects – it's not just chrome rock and jerking around. It's poverty, climate catastrophe, escapism, technocracy, social inequality, cloning, nihilism, exclusion, and... mental health. It's easy to oversimplify it to an almost offensive degree – to consider the cyberpsychos mindless cannon fodder. In this respect, I have confidence in CD Projekt RED – they were never afraid of difficult subjects, and I am certain that in-between joy-riding and merry shootouts, they will explore the issue of humanity giving way to technology. Whether the mental illnesses are realistic or not is of secondary importance. What matters is that they might increase our sensitivity to the problems of others – which I heartily wish to all of you.