Rules of a game usually come in a paper or digital document, with a variety of ways one can play a game while still maintaining some type of regulation throughout. The brain works similarly to a rule pamphlet. In Youngkyun’s book, Psychology of Gaming, he uses an example of this and calls it a “bravery game” (Youngkyun 4). One can make decisions in a game based on the other players and what kind of relationships they have at that moment in time.
If there are three people playing truth or dare, and it is player ones turn, he or she may base their decision on whether or not player two or three associates them as a more ‘bold’ or ‘safe’ person. If previous experiences of players two and three lead them to believe that player one is more of a conservative, guarded person they may expect player one to choose truth instead of dare. If player one is aware of this, he or she may want to change how they are perceived to players two and three; therefore, they might choose dare if they want to be perceived as brave, or less predictable person.
This process has nothing to do with the concrete game they are playing, truth or dare, but becomes a whole different game within, with it’s own rules that apply differently to each player. In this mind game within truth or dare, it is a less serious game where the decision merely dictates what the other players may or may not think of each other, and having the ability to possibly change those thoughts. However, there are more ‘serious’ mind games that the self can get into. One that comes to mind is dissociative identity disorder, or DID.
The brain is one of the most interesting and mysterious parts of the body. It makes someone who they are. Dissociative identity disorder is an illness, but its symptoms are unique and require work from the brain that is hard for people without this disease to replicate. It is listed as a “trauma and stress-related disorder” in the Statistic Manual of Mental Disorders (Vissia 112). Multiple personalities can be formed in one brain in a person with DID; each having their own memory storage, and each personality presenting itself in certain environments and situations. Someone can develop DID if they were exposed to traumatic situations when they were young. If a person is put in an uncomfortable environment, that the brain realizes the self cannot handle at that point in their life, it will block out that memory, or if it occurs often, the brain and the self create a different personality that has the ability to cope with the traumatic situation- like different characters or players in a game. If someone is put in a situation that brings back emotions from this traumatic experience, its other personality will present him or herself to protect the person whose body it inhabits.
During these situations, the brain has rules for the self. Someone with DID can create as many personalities inside one body as they want. If one of these personalities approaches into consciousness during a certain situation, it is to protect the self.
In Ian Bogost’s Rhetoric of Video Games he states, “Video games depict real and imagined systems by creating procedural models of those systems, that is, by imposing sets of rules that create particular possibility spaces for play” (122). This quote can be linked back to an example of someone with DID. The brain creates procedural defenses with multiple personalities to help the person cope with traumatic experiences that make it difficult to live their day to day lives as one minded individuals. The mind imposes rules on the body based on the “particular possibility spaces” throughout their day to day routine. The feeling of fear or bad memory is what may trigger the different personalities to emerge once they have been developed.
