Alright, now, what I come here asking you all is highly.... unusual, let me simply start by saying I am writing a story.

In said story, there will be a character that needs to be 'brainwashed' you know, perhaps in the same form the main character of 'Bioshock' was brainwashed for example. Now, preferably I would like to find out a semi-realistic theoretical way for this to be done, for once I'm at a loss of words, I just can't think of the words to describe how it would be done without basically doing something gay and just saying 'magical memory loss potion'!

Have your character go through a grueling torture process :shrug:

well if your just going for memory loss and not complete brain washing then you could just have some traumatic event affect the characters brain and make them forget things, this is a fairly common movie/book thing. :shrug:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_control

For the brainwashed character, simply make it so that the character was "convinced" that the antagonist was right and the brainwashed person now believes their current actions are right and their old allies were wrong. For fun, make it so that the brainwashed character fully remembers their old life, and have 'em call the heros out on some actions and stuff. As for process, you can say there was some sort of reeducation program that altered the victim's perspective and that this was combined with drugged food that made the victim open to suggestion.

Psychotropic drugs.

Otherwise, you can induce a temporary amnesia via huge emotional trauma. Some people fall into a depressive comatose state or stupor too. The mind is pretty flexible when it comes to protecting your sanity (sometimes) so you can do all sorts of fun stuff with electrodes and the aforementioned psychotropics. A bash on the head can sometimes work too but there needs to be a fantasy already in place in his head (ie, he is living a double life or something).

Sensory deprivation and repetitive speech?


Like a sociology seminar?

Got hit in the head. Hard.

having them fall asleep and land face first into a textbook!

Wait, is the story sci-fi? Or Fantasy? Or current world? Or ancient historical? Because a potion might work in LotR, but not in Star Wars. We need a basis to work with too.

If It's sci-fi, that would make this a lot easier. just start ripping out grey matter and plugging in computer components.

There's no need for any of that, just ask her out.

It's not brainwashing, it's love.

http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/Top/ecomments/4746/ but also while under the influence of some drug that won't let them remember things, like roofies.

There are two very good sources you might mine for ideas:

The Manchurian Candidate, a novel (and two movies, including a 2004 remake with Denzel Washington) about brainwashing subjects to become sleeper agent assassins.

and

Derren Brown's "The Heist" stunt, where he inserted suggestions into a group of susceptible individuals to make them suddenly feel compelled to commit an armed robbery after receiving trigger stimuli.

Irreconcilable horror committed by the hands of the brainwashed, and they brainwashed themselves.

Wait, do you want your character to actually be brainwashed or just experiencing memory loss? That wasn't quite clear to me from the way you wrote it. If amnesia, then any number of traumatic events can trigger that, be it physical or psychological. If brainwashing, that implies someone else affecting your characters mind in some way as a means to control them in a given fashion.

Read the end of 1981.

Good basis to work with.

I have studied hypnosis and I can say that the dramatization of hypnosis in the movie Oldboy is pretty accurate.

Wut.


Now I think of it, Ryan's son was brainwashed to respond in a pavlovian way to certain word triggers. Similar to how Alex in A Clockword Orange is brainwashed to feel pain whenever he hears classcal music.

I always found that section a little bit trippy, but it is first person limited. and the process is basically:

I had actually put some thought into plausible brainwashing ... um ... also for a ... book? :ermm:

My solution was to fake a near death experience. The subject would be held for a time in a cell without windows and their sleep/eat cycles would be altered so they think that they have been held for longer than in reality. Then give them some muscle relaxants that cause them to be awake and aware but unable to move. A "medical staff" will try to help, inject something to put the victim to sleep and claim they they have died. The unconscious person is placed in sensory deprivation. When they wake up they are confused, the last thing they remember is "dying". After some time a voice is pumped into the chamber that tells them they are dead, but they will be sent back on the condition that they fulfill a quest. They then get put back to sleep and returned to the cell surrounded by the same "medical staff" who suddenly have found a pulse and all the hours in sensory deprivation seem like just a few seconds of real time. The person is then released with a quest they pursue with the conviction of a zealot.

do it like in clockwork orange

adamantium bullet?

1981? :blink: