ALL SCI-FI

[Bud Brewster]

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Thinking Outside the "Plot"!
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A device which records everything going on in the user's brain — sensory input, thoughts, and emotions — would change the world.

That's obvious, of course.

If you've seen the movie, you know how amazing the device is. Never mind the scenes at the end about Christopher Walken replaying Louise Fletcher's death experience. It's fascinating to watch, and the music by James Horner is stunning.

But the whole idea completely tosses out the hard-science premise of the story!

That said, here's something to think about for all those folks who are so inclined.

~ A Question for the Members: If the machine we see in the movie could be reduced to the size of a cell phone — with a trim wireless headset which transmits the data to a pocket-sized device that stores millions of hours digitally — what kinds of experiences would people want to record and relive?

~ The Answer: Good God . . . ALL kinds!

If you could carry around a gizmo like that and record every sensation, every experience, and every thought you had — why would EVER turn the damn thing off?

Consider this.

How do know when you going to have a brilliant idea for a story while driving home . . . but then can't remember it when you get there?

How to you know when you're going to have a life-changing experience you'll want relive . . . .years later?

How do you know when your going to have a pleasant visit with your aging mother . . . the day before she passes away unexpectedly?

How do you know when you going to have a great evening with several close friends — which you'd love to relive ten years later?

Gentlemen, we all know that life is filled with moments we don't appreciate at the time they occur.

But I've got hundreds of hours of such moments, stored carefully on dozens of cassette tapes which I recorded on the device shown below. They include three weekends trips to Disney World with my kids in 1985, 1989, and 1996!





I've also got many hours of tapes with stereophonic recreations of evenings in local restaurants like Red Lobster, along with several very pleasant summer cookouts at a friend's house.

All these tapes put me right there in midst of the experience whenever I don my headphones and let the stereo sounds of these occasions wrap me in the memories of these Golden Moments!

I consider myself to be the World's Only Practicing Time Traveler, with tapes which start in 1982!

My unpublished novel, Time Saving Device, is set in a near-future world where most of the world's citizens own the device I described. They use them to relive pleasurable experiences — even those which are illegal, immoral, or personally regrettable.

As I said above, a device which records everything going on in the user's brain — sensory input, thoughts, and emotions — would change the world.
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[scotpens]

I think such a device would be much more widely used to relive other people's experiences. I'm sure I don't have to spell out the possibilities.

The downside of such technology, of course, is that it could become dangerously addictive. Remember Vina's warning to Captain Pike in the Star Trek pilot, "The Cage," about how the Talosians used their power of illusion?

"They found it's a trap, like a narcotic. Because when dreams become more important than reality, you give up travel, building, creating. You even forget how to repair the machines left behind by your ancestors. You just sit, living and reliving other lives left behind in the thought record."

Words to live by.

[Bud Brewster]

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You're absolutely right, Scot!

My unpublished novel Time Saving Device (written back in the early 1980s) delves into that very thing. Reliving a recorded experience is referred to as a "rerun".

The novel describes how husbands would form secret "wife swapping clubs" by trading their recordings of sexual experiences — without their wives' knowledge!

Drug addicts would "rerun"' their best highs without actually taking the drugs.

Some people would become increasing anti-social because they're real-time social experiences rarely live up to their favorite reruns of enjoyable events.

It also describes how some folks rerun sexual experiences while having another one at the same time! (It's like having two bodies of your own, and two separate partners!)

And then there are the folks who combine two totally different experiences — like making love on a roller coasters. They do this by either "rerunning" a roller coaster ride while having sex, or they rerun the sex while riding a roller coaster!

Scot, the people in my novel who become psychologically dependent on "time saving device reruns" are referred to as TSD addicts!

I think I'll post the novel here on All Sci-Fi the way I've posted my other three novels.
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)