\newcommand\aside[1]{ {\raggedleft \vskip 1em \parbox{3.5in}{\itshape [#1]} \par\vskip 1em}} \newcommand\lilskip{\vskip 0.3em} \chapter{Mock Risk Games} \pagestyle{salnm} \setheadrule{0.4pt} Suppose you stand in front of a swinging door with a nail sticking out of it pointing at your face; and suppose you are prepared to jump back if the door suddenly opens in your face. You are deliberately taking a risk on the assumption that you can protect yourself. Let us call such a situation a "risk game." Then a mock risk game is a risk game such that the misfortune which you risk is contrary to the course of nature, a freak misfortune; and thus your preparation to evade it is correspondingly superficial. If the direction of gravity reverses and you fall on the ceiling, that is a freak misfortune. If you don't want to risk this misfortune, then you will anchor yourself to the floor in some way. But if you stand free so that you can fall, and yet try to prepare so that if you do fall, you will fall in such a way that you won't be hurt, then that is a mock risk game. if technicians could actually effect or simulate gravity reversal in the room, then the risk game would be a real one. But I am not concerned with real risk games. I am interested in dealing with gravity reversal in an everyday environment, where everything tells you it can't possibly happen. Your 'preparation' for the fall is thus superficial, because you still have the involuntary conviction that it can't possibly happen. Mock risk games constitute a new area of human behavior, because they aren't something people have done before, you don't know what they will be like until you try them, and it took a very special effort to devise them. They have a tremendous advantage over other activities of comparable significance, because they can be produced in the privacy of your own room without special equipment. Let us explore this new psychological effect; and let us not ask what use it has until we are more familiar with it. Instructions for a variety of mock risk games follow. (I have played each game many times in developing it, to ensure that the experience of playing it will be compelling.) For each game, there is a physical action to be performed in a physical setting. Then there is a list of freak misfortunes which you risk by performing the action, and which you must be prepared to evade. The point is not to hallucinate the misfortunes, or even to fear them, but rather to be prepared to evade them. First you work with each misfortune separately. For example, you walk across a room, prepared to react self-protectingly if you are suddenly upside down, resting on the top of your head on the floor. In preparing for this risk, you should clear the path of objects that might hurt you if you fell on them; you should wear clothes suitable for falling; and you should try standing on your head, taking your hands off the floor and falling, to get a feeling for how to fail without getting hurt. After you have mastered the preparation for each misfortune separately, you perform the action prepared to evade the first misfortune and the second (but not both at once). You must prepare to determine instantly which of the two misfortunes befalls you, and to react appropriately. After you have mastered pairs of misfortunes, you go on to triples of misfortunes, and so forth. The principal games are for a large room with no animals or distracting sounds present. \begin{itemize}[label={}. wide, nosep, itemsep=0.5em] \item[\textbf{A.}] Walk across the lighted room from one corner to the diagonally opposite one, breathing normally, with your eyes open. \lilskip \begin{enumerate}[label=\arabic*., nosep, itemsep=0.5em] \item You are suddenly upside down, resting on the top of your head on the floor. You must get down without breaking your neck. \item Although the floor looks unbroken and solid, beyond a certain point nothing is there. If you step onto that area, you will take a fatal fall. Thus, as you walk, you must not shift your weight to your forward foot until you are sure it will hold. Put the ball of the forward foot down before the heel. \item Something happens to the cohesive forces in your neck so that if your head tips in any direction, it will come right off your body, killing you immediately. Otherwise everything remains normal. Thus, as you walk, you must \enquote{balance} your head on your neck. When you reach the other side of the room, your neck will be restored to normal. (Prepare beforehand by walking with a book balanced on your head.) \item Invisible conical weights fall around you with their points down, each whistling as it falls. You must evade them by ear in order not to be stabbed. Walk softly and fast. \item The room is suddenly filled with water. You have to control your lungs and swim to the top. Wear clothes suitable for swimming. \end{enumerate} \item[\textbf{A'.}] Play game \textbf{A} while on a long walk on an uncrowded street. The floor is replaced by the sidewalk. The fifth misfortune becomes for space suddenly to be filled with water to a height of fifteen feet above the street. \item[\textbf{B.}] Lie on your back on a pallet in the dimly lit room, hands at your sides, with a pillow on your face so that it is slightly difficult to breathe, for thirty seconds at a time. \lilskip \begin{enumerate} \item The pillow suddenly hardens and becomes hundreds of pounds heavier. It remains suspended on your face for a split second and then \enquote{falls,} bears down with full weight. You must jerk your head out from under it in that split second. \item The pillow adheres to your skin with a force greater than your skin's cohesion, and begins to rise. You must rise with it in such a way that your skin is not torn. \end{enumerate} \item[\textbf{C.}] Lie on your back on the pallet in the dimly lit room. \lilskip \begin{enumerate} \item Gravity suddenly disappears completely, so that nothing is held down by it; and the ceiling becomes red-hot. You must avoid drifting up against the ceiling. \item The surface you are lying on becomes a vast lighted open plane. From the distance, giant steel spheres come rolling in your direction. You must evade them. \item Your body is split in half just above the waist by an indefinitely long, rather high, foot-thick wall. Your legs and lower torso are on one side, and your upper torso, arms, and head are on the other side. Matter normally exchanged between the two halves of your body continues to be exchanged through the. wall by telekinesis. It is as if you are a foot longer above the waist. In order to reunite your body, you must first roll over and get up, bent way forward. There are depressions in the wall on the same side as your feet. You have to climb the wall, putting your feet in the depressions and balancing yourself. You will be reunited when you reach the top and your waist passes above the wall. \end{enumerate} \item[\textbf{D.}] Sit in a plain, small, straight chair, on the edge of the seat, hands hanging at the sides of the seat, feet together in front of the chair, in the lighted room, for about thirty seconds at a time. \lilskip \begin{enumerate} \item The chair is suddenly out from under you and sitting on you with Its legs straddling your lap and legs. You have to get your weight over your feet so you won't take a hard fall. \item The direction of gravity reverses and the chair remains anchored to the floor. You have to grab the seat and hold on in order not to fall on the ceiling. \item You are suddenly in a contra-terrene universe, in which the atmosphere is unbreathable and prolonged contact with either the atmosphere or the ground will disintegrate you. The seat and back of the chair become a penetrable hyperspatial sheet between the alien universe and your own. As soon as you feel the alien atmosphere, you must jerk your feet off the ground and deliberately sink or plunge through the seat and back of the chair in the best way that you can. You will end up on the floor under the chair in your universe. \item You are suddenly in dark empty space in a three-dimensional lattice of gleaming wires. Segments of the lattice alternately burst into flame and cool off. You adhere to the chair as if it were part of you. With your hands holding onto the seat, you can move yourself and the chair forward by pushing the seat forward with your hands; you can move backward by pulling backward; you can move up by pulling up on the seat; and so on. The lattice is formed in such a way that in order to move from one cell to the next, you always haave to turn to some extent. Flames immediately spring up next to you, and you have to maneuver yourself through the lattice to escape them. \end{enumerate} \item[\textbf{D`.}] Play Game \textbf{D} in situations where you have to sit and wait. \end{itemize} \aside{Note: The original version of \essaytitle{Mock Risk Games} was entitled \essaytitle{Exercise Awareness-States}. It was written during April--July, 1961; and read at the AG Gallery in New York on July 15, 1961. I subsequently turned against amusemental compositions, and around June 25, 1962 I sent the only copy of \essaytitle{Exercise Awareness-States} to the young musician Tom Constanten, at 1650 Michael Way in Las Vegas. I later wrote Constanten asking him to return the MS, but I never heard from him. The present revival analyses the activity better than the original version did. I am unable, though, to remember some of the most elegant misfortunes for the original games (\textbf{A}, \textbf{B}, \textbf{C}); and it seems that they are permanently lost. In developing the original games---and the present games---I had two objectives in mind. First, the experience of playing the games (as opposed to reading or analyzing them) must involve or compel you, must be vivid and immediate. Secondly, the misfortunes must be elegant, undreamed-of \enquote{explosions} of the natural order. These objectives, though, do not constitute a use for the games. The games can have many uses, beginning with amusement; and it remains to be seen what the most significant use will be.} \section{Intrusions} \pagestyle{salpc} \setheadrule{0.4pt} A noise in an adjacent room may intrude on a person playing a mock risk game, and affect his experience or state of being in a variety of ways. Let us consider the effects of such \enquote{intrusions} on the player's state. There are several kinds of intructions. \enquote{Distractions} are perceived by the player to be unrelated to the game, and tend simply to take his mind off it. \enquote{Bogies} are surprises which so fit in with the game that the player momentarily thinks a freak misfortune has really begun; they tend to frighten the player and halt the game. \enquote{Modulations} are changes in the player's state or mood which may enhance the game; they are typically induced with drugs. The player himself can turn the radio on, bring in a cat, or otherwise create distractions for himself. Here the object of study is how compelling the game is. Through how much distraction can the game hold the player's attention? Turning to modulations, the player can also produce them for himself. More elaborate investigations require an experimenter outside a room where the subject is playing mock risk games. The experimenter needs a one-way window and an intercom to observe and talk with the subject. Here the effects of bogies can be studied. (The experimenter has a problem though, in that after he frightens the subject, the subject will forget about the game and just watch out for the bogies.) Here are some sample bogies, for game \textbf{A}: \lilskip \begin{enumerate} \item Trip the subject with an invisible thread. \item Cause the floor to shift. \item Throw a pingpong ball at the subject from the side. \item Squirt water on him from behind. \end{enumerate} \lilskip The mechanics of the experiments can readily be worked out by anyone interested in them. After an intrusion, the experimenter should question the subject about his reaction if it is appropriate. \section{Mock Risk Games for Couples (Duo Games)} In order for these games to be successful, each of you has to have confidence that the other is actually playing. If you lack this confidence, you forget the game and just watch out for intrusions created by the other. \vskip 0.5em \begin{itemize}[label={}. wide, nosep, itemsep=0.5em] \item[\textbf{AA.}] Face each other at a distance and walk toward each other. \lilskip \begin{enumerate}[nosep,itemsep=0.5em] \item The other's head flies off and hurtles at you like a cannonball. It can swerve up or down, so that you will be hit unless you jump aside. The time you have to jump is about the same no matter what your distance from the other is, because the head accelerates rapidly. \item Just as the other is putting his foot down to make a step, he suddenly becomes so large that his foot is descending right over your head. At the same time, the mental commands of each of you to your muscles begin to be transmitted to the other's muscles rather than your own, and to be executed by his muscles rather than by yours. Thus, you must jerk \enquote{your} / \enquote{his} foot back, rather than complete the step, in order not to "step on your own head." The two of you should walk in step, right foot with right and left with left. Watch the other's feet and also watch above yourself---using your vertical peripheral vision to do so. In short, if you suddenly see a giant foot coming down on you, jerk \enquote{your} forward foot back. \item (This misfortune is exceptionally complex, but there are good reasons for the complexity, and it will repay study.) The consciousness of each of you suddenly becomes located in the other's body and becomes hooked into the other's receptors and muscles. At the same time, your body, which is now \enquote{outside you} and which is under the other's control, becomes surrounded by slowly moving beams of tissue-destroying radiation coming from the sides of the room. The radiation is invisible, but the eyes you are seeing through become sensitive to it. At the same time, the other mind loses its knowledge of language. In order to save your body, under the other's blind control, from blundering into a radiation beam, you have to communicate pre-verbally to the other mind by every means from vocal cries to pantomine, and get your-body/his-mind out of range of the radiation. When the body is out, you will both be restored to normal. (The first thing to anticipate is the basic shift in viewpoint by which you will be looking at your own body from the other's position. There is no point in tensing your muscles in preparatiton for the misfortune, because if it occurs, you will be working with a strange set of muscles anyway. The next thing to prepare to do is to spot the radiation beams; and then to yell, gesture, or whatever--anything to get the \enquote{other} to avoid the radiation. Note finally that neither player prepares for the possibility that he will be surrounded by radiation. Each player prepares for the same role in an asymmetrical pas de deux.) \end{enumerate} \vskip 0.5em \emph{Asymmetry:} The two of you play a given duo game, but each prepares to evade a different misfortune. \vskip 0.5em \item[\textbf{AB.}] Stay awake with eyes closed for an agreed upon time between one and fifteen minutes. Use a timer with an alarm. \vskip 0.5em \begin{enumerate}[nosep,itemsep=0.5em] \item Each suddenly has the other's entire present consciousness in addition to his own, from perceptions to memories, ideologies, ambitions, and everything else---threatening both with psychological shock. \lilskip The couple must take up positions such that their sensory perceptions are as nearly identical as possible. Beforehand, each must discuss with the other the aspects of the other's attitude to the world which each must fears having impused on his consciousness. During the game, each must think about these aspects and try to prepare for them. \item Each suddenly relives the other's most intense past feelings of depression and suicidal impulses. In other words, if five years ago the other attempted suicide because he failed out of college, you suddenly have the consciousness that \enquote{you} have just failed out of college, are totally worthless, and should destroy yourself. Presumably the other has since learned to live with his past disasters, but you do not have the defenses he has built up. You are overwhelmed with a despair which the other felt in the past, and which is incongruous with the rest of your consciousness. In summary, both of you risk shock and suicidal impulses. Beforehand, of course, each must tell the other of his worst past suicidal or depressed episode; and discuss anything else that may minimize the risk of shock. \end{enumerate} \end{itemize} \section{Intrusions in Duo Games} As before, distractions and modulations can be openly studied by consent of the players. As for bogies, it is possible in duo games for one player to create a bogy without warning, in effect acting as a saboteur. As soon as a game is sabotaged, though, confidence is lost, and each player just watches out for the other's bogies. Here are some sample intrusions. \newcommand\rP[2]{\parbox{#1}{\raggedleft #2}} \newcommand\cP[2]{\parbox{#1}{\centering #2}} % \begin{tabular}{4in}{|r|p{1.25in}|p{1.25in}|} \begin{tabular}{|r|p{1.25in}|p{1.25in}|l|}\cline{1-4} \textsc{Game} & \textsc{Distraction} & \textsc{Bogy} & \textsc{Modulation} \\\cline{1-4} \textbf{AA.} 1. & cough & shout in other's face& \\\cline{1-3} 2. & talk and laugh \vskip 0.5em get out of step & stamp hard& \\\cline{1-3} 3. & spin around & & \rotatebox{70}{each take a different drug} \\\cline{1-3} \textbf{AB.} 1. & cough \vskip 0.5em talk and laugh & gasp \vskip 0.5em silently pass palm back \& forth in front of others face& \\\cline{1-3} 2. & && \\\cline{1-4} \end{tabular}