US
52 MIN READ TIME

RIGGING THE MIND GAME

BY WINSTON ROSS

@winston_ross

WILL STRAHL walked up to my door with a massive black briefcase in his hand, the kind you could use to tote a dirty bomb. Once inside my living room, he cracked open the case and removed a laptop, a small amplifier, a resealable plastic bag of stainless steel–tipped electrodes and a jar of conductive gel. He applied the gel to the peak of my forehead, then attached electrodes to my skull and ground wires to my ears. I was about to play a video game with my brain.

To succeed, I needed only to keep the car moving, the music playing and a gray fog from enshrouding the entire screen. To pull off those feats, I had to keep my mind as calm and focused as possible. If I closed my eyes or clenched my jaw or shifted in my seat, the car stalled or the screen went gray or the music faded to a whisper. There were other cars in the race, but the true objective wasn’t to beat them. It was to rebalance my brain.

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Newsweek International
20th May 2016
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