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Comment by mindcrime | Hacker News Reader

Is anybody else reminded of the character from the song "One"[1] by Metallica, and the movie/novel "Johnny Got His Gun"[2]? Granted, that was different in that the situation resulted from a traumatic injury and the man lost his limbs. But the idea of being "trapped in your body" - unable to communicate, aware of your own existence, but basically nothing else - seems similar.

    Darkness imprisoning me
    All that I see
    Absolute horror
    I cannot live
    I cannot die
    Trapped in myself
    Body my holding cell

I remember being terrified of this idea the first time I saw the video all those years ago. I guess I still am. I just had no idea - until now - that a situation like this could result from much of anything other than a major traumatic injury.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WM8bTdBs-cw

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Got_His_Gun_(film)

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I also recall a science fiction take on the theme. It was a short story by Stanisław Lem. There's this mad scientist named Decantor, who killed / immortalized his wife by copying her mind onto an indestructible crystal.

The consciousness persists and the mind keeps on thinking, and it can't die - it's virtually immortal. That's the extra twist here. So, it's capable of surviving for millions of years, likely outliving all life on the planet etc., but at the same time deprived of all senses and cut off from the external world. Even an escape into insanity is impossible (since, I assume, there's no biochemistry that could get out of balance).

The horrified narrator considers it as the worst torment imaginable, whereas Decantor can't see it, as immortality - he points out - has always been humanity's most profound longing.

Stephen King also wrote the short scifi story The Jaunt which is similar.

Basically a scientist makes a stargate type of device. Nonliving things that go through end up fine but living things like mice would either immediately just die or go absolute insane after exiting.

Long story short, the trip is instantaneous. But because they're traveling outside of our normal space time is perceived differently by conciousnes minds. So what seems like a split second to us on the outside things seem almost endless on the inside. Like anywhere from millions of years to the age of the universe. Endless time with nothing but their own thoughts. No body and just white light. Humans they test it out on either also die or end up going all Event Horizon when they exit.

They figured out a work around by knocking people out before putting then through.

There's a few black mirror episodes on this theme, search for the "cookies"episodes

Iirc ot’s easy to find online and pretty short. The ending is pretty haunting, so I recommend everyone read it if it sounds interesting.

roald dahl, of all people, does this in “william & mary”

Another fairly well-known account of locked-in syndrome would be The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, the memoir of Jean-Dominique Bauby (also made into a movie); in his case the precipitating event was a stroke.

I also have to point out one of the most terrifying science fiction short stories ever written, "I have no mouth and I must scream." Search it online and you'll find a pdf somewhere. It's short and definitely worth a read if you aren't faint of heart.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Have_No_Mouth,_and_I_Must_Sc...

Immediately yes. And a Hitchcock short I saw around the same time. I was young but it did make me say, strangely, until now, do not pull the plug, leave me until the sun expires, I can still recover.

Edit; found the Hitchcock one [0]; I will rewatch; I remember it as being very good.

[0] https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0508134/?ref_=m_tt_urv

DMT is this experience for me. I wasn't afraid of death until I took it. My body was gone, I lost my body and was engulfed in darkness for what felt like eternity. We fear the same feeling of darkness

As a fellow kid of the 90's: Yes.

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