Understanding the Subconscious #2: P.T.'s Subliminal Message

On the 12th of August, 2014, a mysterious game demo named P.T. appeared on the PlayStation Network for the PlayStation 4. Less than a year later, it was pulled and has never been available for download again.

It's appearance was cloaked in mystery. Nobody knew who created it, nor what game it was previewing. It just appeared one day and drew people into the mystery. Since then, the mystery has been solved and we now know that P.T. was produced by Hideo Kojima and Guillermo del Toro as a playable teaser for their game Silent Hills. Unfortunately, Kojima split with Konami and thus Silent Hills was cancelled.

Even though P.T. has come and gone, it still contains the most masterful use of a subliminal message I've ever seen. Before going into that, a little about how this works:

I'm sure you've had this experience: you're listening to the radio while doing something else and tune out the radio. You still know it's there, as background noise, but you're not paying any attention to what song is playing. Then, all of a sudden your attention is brought back to the radio by some blaring ad.

Your subconscious continues to monitor everything you're not paying attention to. So, while your paying attention to something else, your subconscious is still aware of everything else that's going on. If something in your environment changes significantly, your subconscious will alert you by bringing your attention back to it.

The key: everything that you're not consciously paying attention to you are perceiving via your subconscious -- in other words: subliminally.

Fortunately, even though you can't play P.T. anymore, recordings of it remain. Below is a video of the most masterful use of a subliminal message -- ever.

Here's what happens:

1. The player discovers a radio that is on some news program.
2. Some time is allowed for the player to tune it out to background noise. Additionally, it seems to repeat, giving a cue that what follows is going to be redundant.
3. After the sound of the radio becomes habituated (tuned out), a voice similar enough to the original voice not to alert the subconscious delivers the message "Look behind you, I said.... Look behind you."
4. When the player does, a jump scare ensues.

When I played it, sure enough, I tuned out the radio, turned around without exactly knowing why, and then -- and I'm not proud to admit this -- screamed like a little girl.

One last thing before you watch the video. Keep in mind that you will be looking for the subliminal message consciously because I've pointed it out to you. It won't have the same effect on you as it had on players who weren't so forewarned. However, you'll get to see a clear example of an effective subliminal message in action.

Without further ado, here's the video: (please mind the jump scare)

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The first part of the series is here: Understanding the Subconscious #1: Seeing It First Hand

Be seeing you.
Stay frosty.