Mind Burst
A mind burst refers to the sudden switching on of a person's telepathic abilities (similar to the breaking out process of The Tomorrow People). A person taking a mind burst experiences an overload of incoming telepathic information, which will cause the person to pass out.
A telepath is usually depicted as being born with telepathic abilities or developing them gradually in childhood. But in the case of those people with latent telepathic abilities, the ability can be suddenly switched on. Stress or body changes can cause this.
People experiencing a mind burst are usually taken in for medical care. When they wake up, a trained telepath is usually on hand to help them. Prior to the Telepath War, new telepaths were either made to join the Psi Corps or take drugs (colloquially called sleepers) to block their abilities. Many telepaths ran away to keep from being forced into the Corps. After the war, telepaths had more freedom in choosing their futures.
Read more about this topic: Psi Corps
Famous quotes containing the words mind and/or burst:
“The line that I am urging as today’s conventional wisdom is not a denial of consciousness. It is often called, with more reason, a repudiation of mind. It is indeed a repudiation of mind as a second substance, over and above body. It can be described less harshly as an identification of mind with some of the faculties, states, and activities of the body. Mental states and events are a special subclass of the states and events of the human or animal body.”
—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)
“We, the lineal representatives of the successful enactors of one scene of slaughter after another, must, whatever more pacific virtues we may also possess, still carry about with us, ready at any moment to burst into flame, the smoldering and sinister traits of character by means of which they lived through so many massacres, harming others, but themselves unharmed.”
—William James (1842–1910)