The Psychology of Psychonauts -The Milkman Conspiracy

Fun fact hitting him with the confusion grenade actually causes him to have a moment of clarity.

I find it interesting how the G-Men, the "shadowy government agents" he thinks are pursuing him at every turn, ultimately turn out to be the good guys.

An interesting thing I just realized is that Boyd fights against the milkman for a very long time. He doesn't actually burn the asylum until near the end of the game, and even then he only does it when he realizes that all his friends aren't in there. The expressions that cross his face as he goes through with it are very much Boyd's, not the milkman's. Horror at what his body is trying to do, surprise at seeing all his friends behind him and not in the asylum, and then confidence that he can through with it without hurting anyone he cares about and then get on with his life.

Don’t let this distract you from the fact that he is the milkman, and his milk is delicious

I like how this game sympathetically and humorously portrays a horrifying mental illness, in a way that doesn't stigmatize the sufferer. Hell that's true for any of the levels, but this one especially. Part of why Psychonauts is regarded as a classic is that folks who actually have these conditions appreciate the way the writing handles them.

The Milkman is the best horror game antagonist. imagine just walking down a dark hall and hear "I am The Milkman." "My milk is delicious." bounce off the walls.

An added touch I noticed is how Boyd sees himself in his mind versus how he looks irl. In his head he thinks of himself as a thoughtful and observant intellectual, while in reality he’s hunched over, rattling off nonsense and madly scribbling mumbo jumbo on the walls.

Another interesting detail, is the fact that you have to become invisible to be able to get into the rainbow squirts house, truly seeing the world from the eyes of boyd

It is scary to see how, when the milkman emerges and takes over boyls mind, how laser focused he becomes with a initial deranged smile. He stops all rambling and is only focused on his one contingend task.

The Pavlov experiment with dogs is something I've experienced in real life. I'm an English speaker, but when I was very young I attended piano classes at a music school where the majority of teachers and students spoke Spanish. My piano instructor would teach me Spanish words just for fun. At the end of each lesson, she would give me a couple Hershey's Kisses chocolates, and instead of saying "thank you" I would say "gracias." To this day, hearing the word gracias occasionally brings the taste of chocolate to mind because of that.

And thus "The Milkman has completed his route."

One thing about the milkman that I wasn’t really sure about, At the end when he says that “the milkman has completed his route.” It’s shown that a representation of the milkman, The den mother/his mother and the G-man all leave his body. My question is by tying this milkman trigger to his delusions, did Oreandaer unintentionally help him through his psychological problems?

A tad bit of spoilers. But I like the detail that the character that did actually work there does end up "freeing" Boyd from the conspiracy.

I always wondered why Boyd was able to seemingly fully recover from his delusions at the end of the game, but the point you made about the censors does put things into a very interesting context. Boyd likely succumbed to his delusions when he was young, and under the impression that he was being persecuted by everyone around him. Because he felt isolated and did not know who to trust, his mind lacked the proper context for what thoughts should be regulated by the censors, which only served to escalate his behavior. Once Oleander found and conditioned him, all of his conspiratorial thoughts became centrally focused on the Milkman. It's almost as if Boyd's mind, due to his paranoia, knew that there was a foreign entity present in there, and therefore he couldn't trust his own thoughts. Hence, the G-Men acting as pretenders inside his own mind, and attacking anything that isn't them. If they think they are in the presence of something crafted for this part of the mind, they will play nice, but once they realize that they are seeing something foreign or out of place, they pounce on it, attempting to root out the invader, like antibodies to a virus. Once Rasputin finds his way into the den, and the G-Men arrive, the censors are allowed to being their work of dismantling the conspiracy propped up by Oleander's conditioning. Most importantly, once the Milkman had "finished his delivery," the programmed alter ego had no other instructions to follow, and likely became inactive, allowing the censors to eliminate it. All of this culminates in two major developments, the foreign program in Boyd's head is removed, allowing him to act under his own autonomy, and the conspiracy he suspected was present was finally solved, meaning his mind could settle into what it can perceive as a state of peace and balance. More importantly, because Oleander's programming seemed to direct all of Boyd's delusions toward the mystery of the Milkman, this culminates in a seeming exorcism of his imbalanced perception of the world around him.

Jesus Christ. Boyd is more tortured than that one guy who lost the high ground only to become toast and never see his kids before joining a cult.

11:00 notice how all the papers form a circle around body facing inward? Its a metaphor for how he sees himself as being at the center of all the conspiracies he’s imagine and a nice little detail

Some say that Superman is actually the primary personality and Clark is the alter ego.

I like how they reused the idea of changing a person's mental processes in a more direct way with Hollis in the sequel. Also, I wonder why they tried to scrub that extra backstory. It works and explains a lot, so why try to get rid of it? Unless they wanted to retcon it for another backstory, which they didn't.

The true three sections 1. Who is Boyd 2. who is the milkman 3. Why is it delicious

8:10 This exact thing right here is what my mother suffers with, it's either this, schizophrenia or both at the same time. It's sad when you see this happen towards someone you know in real life. Her mental health has gotten so bad she thought two people where living on the roof of where my sister lives, there's legitimately nobody there whatsoever. I tried convincing her that she needs to seek mental health professionals but she won't accept it, I tried my best and now she's suffering as a result; she thinks I'm conspiring against her, last time when one of her delusions got to her she thought I put bleach in her water so I said I would drink it, I would drink the water to prove there's nothing in there but she wouldn't allow me to drink it.