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Related Topics: Backrooms
This research article by Dominik Stefan Mihalits proposes an integrative framework for understanding 'extreme experiences' in psychology and psychotherapy. Moving away from the traditional binary of 'normal' versus 'pathological,' the author argues that extreme states are multidimensional constructs that can be both destructive and transformative. The paper introduces a six-dimensional model to analyze these experiences: Intensity, Impact, Demand, Control, Novelty, and Identification. By examining case studies like that of Sirima (a fire-walker in Sri Lanka) and the work of Bruno Bettelheim, the author demonstrates how extreme experiences can serve as catalysts for personal growth, meaning-making, and identity formation. The article concludes by advocating for a 'psychology of the extreme' that systematically examines the limits of human experience, encouraging clinicians to view these states as potentially meaningful developmental junctures rather than mere symptoms of disorder.
Extreme states are so much more nuanced than just existing on the typical binary of “good” or “bad.” Extreme experiences can be explored and articulated/revealed through 6 different dimensions: Intensity, Impact, Demand, Control, Novelty, and Identification. Understanding the “psychology of the extreme” systematically examines the limits of human experience.
This article argues for a conceptual re-evaluation of extreme experiences, moving away from interpreting them primarily as pathological deviations. Instead, it proposes an integrative framework that understands extremes as multidimensional constructs relevant to psychological development.
The article highlights the case of Sirima, documented by Obeyesekere (1981), who used ritual practices like fire walking and hook hanging as symbolic acts of self-empowerment and reorientation during existential crises. Her experiences are interpreted not as mental disorder, but as culturally embedded forms of coping and identity formation.
There are 6 dimensions to extreme experiences: Intensity, Impact, Demand, Control, Novelty, and Identification.
Just like extreme states/experiences, the backrooms lie at the “edges (threshold) of human experience. To enter the backrooms, you have to press up against the precipice/threshold of the universe and no-clip into an alternate or parallel yet alien universe/dimension. Extreme states and experiences have the capacity to be both destructive and transformative.
In the pursuit of truth, we have to exhaust the depths of madness and error. In the real world, this goal (of transformation) is attainable, but in the backrooms, it is the inevitable and inescapable trap that leads to your own demise (ego death, social death, emotional death, physical death, etc)
The LACK of coherence in the backrooms leads to entrapment, captivity, imprisonment, bondage, corruption, depravity, distortion (i.e., the still lifes). The backrooms very much mirror the view of hell in its godlessness and innate, relentless horror. In contrast, some moviegoers seemed to expect Kane Pixel’s Backrooms to explore more of the “beauty” and dreamlike utopia of dreamcore vs what was actually an exploration of the extremes of liminal core.
Extreme experiences can manifest themselves in near-death experiences, psychotic episodes, ritual initiations, existential threat, life/narrative? disruptions/displacement, etc.
Without recognizing the nuanced transformative potential of extreme experiences, from the outside looking in, most people would probably view someone as “erratic” and “dysregulated” like Clark as “crazy” and might dismiss him outright. To the “normal” world, he appears “disordered,” but from his perspective, he is seeking out answers to reconcile his inner issues and cognitive dissonance THROUGH the architecture and experience of the backrooms.
The conditions that create an “extreme” experience for someone are made possible by the “complex interactions” between personal, social, and cultural factors. Since each person’s PERSONAL experience are subjective and varied, what might be extreme for one person could prove meaningless to another. These conditions must align and overlap to form the perfect storm of what will SUBJECTIVELY be considered an extreme experience. Despite this pressurized and challenging experience, these states are not only ENDURED but paradoxically, even ACTIVELY sought out (through self-motivated means such as personal quests, immersive flow states, high-risk activities, etc). Understanding the paradoxical relationship we have to extreme experiences requires us to be open to their ambivalence and ambiguity—and this is what the backrooms explores, especially since the whole concept is basically “open source horror.“
While in everyday life, extreme experiences can be both negatively and positively transformative, cosmic horror does NOT allow for this nuance—essentially (theoretically & philosophically) pushing the concept and understanding of “extreme experiences“ TO the extreme—veryyy meta.
Clark is so isolated even prior to entering the backrooms that his mental state has already began to deteriorate as a result of his alcoholism, depression, and (impending?) divorce that he doesn’t even recognize (or care about!) his descent into madness once he begins obsessively exploring and mapping the backrooms. He does admit to his therapist, Mary, out loud, though, that she’ll probably think he’s “crazy” and unhinged once he explains what he’s discovered. But the concepts of “normality” and “madness” are just social constructs, and the backrooms explore an inverted, increasingly distorted physical/tangible manifestation of “the normal world.” It’s giving “we’re all mad here“ (the Alice in Wonderland effect).
When we consciously confront the unconscious aspects of ourselves, we begin the process of integrating ourselves and creating inner coherence. While we may choose to thrust ourselves into an extreme experience willingly, that doesn’t mean we will not be challenged and pushed to our limits. We are almost guaranteed to experience profound tension, symbolic moments of crisis, and a face-to-face encounter with our shadow self—revealing the repressed aspects of ourselves that bubble up to the surface to powerfully reassert themselves in extreme states. The extreme is not only a consequence of collapse, but it represents new beginnings (harkens back to hauntology). THESE are the mechanics behind what makes extreme experiences SO transformative.
Neuroplasticity means that we are never as “stuck” as we might feel, no matter how despondent a situation may feel. Actively and consciously working through our inner contractions / cognitive dissonance helps us feel whole and resolved. This liminal state (both psychological and symbolic) allows us to have a “productive crisis” where our inner psychological system reorganizes itself. These transformative liminal states can even occur in our dreams through archetypal images and symbols that function as “psychological signposts.” Our unconscious mind, while sleeping, helps us interpret what we have experienced and integrate it into a new internal self-structure. “What initially appears to be a breakdown can, over time, become a catalyst for a breakthrough.” Again not compatible with cosmic horror—too optimistic in my opinion.
Carl Jung once said, “One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.”
Sometimes we can lean a little too hard into an extreme experience and traumatize ourselves (which Clark definitely did in the backrooms—a.k.a. transformative experiences & the allegory behind Clark and the pirate entity Captain Clark), but that’s just the risk we take with exploring the edges of our limits. What can be a risk can also be a resource. But this is what ASYNC fundamentally fails to understand, and are perpetually chasing their own tails about.
Clark’s comment about “construction workers on acid“ becomes even MORE relevant & even foreshadows his fate when we recognize that psychedelic experiences are known for inducing extreme changes in our perception, emotions, and (if we take a high enough dose) lead to a complete and utter dissolution of the self known as ego death.**
Inner turmoil, “biographical ruptures,” and transitions are the catalysts for these experiences. Extreme experiences are usually preceded by an existential crisis like a huge life upheaval, a traumatic experience, or other profound emotional transformations. Upheavals are the way the backrooms upends & inverts reality as we (collectively & individually) know it – a symbolical appeal, if you will.
These experiences represent both disintegration AND reorganization—they mark the threshold of where our old reality is crumbling but our new reality has yet to take shape / is not yet tangible. Standing on the precipice of this threshold allows us to experience opposite ends of ann oscillating spectrum: disintegration (ego death)! — reorganization (breakthrough).
I would argue there is a direct correlation between the gradual rise of extreme-seeking (in both experiences & understanding) to the cultural phenomena and craving for hauntology.
Even the semantic openness of the word “extreme” could conceal/reveal a structure that connects various phenomena.
🔗 Going back to the etymology of the word “extreme,” it’s fair to say that “extreme experiences” defy/transcend simplistic definitions because language cannot truly contain all of their nuance and facets. Extreme states are rooted in existence itself, not language (the word “extreme” came after humans experienced things that they could not describe in words). Extreme experiences occur at the thresholds of our regular lived experiences, where “familiar patterns of interpretation fail,” and where the self/ego is shaken/disrupted, demanding new “forms of orientation” to arise to meet those moments. The “you” you were before an extreme experience will NEVER be the same—you will be forever changed and cannot “go back” (for better or worse). Cue, the uncanny.
One VERY extreme example of an extreme experience would be those of survivors of concentration camps during World War II. When we find ourselves in the throes of an extreme experience, we suddenly discover that our previous coping strategies are no longer effective (and possibly even dangerous), even though they previously kept us safe/stable. All sense of familiarity is suddenly ripped out from beneath us and we “are forced to completely reorient ourselves.“ The loops reach an end – we must choose a different path in the backrooms… Let go or be dragged.
🔗 Going back to the etymology of the word “extreme” … extreme experiences are SO much more than just their “intensity”—above all, they are defined by their “structural strangeness and transgression of boundaries.” Extreme experiences are defined by more than just the extent of suffering, but by the qualitative/anecdotal/unempirical shift in the fundamental experience of “reality”—a complete divorce/diversion/break with all things familiar. Extreme experiences bring us to the threshold of our limits—they create, destroy, and transform us. 🔗 Going back to the concentration camps example … Bettelheim was confronted with the darkest depths of human nature—hatred, destructive rage, and those powerful inner forces that Freud called the “death instinct.” The death instinct is the fundamental, destructive force that lies dormant in humans and ultimately aims at a dissolution of the self, “a return to the inorganic, and self-destruction.” 🔗 Going back to the concentration camps example … extreme situations/circumstances highlight this invisible and subversive death drive, illuminating how it shapes human behavior under extreme pressure. However “morally reprehensible,” the actions driven by this self-destructive force are not a mystery and remain psychologically explainable. Death instinct is the opposite / antithesis of survival instinct.
Consciously, Clark avoided meeting/facing his shadow and actually healing in his therapy sessions with Mary. Confronting himself would mean he would have to unravel/dismantle the stories he’s created about himself and the unexpectedly depressing and unfulfilling direction his life has taken and his role in that. The only time he becomes “open” to meeting himself is literally as a skin-stealer in the backrooms (possibly the MOST extreme of extremes, as he was ultimately obliterated once he tried to reconcile his conscious and unconscious beliefs).
In life (and the backrooms), Hell is the absence of God and sin is the opposite of coherence. If the wages of sin is death, then the death drive is our human nature and desire to stray from God and be a slave to our flesh.
Clark’s inability to NOT play the victim — he won’t die to his flesh. Extreme experiences & liminal spaces go hand-in-hand. When our old and new realities disorient us by overlapping and collapsing in on each other, we can seek to find (or create) the eye of the storm—a place of calm and refuge where new meanings, identities, and self relationships emerge from the ashes.
There is a transition/threshold that occurs within an extreme experience, where the daily passive confrontation with the self meets extreme and active self-exposure. Seeking these experiences out helps you regain control of the situation—you are no longer helplessly enduring suffering, but you are choosing to meet the pressure head-on to speed up the process of self-transformation. Clark’s insatiable desire to map and explore the backrooms – even at his own peril (cosmic horror). Extreme experiences evoke a satisfying sense of meaning (a.k.a., Freud’s “oceanic feeling”)—this is the liminal space where one oscillates between a self-involved ego dissolution and complete, heart-open transcendence.
Clark wrestled with his profound anger/rage, grief, disappointment, and shame in an attempt to answer the most pressing existential questions about his life. Clark’s life lacked meaning, so the backrooms called to him. Clark was forever chasing the high of not only discovering but surviving the backrooms unscathed—the only environment and architecture he would probably EVER conquer in his life. Clark was only initially unscathed because he kept resisting surrendering to his own breakthrough that he subconsciously desired. The backrooms were Clark’s escape hatch from himself and his problems – it gave him a false sense of confidence.
Extreme experiences mark a “symbolic act of self-conquest and reorientation.” It’s the feeling of walking barefoot through the fires of hell and emerging miraculously intact/unharmed.
These extreme states mark a transition, a pivotal moment in someone’s life that can be symbolically unconsciously processed, transformed, and integrated. Within this liminal state, you can shed old identities and evolve into an entirely new, transformed individual. It’s a phoenix moment. Avoiding grief & challenging experiences inevitably means you’re ALSO avoiding your biggest breakthroughs.
Clark wasn’t seeking “disintegration” or ”loss of control,” he was seeking a sense of “deep inner coherence and purposefulness.“ Clark was—unbeknownst to him or not—seeking redemptive suffering. The darkness, the fear paired with a sense of wonder and exploration provided him with a sense of meaning that he no longer received in his daily life.
Extremes transcend the binary of “good” or “bad” and represent “both the limits and possibilities” of our inner and outer worlds. These liminal states reveal both “our deepest vulnerabilities and our highest aspirations.” Kane Pixels uses the multiverse of the backrooms to lean into the destructive aspects of extreme experiences.
The psychology of extremes that systematically examines the limits of human experience and behavior.
Time does not exist in the backrooms, further compounding the liminal effects—both the tangible and intangible experience is nonlinear. Hindsight allows us to unfold the meaning behind and within our extreme experiences.
Ego death (or ego disintegration) is a temporary disintegration of the self.
In the backrooms, Clark and Mary basically flip flop between who is dissociating and when/what triggers that trauma response. Clark seems to be checked out of his DAILY life, and Mary begins to dissociate once she realizes that she is stuck in the backrooms for eternity and ultimately ended up trapped, helpless, and panicked—just like her mother.
Existential emptiness leads to nihilism. Clark begins to run on autopilot in the backrooms, (mistakenly) believing that he is “free” to continue looping within the patterns of his dysfunction.
There’s a liminal, dissociative oscillation between overwhelm and numbness. A great example of this is the dinner table scene where Mary snaps and unleashes her repressed feelings versus the dissociation & wind chimes while zoning out at the ASYNC table. That said, an experience that is overwhelming for one person may seem empty or meaningless to another—just look at the difference in experiences between Clark and Mary. It’s interesting that Mary is a therapist herself in the unbridled intensity of the backrooms “dinner“ scene was basically the ONLY thing that broke through to Clark and finally interrupted his subconscious, self-defeating loops… And then he succumbed to his own subconscious monster… His dysfunction was SO severe, it actually made him COMPATIBLE with the backrooms (including the still life of his wife versus the “normal“ role-play exercise in the therapist’s office). The two different table scenes cross a threshold – the interview table and the dinner table.
Transformation is the “ability of an experience to destabilize existing structures and enable new ones—a qualitative restructuring of one’s relationship to oneself and the world.” This can look like a cognitive transformation (e.g, new beliefs), emotional transformation (e.g, changed attachment patterns), an existential transformation (e.g, a new sense of meaning), or even social transformation (e.g, role changes). A classic example or manifestation of a liminal transformative experience would be a near-death experience.
If the backrooms exist outside of time, these changes/biographical turning points (in both directions) collapse in on themselves.
Near-death experiences are so radically life changing that they completely reorient us afterwards (”people quit their jobs, end destructive relationships, or begin a spiritual practice“). Extreme experiences like this act as a catalyst and are known as breakthrough moments that “shatter the previous self-image and opens up new possibilities,” leading to lasting change.
Stabilization is “the ability of an experience to maintain, consolidate, or restore existing structures.” Similar to the outdated binary concept of extreme experiences, stabilization is “not the opposite of development, but rather its prerequisite.” Stabilization creates “security, orientation, and coherence in situations that could potentially have a disintegrating effect.” And if true transformation “can only be sustainable if it is embedded in stabilizing structures,” the backrooms clearly do NOT allow for this—hence, cosmic horror.
As a trained therapist, Mary created a foundation of stability in her sessions before even initiating the practice of guiding clients/patients through a transformative process. Mary unintentionally subverted this foundation of stability in her panic while strapped to a chair at the backrooms dinner table… and it ultimately worked on Clark. But leading Clark to cognitive and emotional transformation in this backwards way is not sustainable, so Clark was doomed to fail.
Clark really went rogue in the backrooms and kind of did there what he probably should’ve done in his waking life, and vice versa. However, in the greater backrooms canon on community-lead wiki sites (open source horror vibes), groups like M.E.G. & ASYNC // FINISH THIS THOUGHT!
🔗 Going back to the multidimensional nature of extreme experiences… “extreme experiences can have both disintegrating and integrating effects—often simultaneously.”
The deeper Mary gets into the backrooms, the more she surrenders to its repressive architecture and systems. Realizing that her familiar coping mechanisms/strategies are no longer effective mark the moment of complete loss of control. Not only is this is fearful, threatening realization, but it shakes the very foundation of her reality. Mary felt powerless & surrendered to dissociation.
Could Mary or Clark actually control their experiences?? And even if they could, the feeling of helplessness would actually lead to a (perceived) “loss of control“?
Was Clark experiencing what Freud calls an “ego disturbance” (where he loses control of his own thoughts/feelings/actions—something that’s not just a symptom, but “an existential experience that deeply affects the structure of the self”) in the Backrooms movie, culminating at the dinner table scene??
The backrooms are deliberately designed to elicit a reorienting response that completely sever our connection to “previous patterns of interpretation, challenge existing identity structures, and often create a feeling of disorientation or overwhelm.” Despite this, these experiences can also feel expansive and transformative (“depending on the context and inner disposition,” hence the subjectivity of these experiences and variance between people, even if they experience the EXACT same event). A classic example of this duality is obvious in psychedelic experiences where our perceptions of time, space, body, and self are radically altered. Not only are these experiences (typically) new/novel (expanding and unfolding our capacity to comprehend things far beyond anything we’ve previously imagined), but they “break the boundaries of everyday consciousness and open up new realms of experience.”
A new environment like the backrooms fly in the face of familiarity (norms, values, forms of communication, etc) and feel completely and utterly foreign, incomprehensible, and threatening. For the “right” person (in the “right” or most “receptive” headspace), the backrooms COULD be an “opportunity for reorientation and identity development,” but cosmic horror would never allow for this—and so everyone who enters the backrooms is doomed to be swallowed up whole by it in their pursuit of curiosity.
Groups/organizations like M.E.G. and ASYNC rely heavily on ritualization (”the experience of a situation as familiar, predictable, and structured”) to provide a sense of orientation, reduce uncertainty, and create (perhaps an ill-fated/guided) psychological stability—something that is ESSENTIAL during times of extreme or crisis situations. These groups create coherence through familiarity like “daily routines such as prayers, meals, or greetings structure everyday life and create a sense of continuity.” On a micro/personal level, structured routines “convey a sense of security and predictability.” These action loops don’t lose meaning, but gain depth and integration in almost a meditative repeatability. In other words, ritualization provides a secure framework within which even intense or challenging experiences can be processed.
In a therapeutic setting like Mary’s therapy sessions with Clark, she creates this ritualization through a recurring setting (same time, same place, same structure) creates a space in which new experiences can be made and integrated. This gets more interesting when Mary inadvertently moves Clark’s therapy session to a setting like the backrooms where everything is inverted—and note: this is the only time Clark has a therapeutic breakthrough… and then he dies (because he is no longer compatible with the backrooms and they/the entities see him as a threat due to his new level of awareness).
Liminal states are transitional states where “old structures have been dissolved but new ones have not yet been established.” Within these liminal states, you’ll see/experience high degrees of novelty, uncertainty, and ambivalence. Depending on whether new structures of meaning can be formed, these liminal states can either be experienced as chaotic (negatively/nihilistically) or creative (positively/optimistically). So if an experience renders you completely unable to internally re-establish stability, coherence, and meaning, it will ultimately lead to a nihilistic and futile outlook of the experience. Recognizing the critical tipping point between coherence and total nihilism, it’s clear that liminal experiences are “narrative transitional spaces structured by semiotic borders.” The borders of this space function as “dynamic devices that connect past and future, self and other, and inner and outer realities.”
More than just a point of transition, liminality is an interpretative charged process of meaning-making that manifests itself as instability, ambiguity, and affective intensity. These liminal spaces are the magical ingredient where novelty and creativity get to shine, equipping us with the tools for “reorganization of identity and the formation of new narrative structures.”
Unfortunately, Mary lost control of her intentionally curated therapeutic environment when she followed Clark into the backrooms. Without therapy, Clark’s ego and subconscious was a barrier to him experiencing a breakthrough that took the threatening and hostile edge off these experiences. In an office setting, she aimed to guide and support Clark through navigating new experiences in a way that shifts his perspective to being more open and receptive to the opportunity to learn and grow in his emotional state and repair his fractured and dysfunctional relationships with others.
The subjective strangeness or familiarity of a situation is what leads to the uncanny valley effect.
[!ignore]- My annotations:
Identification is a way that we create/discern meaning-making and plays a crucial role in our ability to process extreme experiences. This mechanism is closely linked to concepts like “self-construction, narrative identity, symbolic interaction, and emotional resonance.“
Mary is a professional therapist, and much like an ER doctor, she has learned to remain emotionally detached in order to maintain order control in her life and practice with her patients. This is not her being cold or indifferent towards her patients, but it’s a form of “professional self-regulation”—which she ultimately loses complete control of (or consciously chooses to abandon) by the time Clark has her trapped with no escape in the backrooms. As a therapist, she understands that distance is a “prerequisite for reflection and analysis” that ultimately allows ”space for insight without severing the emotional connection.” Without this therapeutic distance, you will be sucked into the black hole that is the emotional storm unleashing chaos in the patient’s extreme experience.
Within liminal spaces, being inherently detached & lacking context/meaning, could facilitate a form of this “therapeutic distance” that allows explorers to confront aspects of themselves in a new/novel way and allows their emotions to become more accessible and visible. Distance allows for objectivity, creating a safety net for self-preservation.
In liminal (a.k.a. “ambivalent”) states, identification and distance (can?) occur simultaneously. Even if you strongly identify with a topic, you may create/feel distance. The distance is a “protective mechanism that allows closeness without causing hurt.“ There is sort of a dance which occurs between closeness and distance, acting as a dynamic form of integration to create coherence.
For someone like Clark, he had to reidentify with himself in the first place after such a long period of depressive alienation. Conversely, for someone like Mary, her breakthrough was ignited at the dinner table in the backrooms when she was finally snapped out of her traumatic dissociation and her “over-identified patterns” were no longer serving her. Clark wasn’t interested in her “scripts” anymore.
“we often attain wisdom only through madness.” — great quote!
“accepting the paradox of extremes allows a deeper understanding of human existence“
(The consequences of) “sin” also means “without God.”
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