- The Control Voice: For all our medical advances, the human brain remains vast and largely uncharted. What revelations lie ahead for those who would explore this undiscovered country and what unknown dangers will they encounter on their journey?
A scientist connects several comatose patients' minds together with a device, then becomes obsessed with seeing the new world they have created.
- The Control Voice: Our greatest achievements do more than heal the sick and give strength to the weak, they also lead us from the darkness to a place of hope and light.
The Other Tropes:
- Psychic Link: Dr. Neal Eberhardt has invented the Neural Intercortex Stimulation Array (NISA) which he uses to study brain damaged and comatose patients. When he connects two of these patients, Adam and Lisa Dobkins, to NISA, their brainwaves match up perfectly and they form a psychic link. They are able to interact with each other in another reality. It takes on the appearance of familiar and comforting locations from their real lives: Lisa's dance studio and Adam's garden. Neal learns of the psychic link when Adam says Lisa's name, which he had no way of knowing. He later connects two other comatose patients: a restaurateur named Warner Oland, who is able to walk in the other reality when he had been wheelchair bound for 20 years in the real world, and Roger Bowden, who doesn't want to be there and whose negativity destroys Adam's plants and Warner's soufflé. Neal is able to enter the other reality by slowing his brain functions with an injection of fentanyl. His attempt to help Roger emerge from his coma and re-enter the real world results in Roger's death because of his congenital heart defect. Although Neal manages to save Adam, Lisa and Warner, he remains trapped in the other reality. However, he is convinced that there is another way out.
- Tuckerization: The character Warner Oland is named after the Swedish actor best known for playing the title character in sixteen Charlie Chan films from 1931 to 1937.
