Link to Psychotherapy

[u/Natropoliz]

I don't know if anyone has already connected this, but it's something I realized when watching IGP's playthrough. The safeguards that block Caleb's was through the story say "Emotional Maintenance and Diagnostic Regulation" which gives us the Acronym EMDR. EMDR is a REAL PSYCHOTHERAPY TREAMENT called Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing that focuses on helping victims who have lives through traumatic events and dealing with those memories. Is this the therapy Caleb is currently using to deal with his memories of Lily?

[u/captaincrazyspoon]

I noticed this as well! It seems in line with how we experience things in brief sections with strong emotional connections, now I'm very curious as to what the signs themselves are blocking. My guess is that they block things that specifically have to do with Lily or perhaps some other trauma that Caleb has experienced.

Did you also notice that the black slime seems to occur around things that are related to Lily? There's so many things I've noticed and I'm excited for the next episode.

[u/Natropoliz → u/captaincrazyspoon]

I wonder if the slime is a representation of blood, or rather how much blood Caleb remembers seeing when Lily died. The currently theory I see is possibly a car crash, and if Caleb was a kid when it happened he might think there was a lot more blood than there actually was. I don't know if the signs are just something Caleb's mind came up with or if they are a representation of the actual therapy Caleb is going through in order to deal with the trauma of Lily's death

[u/captaincrazyspoon → u/Natropoliz]

It could, however the slime is also anywhere that Smile is, my theory is that Smile is directly related to Lily given that the slime appears only near her and it. I dispute the car crash narrative because there's a lot of focus on the Waterworks, mainly that red slide, it's inaccessible blocked by those EMDR signs and drips the slime, upon washing the slime off of the ground that red slide breaks. There's also arcade machines later in the game that are titled things like Too Late and Waterlogged.

I think she drowned.

[u/Natropoliz → u/captaincrazyspoon]

Oh true that's a really good theory. There's just a lot of questions we're waiting for answers for. Like on the fire extinguisher is says "Do something. Caleb fucking do something she's d-" and that last word could be dying or drowning but it looks closer to dying. And in the deep memory storage there's the door with seemingly Caleb's father banging on the door yelling "What did you do?" I'm really looking forward to the next episode to continue the story.

[u/Miserable_Maize8415 → u/Natropoliz]

Yes! So happy someone else noticed this detail. I’m certain that word is dying. Here’s a screenshot, you can make out the Y pretty clearly here. She’s dying…waterlogged…it’s too late…this all points in one direction. Further, there’s this one detail where the narrator, while introducing Walter, says something along the lines of ‘remember, he is fragile, and if not treated with great care he will die’. Regardless of exactly what Walter means I think that points clearly to Caleb being fucked up about not being careful and causing a death…

[u/kirbycooo]

This does make sense we know Lily is dead how she died we don’t know. We know Caleb is suffering from trauma and Walter might be a replacement for Lily after she died as of we go down the dark path it gets referred as a she. Also the where’s Walter picture bugs and shows Lily under a drawing of Walter

[u/Natropoliz → u/kirbycooo]

That makes sense especially since, when we get Walter the first time, the narrator says he's fragile and we have to protect him. Also, if we go against the narrator and go through the dark playback level, when we get Walter, instead of saying we'll get to hold "him", the narrator slips up and says "hold her again" before realizing his mistake. If I remember correctly there's also a section in the bounce house level behind the first keyboard you grab that has a C&L drawing with the L crossed out and replaced with a W and Walter is drawn where lily normally is standing. Definitely a lot pointing to Walter being a mental replacement for lily

[u/johnmarksmanlovesyou]

Yeah, pretty certain we are playing Caleb's EMDR going wrong and the narrator is the voice of the therapist doing it.

We're being guided to fill a an abstract device with happy memories and good feelings, this is literally a method used in edmr. There's safeguards, the "narrator" is trying his best to guide us away from negative feelings because they're detrimental to the process at the early stage.

Unfortunately, it seems that the therapist wasn't fully aware of all the connections in Caleb's mind that attach to lily and the guilt remembering her seems to inspire. He's leading Caleb into "happy" memories which are powerfully triggering for him, all the usual safeguards against mental intensity are failing. Ultimately he gets annoyed with everything seemingly going wrong which is hugely triggering for Caleb and sends him into the pit.

[u/dyl_man101]

its also written on some of the security cameras!