Unconscious Mind

Edition and setup: The core game supports 1–4 players; standard multiplayer turns proceed clockwise from the starting player. Place the City Map and Meeting Table in the center and prepare the Client, Dream, Research, Treatise, Notebook, and Bright Idea displays. Each player takes a Player Board, Office, Professor, Inkpot, Ideas, Insights, Coffee, and markers. The number of available Meeting Table spaces and Notebook tiles changes with player count. This entry uses Fantasia's 2024-11 v2 core and official solo rulebooks; Nightmares is outside scope. (Core Rulebook PDF pp. 4–8; Solo Rulebook PDF pp. 1–3)

Main turn choices: On each turn, choose one main option: State Ideas, Recall Ideas, or Treat Clients. The next player takes a turn after the selected option is complete. Each choice connects different resources: State Ideas places Ideas and activates a Meeting Table space while moving the Inkpot; Recall collects Ideas and gains Coffee plus a map bonus; Treat Clients uses Dreams and Insights to create Therapy points. An Idea, an action space, and a whole turn are not interchangeable units. (Core Rulebook PDF p. 9)

State Ideas: Take one or two Ideas from your supply and place them on a vacant Meeting Table space, with their tails pointing toward an adjacent action space. You may not point two of your Ideas in the same turn to an action space you already pointed to. Ideas may be stacked on one Idea space to trigger that action space more than once. A Bright Idea can substitute for a regular Idea and follows the same placement and trigger rules, but all Bright Ideas are removed at the end of the turn. Resolve the action text and respect the remaining space, arrow, and card conditions. (Core Rulebook PDF pp. 13–15)

Inkpot and Notebook: The Inkpot moves around the player's circular track. Its destination may let the player resolve a Notebook row or column, or advance Freud's and the player's Reputation. The first, second, and third time the Inkpot passes the designated icon, it unlocks Ideas from the player board and adds them to the supply for later turns. Check the exact space reached and which columns are already unlocked; merely passing through an area does not allow an effect to be repeated. (Core Rulebook PDF pp. 11, 14–15)

Recall Ideas: Count the different Idea spaces you occupy on the Meeting Table and gain that many Coffee, then return all of your Ideas from the table. You may then claim a map bonus from the Location of your Professor or Freud, such as a District token, Reputation, or a location effect; the available options depend on the spaces, location, and icon conditions. The BGG file-page change log and designer clarification for the 2025.1 Second Print permit Recall without placing a new Idea only when both conditions hold: you have no own Ideas on the Meeting Table, and no legal Idea space remains where you could place one. Choosing not to place an Idea while a legal space remains does not qualify for this exception. The downloadable Fantasia v2 PDF retains the older sentence, so use that printed rule when playing from that edition. (Core Rulebook PDF p. 19; BGG 2025.1 Second Print file changelog and designer clarification)

Treat Clients: On a Treat Clients turn, you may treat one or both Clients in your Office, but each Client can be treated only once that turn. Use the fully exposed top Dream, spend the Insights it shows, and resolve its effects and Therapy points. Move the Client's Therapy marker toward the cured end; score immediately when it passes Victory Point spaces. When it reaches Catharsis, resolve that effect and discard the relevant Grief Layer. When the marker reaches the far-left space, the Client is cured, scores the points on its card, and leaves the Office. If Dreams are layered, do not use the one underneath the exposed Dream. (Core Rulebook PDF pp. 20–21)

End of turn and new Clients: At the end of a turn, you may use Heart-Shaped Boxes to give Therapy points to Clients. Normally you must then draft a new Client and Dream set for every empty Office Room. During the final round, however, do not draft a new Client for an empty room at the end of your turn. A Heart-Shaped Box supplies Therapy points; it is not an Insight. Insights trigger Dream effects, while a Heart-Shaped Box directly advances the treatment track. Discard unused Dreams from a cured Client's room and refill from the display as the rules specify. (Core Rulebook PDF pp. 21–22)

Reputation, end, and final scoring: When Freud reaches the tenth space, finish the current round and play one final round; do not draft new Clients into empty Office Rooms at the end of turns in that round. Final Scoring includes the Victory Points shown by your own Reputation marker. The player ranked highest in Reputation scores 2 points for each Published Treatise and Cured Client; the second-ranked player scores 1 for each. Then score player-color Insights in distinct Districts, completed Notebook rows, different Location tags, and eligible Case-Study Clients that have reached Catharsis without a Grief Layer. Each unused Heart-Shaped Box is worth 2 points, and every 3 Coffee converts into a Bright Idea worth 1 point. The player with the most Victory Points wins; Reputation breaks a final score tie. (Core Rulebook PDF pp. 9, 11, 22–23)

Solo Id: Set up the game as a two-player game with the Id's Player Board, Office, Meeting Table deck, and other solo components; choose a difficulty level. The player and Id take turns. The Id chooses State Ideas or Recall Ideas according to its available Ideas. Its deck determines placement; those Ideas do not trigger ordinary Meeting Table actions. Instead, its Inkpot advances and resolves its own Notebook effects. The Id converts certain Insight and other effects into Coffee, turns Coffee into Heart-Shaped Boxes when it reaches the rule threshold, and uses the boxes to treat its Clients. The player wins by scoring more Victory Points than the Id; if their scores tie, higher Reputation wins. (Solo Rulebook PDF pp. 1–8)