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"Individual science fiction stories may seem as trivial as ever to the blinder critics and philosophers of today -- but the core of science fiction, its essence has become crucial to our salvation if we are to be saved at all."
- Isaac Asimov

Data-Retrieval Mode  
  A system for getting the thoughts and images out of a person's mind; recovering the data from a brain storage device.  

This is a relatively early reference I for the idea of being able to directly observe another person's mental images through the use of some sort of electronic device.

... a man in the bare steel chair ... Tiny adhesive pads held sensors in position at a dozen places on his scalp...throat..heart...solar plexus...From each sensor a lead, fine as gossamer, ran to the ... data-analysis console .. with display screens and signal lights on its slanted top.

"...It's done with induced current in the motor senses. I'm going to regress him to the appropriate date and key in the same image... and we'll see what develops.

Technovelgy from The Shockwave Rider, by John Brunner.
Published by Harper and Row in 1975
Additional resources -

This device precedes others like it in sf, like stimsim in the works of William Gibson and others.

See the comments for earlier references; I also think that Cordwainer Smith used this idea in the mid 1950's.

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from The Shockwave Rider
  More Ideas and Technology by John Brunner
  Tech news articles related to The Shockwave Rider
  Tech news articles related to works by John Brunner

Data-Retrieval Mode-related news articles:
  - EEGLAB: Independent Component Analysis Reads Your Thoughts
  - An 'OFF' Switch For The Brain
  - The Claustrum - The Brain's On Off Switch?

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Brainoware Reservoir Computation Of Biological Neural Networks
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Octopus Suckers Inspire Transdermal Patches

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