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"Bureaucracies hide their mistakes, because people's careers are tied to those mistakes. Therefore, bureaucracies are a perfect mechanism for perpetuating mistakes."
- Frank Herbert

Twist-Box  
  A device that scrambles your sensory input, providing you with a different kind of experience.  

This is an interesting notion; I can't think of another novel using the idea of hacking a person's reality in quite this way.

It was the day after Christmas, and Stahn was plugged in… The twist-box took his sensory input, jazzed it and passed it on to his cortex. A pure software high, and no somatic aftereffects. Staring out the window was almost interesting. The maggies left jagged trails and the people looked like actors.
Technovelgy from Wetware, by Rudy Rucker.
Published by Avon Books in 1988
Additional resources -

You could continue this line of thinking by using a device to create synesthesia; where colors have a flavor, or where sounds have a smell.

Compare to the jumble-box from Changeling (1980) by Roger Zelazny.

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from Wetware
  More Ideas and Technology by Rudy Rucker
  Tech news articles related to Wetware
  Tech news articles related to works by Rudy Rucker

Twist-Box-related news articles:
  - Fatal Vision Goggles - Simulate Impaired Driving
  - Fingersight Synesthesia Machine

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