Gameplay and Insights
Rounds and turns, your player board, the Insight dial and its four effects, Coffee and Bright Ideas.
Rounds and turns
The game is a series of rounds. The starting player goes first, then everyone clockwise. It ends one full round after Freud’s Reputation marker reaches the watch space (end of the game); the most Victory Points wins.
In-game points (light coin) are scored at once on the Victory Point track around the
City Map; 
end-game points (dark coin) are scored in Final Scoring. Past 99, flip
your marker to its 100+ side.
On your turn
Choose one:
- State Ideas — place Ideas, take actions, move your Inkpot.
- Recall Ideas — take your Ideas back, gain Coffee, claim a City Map bonus.
- Treat Clients — use Dreams to give your Clients Therapy points.
Then the end of turn: you may spend Heart-Shaped Boxes on your Clients, and you must fill any empty Office Room with a new Client.
Your player board
- A Inkpot track — five spaces around the Notebook grid.
- B
Heart-Shaped Box track — holds up to 3. - C
Coffee track — holds up to 6. - D
Locked Ideas — one above each Notebook column; the Inkpot frees them. - E
Idea supply — the Ideas you can place. - F
Player-color Insights — locked at the end of each Notebook row and column. - G Insight dial — with the 7 common Insights in its center reserve.
The 3×3 grid in the middle holds your Notebook tiles. The bottom of the board reminds you of the Coffee uses and the Final Scoring tables for rows and tags. The Office board below has your Primary (left) and Secondary (right) Office Rooms.
Insights
The Insight dial
- Three rings = the level:
Minor (diamond, inner), 
Median (hex, middle), 
Major (circle, outer). - Three sections = the quality: Growth (green, plants)
, Freedom
(purple, birds) 
, Passion (red, flames) 
. - The center reserve — Insights here have no quality or level yet.
[Nightmares] The Cracked Insight dial adds cracks for Mad Insights, a level above Major (Nightmares).
An Insight’s quality and level come from where it sits: a piece on the middle ring of the green
section is a Median Growth Insight 
.
| Quality | Minor | Median | Major |
|---|---|---|---|
| Growth | | |  |
| Freedom | |  |  |
| Passion | |  |  |
| Any quality | | | |
Two kinds of Insight
- Common Insights (7, clear): they never leave your dial — you move them between areas and the reserve.
- Player-color Insights (6): locked on your player board until you
complete a Notebook row or column, then they go to your reserve. They work like common ones,
and can also be placed for good on a Treatise or
above a District bonus.
Insight effects
- Generate — take an Insight from your reserve and put it in the area shown. With an empty reserve you may take one from anywhere on the dial instead. An icon with no color lets you choose the section.
Elevate — move an Insight one ring outward in the same section (Minor →
Median → Major). Never from the reserve: that needs a Generate.
Suppress — move an Insight one ring inward (Major → Median → Minor → reserve).
Usually a cost to trigger something else.
Transfer — move an Insight to the neighboring section on the same ring
(change quality, keep level).- Using an Insight — pay it: move it from its area back to the reserve. You may overcompensate with a higher level of the same quality (a Major Passion for a Minor Passion), with no change given back. A colorless icon accepts any quality of that level.
Insights into Heart-Shaped Boxes
At any time on your turn, use one Minor, one Median and one Major Insight (any qualities) to gain a
Heart-Shaped Box. Overpaying works here too.
Coffee
Coffee pays for Notebook tiles and,
any time on your turn (even in the middle of another effect):
| Coffee | Gives |
|---|---|
| 1 | Instead of a Suppress that an effect asks for |
| 2 | Elevate or Transfer an Insight |
| 3 | A  Bright Idea |
You can never hold more than 6; any extra is lost (spend 3 for a Bright Idea first).
Bright Ideas
Bright Ideas are kept in your own supply, as many as you like. Use one to:
- stand in for an Idea when you place Ideas — it leaves at the end of your turn;
- change your Inkpot move by ±1;
- trigger a Location’s effects 2 more times (up to 5).
Each one left at the end scores 1 VP.