“Self Control” by Laura Branigan: A Creepy 80’s Video About Mind Control

Laura Branigan’s hit “Self Control” is the epitome of everything 80s, but is also the epitome of everything MK ULTRA: a disturbing story of an MK slave manipulated by an abusive handler.

Released in 1984, Self Control rocked disco clubs around the world as ladies wearing big curly hair and shoulder pads danced frenetically with men wearing thick mustaches and majestic mullets. All of these beautiful people sang “I, I live among the creatures of the night” without realizing what it truly meant. They thought it was about a girl enjoying the nightlife – but that is only the face value.

The video of Self Control adds a significant layer to the song, one that is rather troubling. The singer is stalked by a masked man, who eventually ends up shirtless in her bedroom. Combined with the MK symbolism peppered through the video, Self Control becomes a tribute to the occult elite, a promotion of its symbolism and a celebration of their most sadistic practice: Monarch mind control (if you’ve never heard of this, please read this article before continuing).

When the video was released in 1984, the music industry was beginning to adopt the music video as a promotional tool and Self Control was rather groundbreaking in its scope. It was also the first video to be directed by Oscar-winning director William Friedkin, the director of The Exorcist.

When hiring a director who is famous for terrorizing an entire generation with the story of a demon-possessed girl, a certain level of creepiness is expected. And Friedkin surely delivered. However, contrarily to The Exorcist, the most disturbing elements of Self Control are not in your face but are instead implied through symbolism.

If you’ve read other articles on this site, you will probably find the symbolism easy to recognize, and even blatant. In short, it is a shameless celebration of the occult elite’s mind control agenda during an era when only a few people even knew these things existed. Let’s look at the video.

The Night is Her World

An advanced interpretation isn’t necessary to understand that Self Control is not simply about “nightlife”. It is mainly about Laura Branigan losing her will, her power and her very self at the hand of a faceless being. The chorus of the song sums up the situation:

You take my self, you take my self control
You got me livin’ only for the night
Before the morning comes, the story’s told
You take my self, you take my self control

The line “you take my self” is very significant, especially in the context of mind control. In psychology, the “self” is defined as follows:

The “self” consists of a person’s conscious and unconscious aspects, their personality, cognitions or thoughts and feelings. All these traits or aspects combine together into the person’s core identity. Other synonyms for “self” are soul, ego, personality, or individual.
– Self, Psychology Glossary

The video begins with a doll with brown hair reminiscent of Laura.

In MK symbolism, dolls represent the malleable and controllable alter personas of MK slaves.

We then see Laura herself, looking somewhat zoned out.

There is a man lying in her bed. We assume it’s her boyfriend.

Laura then gets ready to go out. She is helped by weird people who appear out of nowhere.

As these people appear, we begin to understand that what happens in the video is mostly in Laura’s head.

When Laura goes outside, her “mind control journey” begins – and there is no lack of symbolism representing this.

As Laura stands outside, two mannequins floating in midair (a great way of representing dissociative MK slaves) appear behind her.

Right after she goes out, a luxury car pulls up in front of Laura.

A masked man is sitting in the back seat.

The masked man is the MK handler. While MK slaves are dissociated, their MK handlers have the ability to enter their mind and to control their thoughts and actions. The fact that this masked man is being driven around in the back of a luxury car implies his connection with the occult elite.

While dancing in a nightclub, Laura sees the masked man again. She follows him.

While the masked man stalks Laura in the club, we see a bunch of masks behind him indicating that MK handlers are also MK slaves themselves with multiple personas.

According to a recent poll*, 100% of women would NOT follow a man wearing a mask (*not a real poll). So why does Laura follow him? Because she has no self-control. The lyrics of the first verse perfectly describe the mind state of an MK slave who is at the mercy of the handler during dissociation (aka “the night”).

In the night, no control
Through the wall something’s breaking
Wearing white as you’re walkin’
Down the street of my soul

The rest of the chorus is a rather poignant description of the mind state of a dissociated slave who lives in a dream world fabricated by her handler.

A safe night, I’m living in the forest of my dream
I know the night is not as it would seem
I must believe in something, so I’ll make myself believe it
That this night will never go

Laura cannot fight the will of the masked man and finds herself following him. He takes her to a hidden section of the nightclub, where we discover an Eyes Wide Shut-style masked orgy taking place.

Laura is symbolically taken to the occult elite’s underworld where “Illuminati parties” happen.

The masked man then undresses Laura, who appears to be in a trance, as she is “released” in the party.

This scene represents, rather literally, Laura being used as a sex slave in elite parties.

Laura, however, realizes that something is terribly wrong and attempts to escape. She soon discovers that one cannot run away from one’s own mind.

When Laura attempts to run away, hands stick out of the walls illustrating the trauma and torture MK slaves face when they go against their programming.

When Laura finally reaches the end of the hallway, we see the masked man who was waiting for her the entire time.

Back home, Laura realizes that she is safe nowhere, not even in her bedroom. The masked man magically appears in her room … and he is shirtless. Shirtless!

Nope.

He then grabs Laura and has his way with her. MK handlers sexually abuse their slaves to further trauma and programming.

The masked man then magically disappears (he is in and out of her head). Laura then sits there, completely zoned out.

The face of trauma.

Laura then lays in bed next to her “boyfriend”, who was apparently sleeping the entire time. As he turns his head towards her, an awful surprise awaits her.

It’s the masked man again.

The handler is everywhere in the MK slave’s mind. He controls her thoughts, her actions, and her entire reality. She cannot escape him because he has the key to her core personality.

The video ends with a symbolic image, one that is rather disturbing considering the true meaning of the video.

It’s the same doll from the beginning of the video but her hair is messed up and her dress is torn (exposing a breast). One of her eyes is closed – the Illuminati one-eye sign.

The doll was clearly violated, the one-eye sign indicates who is behind this (the occult elite). The creepy frozen smile on the doll is rather revolting. So, yup, this is not simply a song about “nightlife”.

In Conclusion

Upon close inspection of the song and video, Self Control tells the story of a woman who loses her entire “self” at the hand of a handler. She is taken to elite parties and, when she attempts to escape, she gets abused by her handler, who she can never escape.

Although released at the dawn of the age of the music video, Self Control already contained all of the hallmarks of an Illuminati mind control video. More than thirty years later, the same storylines are all still there, from the symbolism to the twisted hidden meanings. Today, more than ever, we see young stars singing about their state of mind control over catchy melodies, complete with creepy videos celebrating the occult elite’s MK system.

In short, Self Control is considered to be “one of the defining songs of the 80s” … but it can also be considered to be one of the defining songs of MK culture.