Welcome to your first mind, good old war-plagued Coach Oleander. You'll start with a nice introduction, then when it's over use 'X' to punch the image which is actually a wall that will break to reveal the chaos. Your buddy won't last too long.. hopefully you can do better!
General tip: if you start running low on health punch around the sides of the area and you should be able to find some Mental Health.
Now run straight across the bridge, you will need to jump over a gap then it will break in the middle and you'll need to jump another gap. Next, the ground will break and you'll need to double jump over a large crater. Double jump the next big gap where you'll find your first Figment.
Side note: you can read more about figments in the items section, but in general they are optional collectibles. I recommend grabbing as many as you can, but you don't have to worry about getting 100% of them unless that's your goal. Also, even if that is your goal, you won't be able to get them all this first time through this stage.
Across the next gap will be your first encounter with emotional baggage, but we don't have the tag yet to collect this one. However, it's just across the next gap, so jump over there to grab it and then back here to collect this baggage.
Now, jump back to where the tag was again and up the ladder, then down the other side. There's another suitcase tag over here to collect.
By the projection on the wall is a pole you can mount and climb up. Jump off on the ledge and then head left and up another pole.
When you head down the ladder on the back of this area Coach says "fire down below" and he means it, watch out for the fire shooting out of the wall and only climb down when it's safe. At the bottom you'll find the cotton candy hair kid. On this platform there is a ladder to the left you can go down to pick up some figments.
There are now two ways that you can go. One is up the ladder on the other side of the rocket in the ground, then you can jump onto a floating blimp platform that circles over to another one, and then over to some ledges and up to the shimmying area.
The other route is through a hole in the ground that will take you to an underground pipe with lots of figments to collect. The pipe will dump you out at the shimmy area. You can go whichever way you want, but if you want all figments then be sure to go both routes.
Both paths ultimately end up by some stairs that lead to a ledge where you can jump onto. Hang off of it and shimmy to the left. Once you get to the other side, jump up and continue to head left, but go down the ledges, not up. You'll find a pipe you can run through and on the other side is the trunk for the tag we last found.
Next, head back through the pipe and up the ledges, then up to the left. There are a series of big camo nets you can use to jump your way up to the top. Once at the top, a wall will blow up and you can climb up, down, left and right all across it. Move in the general direction of up and maneuver around the areas that explode.
The next area is a mine field. Sitting at the beginning of it is a camper who needs some help getting through. You can opt to help him or not, if you do then he will walk behind you as you go through the mines. There's no real trick here, you can see where the mines are, just don't walk on them and you'll be fine.
OPTIONAL If you opt to help out Bobby cross the mine field you'll need to give him some extra coaching along the way. Every now and then he'll stop and say "I can't do it, I can't do it!" and then start to wander off towards a mine. When he does this, just hit 'Y' to calm him down and assure him that he can do it. He'll settle and follow you again. When you get him all the way across he'll reward your efforts with some Psychic Arrowheads.
Right after the mine field there is a flag pole that you can climb up to push the flag back up to the top, which will open the next doorway. When you go in the next area the door will close behind you.
Grab the figments, punch open that door, and take the leap of faith!
You'll land in yet another battlefied. There's some kids here who tell you that in order to get out of here you need to beat some "game," but they are incapable of doing so. There's a few figments in the area, but go ahead and jump up and punch the button to play the game.
Your goal in this game will be to punch the non-friendly targets, but not the friendly ones. You have 60 seconds to get 20 points and you receive 1 point for every target you hit. They speed up as the game goes on, but it's not too tricky really.
After beating that you can then play the game more times for prizes. The next time you go to play you will get 75 seconds to get 30 points. You will also now be penalized 1 point for every friendly target you hit. Your reward will be Psychic Arrowheads. After that it will be 60 seconds to get 30 points. When you're ready, continue on past where the cheery kids were.
Across here you'll find your first Vault. Punch it to unlock the memories, then go across this battlefield and you'll get to a very large cardboard cutout with a "non friendly" person on the bottom. Punch it to knock it over to create a bridge. There is also a teleport dude whom you can use to go back to different parts of the level. Let's keep going though.
Cross this newly made bridge and you'll find a brick wall with the same non friendly guy on it. In this area there is a turret that will shoot at you any time you aren't behind a wall, but you have to knock them down to raise up the next one. So you'll need to punch the wall down, then quickly make your way to the next cover, and so on until you reach the turret.
There are some figments and a luggage tag in the area, but you will have an easier time picking them up after disabling the turret.
There is a ladder on the left side of the turret you can use to climb on top where there is a dufflebag tag, and also a figment on top of some wooden planks. Jump and press punch to slam down on the planks to break through.
After cotton candy head comes out, jump in and shimmy up the flag pole to open the doorway to the next area.
When you step into this next area you'll grind/slide your way through. Grab all the figments you can on the way then it's time to enter yet another battlefield!
There are some poles on the wall straight in front of you. Jump up on the one to the right of the projection of Coach. Swing left and go up 2, then swing right up 1 (press Y to change face directions while on pole), left up 1, watching out for the fire jump up to the ledge to find another wall filled with poles and fire.
Up here to the right is the dufflebag for the tag we recently got. Start on the bottom left pole and go right 2 times avoiding the fire then flip and go left to the ledge. Where the wall is cracked you can give it a good punch to break through. Through here there is a Mental Cobweb, but you don't have the device to get it yet so you'll have to come back for it.
Now jump up on the tight rope, lift yourself up, then jump up to the highest one straight above. Now you'll need to shift the camera a bit so you can jump to the side to the next two, and then this time you'll need to double jump to get over to the next three. Now walk over to another cracked wall and punch through.
This next area has a trapese along with another Mental Cobweb that you can't get yet. However, you can ignore the trapese for a minute and go down below to pick up a bunch of figments, then come back to the trapese. Jump from this trapese to the next then over to the platform with the Purse Tag. Now go up the ladder, across the tight rope, and follow the platform to another trapese.
Swing on this as high as you can, then just trust your jump to land you on the next trapese. Flip directions and start swinging again, taking yet another leap of faith to land on another platform. Go down the ladder to another trapese. Swing on it to get to the ledge. Now, on this ledge to your right are some grind rails. Step on to go for a ride.
While on the rails you'll need to jump between them when one is about to end or an obstacle is in the way. There will be lots of figments along the way as well. Watch out at the bottom as cotton candy comes towards you on the single rail, you'll need to jump over (or punch) him to get to the finish line.
In this area is another teleport dude. There is only one way to run through here until the Coach tells you you've gotten to the rolling tunnel or something.
As you walk across here there's really only one way to go, follow the wooden beams, but the trick is that the room is rotating so you need to keep yourself right side up while you venture across. There's not really any big tricks to it, just keep moving the camera so you can see whats going on. When you get to the end make a jump for the ledge where another cobweb resides. Too bad we have to come back for those later.
Ride another short grind rail to make your way to the final area of Basic Braining. There's not really anything you can do in this area, but if you go to the right when you get off a rail there is a door you can exit through. As you get to the end of this hallway, Oleander will stop you and give you your first Psychonaut Merit Badge!
After that you'll find yourself back in camp for a short scene with some different people.
On our first time through we didn't have the abilities to get everything, but we can return later for the rest of the collectibles (if you want, of course.)