Smile, You’re on Camera – The Truman Show Delusion
I’ve always been really interested in reading about accounts of bizarre mental illnesses and amazing mental abilities like the ones Oliver Sacks writes about in books such as “The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat,” “The Mind’s Eye.” I just read a fascinating story in the Sept. 16th New Yorker Magazine called “Unreality Star” about a young man who was convinced he was constantly being filmed as part of a paranoia-induced reality show, to the point that “the producers” were constantly talking to him (in his head) and telling him what to do and how to act. It became debilitating to the point where his parents had to intervene and get him help.
One of the underlying threads in the story is the question of whether we as a society are so constantly “wired” – always on our smartphones or laptops or other devices, and with cameras on every street corner and even on our computers – that we’re subject to these paranoid thoughts.
Read the article and let us know what you think: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/09/16/130916fa_fact_marantz
