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The Truman Show Delusion... Or Is It?

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posted on Aug, 26 2013 @ 05:00 PM
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Have you ever felt like you were being watched? Maybe you were home alone one day, and decided to pick the crap out of your nose, but stopped for a minute, thinking "what if someone saw me", yet you knew that no one was around. Well there is a new diagnosis for that, and many are saying its not that far fetched.

I happen to think that there are many movies, television, and music today that can change our realities, and have done so. For example the movie that this diagnosis is named after.

The Truman Show.



Storyline

In this movie, Truman is a man whose life is a fake one... The place he lives is in fact a big studio with hidden cameras everywhere, and all his friends and people around him, are actors who play their roles in the most popular TV-series in the world: The Truman Show. Truman thinks that he is an ordinary man with an ordinary life and has no idea about how he is exploited. Until one day... he finds out everything. Will he react?

www.imdb.com...

And a favorite of mine, that it still boggles my mind when I watch it.
Shutter Island.



It's 1954, and up-and-coming U.S. marshal Teddy Daniels is assigned to investigate the disappearance of a patient from Boston's Shutter Island Ashecliffe Hospital. He's been pushing for an assignment on the island for personal reasons, but before long he wonders whether he hasn't been brought there as part of a twisted plot by hospital doctors whose radical treatments range from unethical to illegal to downright sinister. Teddy's shrewd investigating skills soon provide a promising lead, but the hospital refuses him access to records he suspects would break the case wide open. As a hurricane cuts off communication with the mainland, more dangerous criminals "escape" in the confusion, and the puzzling, improbable clues multiply, Teddy begins to doubt everything - his memory, his partner, even his own sanity.


So with things like this, is there really no wonder how this became an actual so called defect within humans? Or have we had this all along, and only now is it starting to reveal the truth? That we in fact have been played all along.

The Truman Show Delusion: Real or Imagined? A few delusional people are convinced they are stars of an imaginary reality show, but doctors disagree on whether it's only an act.

wo doctor/brothers, Joel and Ian Gold, have identified symptoms of a mental illness unique to our times: the Truman Show delusion, named for the 1998 movie that starred Jim Carrey as a suburbanite whose movements were filmed 24/7 and broadcast to the world. The two say a handful of individuals are convinced they are stars of an imaginary reality show.

Though limited, their findings are creating a buzz in the media and the psychiatric community: Is it possible that reality TV is shaping delusions?
In an interview with WebMD, Joel Gold says, “The Truman Show delusion encompasses a patient’s entire life. They believe their family, friends, and co-workers are all reading from scripts and their home, workplace, and hospital are all sets. They believe they are being filmed for the whole world to see.”

Joel Gold, who is on the psychiatric faculty of New York’s Bellevue Hospital and serves as a clinical assistant professional of psychiatry at New York University's School of Medicine, first began to see the symptoms dubbed Truman Show delusion in 2002 with patients at Bellevue Hospital. He initially treated five white male patients with middle-class upbringing and education, all who likened themselves to actors on reality TV shows. Three specifically referenced the movie TheTruman Show, giving rise to the disorder’s name.
“It’s important to state that Truman Show delusion is a symptom of psychosis,” Joel Gold says. “People who choose to be the center of attention, have concerns about social standing, or who may fear being in public eye or seek it out, may be more drawn to identify with this delusion. I don’t think people are making it up or choosing it.”

www.webmd.com...


Here are a few examples of why this became a diagnosis, and the types of people that were expressing such fears.

In one case, the subject traveled to New York, demanding to see the ‘director’ of the film of his life, and wishing to check whether the World Trade Centre had been destroyed in reality or merely in the movie that was being assembled for his benefit. In another, a journalist who had been hospitalized during a manic episode became convinced that the medical scenario was fake and that he would be awarded a prize for covering the story once the truth was revealed. Another subject was actually working on a reality TV series but came to believe that his fellow crew members were secretly filming him, and was constantly expecting the This-Is-Your-Life moment when the cameras would flip and reveal that he was the true star of the show.

disinfo.com...



Although the formation of delusions is unconscious and often a response to profound trauma, the need to construct plausible scenarios gives it many commonalities with the process of writing fiction. On rare occasions the two overlap. In 1954, the English novelist Evelyn Waugh suffered a psychotic episode during which he thought he was persecuted by a cast of disembodied voices who were discussing his personality defects and spreading malicious rumours about him. He became convinced that the voices were being orchestrated by the producers of a recent BBC radio interview, whose questions he had found impertinent; he explained their ability to follow him wherever he went by invoking some hidden technology along the lines of a radionics ‘black box’, an enthusiasm of one of his neighbours. His delusions became increasingly florid but, as Waugh described it later, ‘it was not in the least like losing one’s reason… I was rationalising all the time, it was simply one’s reason working hard on the wrong premises.’

Waugh turned the experience into a brilliant comic novel, The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold (1957). Its protagonist is a pompous but brittle writer in late middle age, whose paranoia about the modern world is fed by an escalating regime of liqueurs and sedatives until it erupts in full-blown persecution mania (a familiar companion for Waugh, who abbreviated it discreetly to ‘pm’ in letters to his wife). Although the novel smoothes the edges of Waugh’s bizarre associations and winks knowingly at Pinfold’s surreal predicament, the fictionalisation blurs into the narrative that emerged during Waugh’s psychosis: even for his close friends, it was impossible to tell exactly where the first ended and the second began.

Continued Below.....



posted on Aug, 26 2013 @ 05:04 PM
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By the time that Gilbert Pinfold was published, narratives of paranoia and psychosis were starting to migrate from psychiatry into popular culture, and first-person memoirs of mental illness were appearing as mass-market paperbacks. The memoir Operators and Things: The Inner Life of a Schizophrenic (1958), written under the pseudonym of Barbara O’Brien, told the remarkable story of a young woman pursued across America on Greyhound buses by a shadowy gang of ‘operators’ with a mind-controlling ‘stroboscope’, but was presented and packaged like a sci-fi thriller. Conversely, thrillers were incorporating plot lines that assumed the reality of mind-controlling technologies. Richard Condon’s best-selling novel The Manchurian Candidate (1959) turned on the premise that a hypnotised subject might be programmed to respond unconsciously to pre-arranged cues. In the book’s memorable and, with hindsight, eerily prescient climax, an unwitting agent is triggered to assassinate the US president. Condon’s deadpan satire was informed by Cold War anxieties about brainwashing and communist infiltration, but it also drew upon recent popular exposés of the ‘subliminal’ techniques of advertising, such as The Hidden Persuaders (1958) by Vance Packard. It was expertly pitched into the disputed territory of psychology’s black arts: a paranoid tale for paranoid times, which still informs a thriving netherworld of internet-driven conspiracy theories.


So I ask.... Could we really just chalk this up to people being nuts? Is there a real reason to question our reality?

I find it amazing that even knowing what it is that is causing so much confusion, zombie like behavior, and of course hive mind, and group mentality, that this is yet another diagnosis that puts people not only in a smaller box, but makes it easier to give us ALL a diagnosis, of which, I am sure "they" will find a cure.

Please share your thoughts.
Peace, NRE.



posted on Aug, 26 2013 @ 05:16 PM
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Well, I find it interesting that I was recently having a discussion with someone along these lines, and The Truman Show, of course, came into the discussion as well. Now a thread, by one of my favorite members, pops up about this very thing. I'm feeling a bit paranoid now.


Seriously. Is it any wonder people feel this way? Look at our society. The government, and corporations, both want all the information they can get on you, so as to build a profile. Then of course, we have "facial recognition" everywhere. Cameras on every damn street corner, in any major city. And on and on. Gee, I can't imagine why anyone might flip their lid. And I have no doubt there are more Truman's out there than we know.

S&F NRE.

"Just because I'm paranoid, doesn't mean they aren't out to get me."
edit on 8/26/2013 by Klassified because: add quote



posted on Aug, 26 2013 @ 05:27 PM
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reply to post by Klassified
 



James Tilly Matthews drew the invisible beams and rays of the Air Loom in his Bedlam cell, he was describing a world that existed only in his head. But his world is now ours: we can no longer count all the invisible rays, beams and signals that are passing through our bodies at any moment. Victor Tausk argued that the influencing machine emerged from a confusion between the outside world and private mental events, a confusion resolved when the patient invented an external cause to make sense of his thoughts, dreams and hallucinations. But the modern word of television and computers, the virtual and the interactive, blurs traditional distinctions between perception and reality.

When we watch live sporting events on giant public screens or follow breaking news stories in our living rooms, we are only receiving flickering images, yet our hearts beat in synchrony with millions of unseen others. We Skype with two-dimensional facsimiles of our friends, and model idealised versions of ourselves for our social profiles. Avatars and aliases allow us to commune at once intimately and anonymously. Multiplayer games and online worlds allow us to create customised realities as all-embracing as The Truman Show. Leaks and exposés continually undermine our assumptions about what we are revealing and to whom, how far our actions are being monitored and our thoughts being transmitted. We manipulate our identities and are manipulated by unknown others. We cannot reliably distinguish the real from the fake, or the private from the public.

In the 21st century, the influencing machine has escaped from the shuttered wards of the mental hospital to become a distinctive myth for our times. It is compelling not because we all have schizophrenia, but because reality has become a grey scale between the external world and our imaginations. The world is now mediated in part by technologies that fabricate it and partly by our own minds, whose pattern-recognition routines work ceaselessly to stitch digital illusions into the private cinema of our consciousness. The classical myths of metamorphosis explored the boundaries between humanity and nature and our relationship to the animals and the gods. Likewise, the fantastical technologies that were once the hallmarks of insanity enable us to articulate the possibilities, threats and limits of the tools that are extending our minds into unfamiliar dimensions, both seductive and terrifying.


I love the above statements. In a "reality" we all interact but only with the persona that WE choose. That may also imply that WE actually do live in a "Truman Show" but sometimes one that we write, direct, produce, and are the star of.

Peace, NRE.
BTW, I love that many times you get me

SCENE and CUT



posted on Aug, 26 2013 @ 05:33 PM
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Some people have lived nearly their entire lives within the confines of the Truman Show. Case in point: Tiger Woods. Made his debut at age of 2 on the Mike Douglas Show. Has had a constant media presence in his life from that point to now. How anyone could live their life in this context is beyond me.

Having said that, the idea that someone is watching on a 24/7 basis is as old as organized religion.



posted on Aug, 26 2013 @ 06:02 PM
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Originally posted by totallackey
Some people have lived nearly their entire lives within the confines of the Truman Show. Case in point: Tiger Woods. Made his debut at age of 2 on the Mike Douglas Show. Has had a constant media presence in his life from that point to now. How anyone could live their life in this context is beyond me.

Having said that, the idea that someone is watching on a 24/7 basis is as old as organized religion.


God watches you masturbate!

I knew he was a pervy old dude. I mean.. yeesh.

No, it would be funny if we were the stars of some important reality show made soley for us. But each one of us would need to be that special, and there would also be required an entire separate world created just to watch us, which would mean 7+ billion alternate worlds for each one of us.

Because I know I'm not watching any one else on the stupid box that isn't aware of it. Paid to play something. Big brother doesn't even get 2 seconds air time on the box, let alone some random guy in tibet as he walks his mule.

Mind you, that is not to say that the guy up the road has not been in your roof while you were at work, and has installed a system of cameras so that he can tune into your saucy pasta making experiences when he so chooses.

I used to put web cams in the office when I worked in one, and catch the cleaners hoovering the flor and emptying the bins. It was sheer madness. Oh the fun we had. They'd wander in, all "look at me I'm a cleaner" and cleaning things.. haha if only they knew how devious and naughty I was... One guy looked right into the camera once and almost blinked. It was amazing.

Yes, we might like to imagine we are the stars of our very own tv show.

but sadly, not even god has that much interest in us..



posted on Aug, 26 2013 @ 06:09 PM
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Yeah its not just god who we are to think see everything either.

Its also santa,god, the devil, your parents, etc,. We live in a really paranoid world, and not because of mental disorders, but because many of us are taught that way.

Peace, NRE.



posted on Aug, 26 2013 @ 06:19 PM
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Originally posted by NoRegretsEver
Yeah its not just god who we are to think see everything either.

Its also santa,god, the devil, your parents, etc,. We live in a really paranoid world, and not because of mental disorders, but because many of us are taught that way.

Peace, NRE.


Paranoia is thinking there is someone in your roof watching you.

Mental disorder is burning down the house to get him!!



edit on 26-8-2013 by winofiend because: I see my wireless keyboard is asking me politely for new batteries. Starve ya mungrel, garn, starve!!!!



posted on Aug, 26 2013 @ 10:03 PM
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This reminds me of the South Park episode "Cancelled," in which the entire planet Earth is presented to be a reality show for the rest of the universe to watch and laugh at. It was clearly meant to be humorous, but it does raise an interesting proposition, very closely related to the subject at hand.

I personally think the truth is closer to what NRE described. We are the writers, directors, and even the intended audience for our own personal "shows." Even when we're not consciously aware of it, we are all playing the part of our own character. We may not know the plot twists are coming or what they may be, but we do control, and in many cases prepare for how our character is going to adapt to them.



posted on Aug, 26 2013 @ 10:25 PM
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No delusion around us in the greater sense as in the movie. The set (scenery) is all real, the spiel is all false however.

This topic brings to mind the monkeys that were trained to not climb a ladder to fetch a banana. If one made the attempt, they all got shocked. They all tried and they all got shocked. So they learned not to seek the banana nor should another of their membership.

One so trained was removed and replaced with one that wasn't shock trained. It was attacked by the others when it tried to reach the banana. It learned its lesson through the beating. Gradually, all of the shocked monkey were replaced with new members that were never shocked but each was beaten if it sought the banana. The behavior was inculcated in them all and became their way of life. The herd mentality at its most surreal.



posted on Aug, 27 2013 @ 03:26 AM
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I agree that it's no surprise there are people thinking this way, you can't seem to get a mile away from your own door without being picked up on cctv, and reality tv shows are so rife it's difficult to think that watching people being filmed wouldn't affect people. Surely this would come into the realms of suggestion?

Big Brother (aptly) being the starting point, but now they've got come dine with me where not only are people being filmed cooking, eating and drinking but they even proudly show how quickly people are to bitch and judge each other. That sorta junk's gotta worm into the brain somehow. And when I see how quickly people lap up reality tv and they actually think it's real, it's pretty worrying. That crap's not real.

I've found myself that the world around me sometimes looks less and less real, and sometimes when I look at the moon I just imagine it there's a crew in there watching us - luckily this is just the fun of my imagination. There have also been times i've danced dangerously close to the devil and toyed with making the imagination reality and that # can get scary. It's amazing what the brain can have you think.

Something tells me this is a splitting of the self - though i can't quite fully grasp how to pieces fit together just yet. I imagine it's like the splitting of a cake mixture.

When the 'reality' we were sold turns out to be illusory and suddenly you're looking at a misty curtain where the world once was, it's no wonder people are having reality crisis. It just seems like their realities are looking back on themselves and become trapped in a hall of mirrors. It's scary stuff when the rational mind and intellect turn back on the self and the very things that usually keep you sane send you crazy.



posted on Aug, 27 2013 @ 05:29 PM
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reply to post by Aliensun
 


I remember seeing a little animation that showed that, it was disturbing to say the least. I find it fascinating that most people live lives, but mostly not their own, without realizing it. Every movie, television show, almost all forms of media, is a 101 in voyeurism.

We laugh and cry, and have emotional connections with people we have never met, and most likely never will, but because we have put ourselves in their "so called" television life, we feel that we are a part.

This is definitely only the beginning to the full acceptance of all of our lives being invaded, and not surprising most people will sign right up for it, thinking that they are now going to be a hit, in their own "reality show".

Peace, NRE.



posted on Aug, 29 2013 @ 11:49 PM
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reply to post by winofiend
 


LOL...happens all the time where I'm from.



posted on Sep, 11 2013 @ 04:10 PM
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This thread will be discussed tonight at 10pm Est tonight on Reality Remix.


Join ATS Members SheepSlayer247, Adjensen, NoRegretsEver, Druid42 & Beezer for two hours of their take on threads past and present right here on ATS!


Show thread



posted on Sep, 11 2013 @ 04:36 PM
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Very very interesting thread. And kudos to the NSA for creating a psychosis to effectively nullify anyone who suspects surveillance.

In the recent past, pre-surveillance state, there was a very dark side to this alleged psychosis. It was/is practiced by controlling significant others/employers and by those above the law because money could buy anything - even a snuff video, and by...wait...psychotics!!

Now I'm confused. Who's psychotic here?!!? If you're so paranoid that you need to spy on the world, you're sane??!! And the spyees (is that even a word?) are the crazies?? What's up with this??...help me please to understand.



posted on Sep, 11 2013 @ 04:42 PM
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I am not at all surprised. When most of our television is trending towards the "reality" tv show and with facebook and twitter, we can all be stars creating and sharing our own little worlds. And if we are not the creative ones, we will be the voyuers.

For most of us going about our daily lives, it is not unusual to be filmed. Driving on the roads, doing our shopping, walking the streets and in public places, it seems there are cameras of some kind on everywhere. It doesn't take much imagination to realise that potentially we are being watched for most part of our waking day.

The next step and you are treading in the realms of paranoia. With the leaps and bounds technology takes, it doesn't seem to be far fetched that in the future some kind of computer would be developed that can combine all the data on us... if it hasn't happened already.

I must admit that from time to time I get a sense that everything is fake. From the constant bombardment of reality tv shows, advertising shoved down your throat. We are being told what our lives should be like. Our lives could almost be scripted too. Whether or not we are being watched in the most private moments of our lives, I hope not.

A question I would ask is, what effect does observation have on our behaviour? How do we modify and change it in response to being observed, whether it is with or without our knowledge. What implications will this have on the future application of this technology? How will society and us as individuals evolve as a result?
edit on 11/9/2013 by YarlanZey because: Too edit cos I didn't do it properly the first time



posted on Sep, 11 2013 @ 05:47 PM
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Mars One - Is this the ultimate in reality tv shows?
Mars One


A Dutch organisation, Mars One, is seeking volunteers for a flight that would take them to the Red Planet and leave them there. The costs would be covered, it's hoped, by TV rights and corporate sponsorship.



the latest number of people to sign up so far: 30,000 people


Reminds me of the fake reality show when they flew to space...Space Cadets


Space Cadets is a British television program made by Zeppotron (a division of Endemol UK) for Channel 4. Presented by Johnny Vaughan, it was aired across ten consecutive nights beginning on 7 December 2005, with the final episode aired on the evening of 16 December 2005. It was accompanied by a behind-the-scenes sister show Space Cadets: The Satellite Show, with interviews and phone-ins.



posted on Sep, 11 2013 @ 09:14 PM
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reply to post by NoRegretsEver
 


As usual, you've nailed it NRE, and hardly need replies, really. Obviously, there is a diagnoses for every last one of us.....even if what we experience is "true." This is just another way of conveniently using plausible deniability to bend truth, for it has become obvious, with NSA revelations, that you are, indeed, being watched. Whether your life is data mined for others to produce in other ways and make money from, I guess, is another thing.

But in this day and current age and times, I find it disingenuous for anyone to think they are being watch, being defined, in and of itself, as paranoia. It isn't a psych issue, when it's really happening..
Tetra50



posted on Sep, 11 2013 @ 09:46 PM
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This was something I used to think about when I was a child, and I remember it particularly well because when the movie came out I thought they'd taken my idea! I would often spend a lot of time on my own so day-dreaming was common and ideas like this and others would be thought about in some detail. Looking back I think i used them In times of stress they would serve as a nice distraction.

I do wonder if some delusions/psychoses may come about due to these psychological techniques being appied, people delving back to thoughts and day-dreams from when they were children as a distraction from emotional trauma. If doing so has a positive effect it may be frequently utilised, and over time the thoughts become more lucid. It may even develop into brief dissociated states of 'acting out' the day-dreams (psychoses).

This isn't based on research, but my own thoughts, which are in part based on my experience of working with people who occasionally experience episodes of psychoses.



posted on Sep, 11 2013 @ 09:57 PM
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twfau
This was something I used to think about when I was a child, and I remember it particularly well because when the movie came out I thought they'd taken my idea! I would often spend a lot of time on my own so day-dreaming was common and ideas like this and others would be thought about in some detail. Looking back I think i used them In times of stress they would serve as a nice distraction.

I do wonder if some delusions/psychoses may come about due to these psychological techniques being appied, people delving back to thoughts and day-dreams from when they were children as a distraction from emotional trauma. If doing so has a positive effect it may be frequently utilised, and over time the thoughts become more lucid. It may even develop into brief dissociated states of 'acting out' the day-dreams (psychoses).

This isn't based on research, but my own thoughts, which are in part based on my experience of working with people who occasionally experience episodes of psychoses.


Forgive me, I've never seen such a duplicitous post, couched in normal language.

For, you first describe that you thought about this as a child (in and of itself, this comment is sort of dengrating to anyone thinking about it now, as an adult); Then you go on to dismiss it as "your experience of working with people who (sic) occasionally, eperience episodes of psychses."

How disengenuous can one get, in one post, remarkably, even.
Tetra50

ETA: Sorry, NRE, seems my belief structure and posts on this website, increasingly, require me to state my perception, while challenged with my ethics via rudeness, etc.. There, I've opened myself for criticism as to that, but REALLY.....that post really flipped me, as to the "flip" contained within it . Is it just me, or are we more and more seeing this kind of intellectual "flip" and asked to receive it, kindly, where if we reply to the obviousness of it, we then, appear to be a rude bully. When actually, trying to stop all that.

Guess it's like being the undertaker: someone's gotta do it, and take it.....

Hmmmmmm.
Tetra
edit on 11-9-2013 by tetra50 because: (no reason given)




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