Truman syndrome: believing we are in a reality show

The “fashion” among some psychologists is to explain everything in other words, and the so-called Truman syndrome attests to this. That term refers to a delusional disorder of an existential and persecutory typebut which in recent times is acquiring very particular nuances.

Truman syndrome was coined in 2008 by the director of psychiatry at Bellevue Hospital in New York Joel Gold and his brother, the neurophilosopher Ian Gold.

The reference was clear: the film The Truman Show. In this 1998 film, its protagonist, insurance agent Truman Burbank, realizes that his life has actually been the product of a reality show, which he has broadcast on television his entire life, since he was a baby. Thus, Truman syndrome refers to the belief of living in a remote-controlled reality, as happened to the protagonist.

Truman syndrome or delusion of existence

It is a reality that more and more popular or easy-to-understand terms are beginning to detail or qualify certain psychological disorders.

Every time professionals encounter certain peculiarities within a general description, it is common to point it out differently. This is what happens with Truman syndrome, a specific description within the delusion of existence and that It was first identified in 2003 by Joel Gold.

A patient was referred to the hospital for consultation because he had very peculiar delusions. He complained that his relatives were actors in a television show and that he had video cameras implanted in his eyes. To solve such a particular problem, he traveled to New York to ask for help and arrived at the United Nations headquarters.

A disorder that existed before the movie

Psychiatrist Joel Gold and his brother, neurophilosopher Ian Gold, say that although they named this phenomenon after the film, it existed long before. Besides, They also observed that its appearance and development was closely associated with the use of technology.

The Golds don’t believe the film has given rise to a new kind of delusion; rather, It is a type of paranoid delusion that has affected several people for generations. In fact, throughout history, there have always been cases of people claiming to be controlled by the technology of the moment.

For example, In the past, people felt that they were controlled by magnetic rays or magnets. Subsequently, the control exerted by the microwave or other appliances has been distrusted. And in the years after the release of The Truman Show, the paranoia of being remote-controlled was limited to the television circuit and other cameras. Now, Truman syndrome may be evolving.

A disorder that is evolving with technology

In psychology, delusions are personal ideas or belief systems that people hold with conviction despite evidence to the contrary. They are symptoms of psychological disorders, such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. Patients’ delusions may improve or decrease with psychotherapy or drugs, but they are usually chronic.

The Gold brothers were fascinated by the level of complexity of delirium when they identified it for the first time, but upon observing it in several patients they realized that it was not an isolated phenomenon.

Joel Gold spent the next eleven years studying the phenomenon and published with his brother Suspicious minds (2014). In the book, they both detail the ways in which Truman syndrome manifests itself. Typically, these patients express one of the following ideas:

The people in their lives are not real. They are constantly being watched. They have no control over their lives.

The patients even told the Gold brothers that they were actors and not doctors, that their friends read scripts to relate to them or that they had no privacy because the rest of the world was watching them.

Studying the phenomenon: the role of technology

In the early 2000s, Truman syndrome was linked to a feeling of “being controlled” by people who used surveillance devices, hidden cameras, etc.

Two decades later, the dominant technology has changed. Video games are consumed much more. There are also multiplayer games that involve hundreds of thousands of users and have skyrocketed in popularity.

This year the movie called Free Guy, starring Ryan Reynolds, in which he plays a bank teller whose bank is robbed 17 times a day, every day. Eventually, Reynolds’ character, named Guy, realizes that he is a character in a video game. Guy tries to break free of his programming and befriend a “real” person who plays the game.

This sets precedents for delusions of existence, control or persecution. In the end, all of these beliefs come back to the same “cause” or central idea: the lack of free will or the feeling of being just a mass of molecules being controlled. Sometimes because of a storm, sometimes because of television programming and sometimes because of a video game…

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