The Truman Show Delusion
Two Canadian Psychiatrists, Dr. Gold, and his brother, also Dr. Gold, are suggesting a new edition to the lexicon of mental illness: The Truman Show Delusion, a mental illness categorized by patients who believe that they are being set up by everyone they come in contact with, and filmed, as part of a reality television program, a la the movie The Truman Show.
As quoted from the link above, “…Ian Gold, who holds a Canada Research Chair in philosophy and psychiatry at McGill University, added that there are unprecedented cultural triggers that might explain the phenomenon: the pressure of living in a large, connected community can bring out the unstable side of more vulnerable people.”
What I found so interesting about this is that we are all being filmed in public, some nearly all the time, by ‘official’ government-sanctioned cameras, private-sector surveillance, criminals, and by each other. It isn’t surprising that some people feel constantly watched by unknown viewers, because….they are being watched. We all are. And given the human mind’s overwhelming need to find patterns and find meaning in chaos, it seems a small leap to begin having delusions that all of the surveillance is coordinated for a purpose, even if the only purpose we come up with is reality television.