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Discovery of the New World
Discovery of the New World
PSYCHOTIC STIMULANT MOVIES
AND MY HOLLYWOOD SYNDROMES
Since the onset of my illness, having been a film buff for a long time, I have been fascinated by films that I identified with, given my journey tinged by my delirium. When I saw these films, I believed that the authors had experienced things similar to my decompensation or that there was a known psychological pattern whose origin was in the nature of my illness, and which served to design these impressive films. Either way, I find these movies to be psychotic reflection stimulators.
My Hollywood Syndromes, as I call them, are different types of delusions I’ve had under the influence of schizophrenia. According to Google, a syndrome (noun) is:
“A set of symptoms constituting an entity and characterizing a pathological state.”
An example of a syndrome related to schizophrenia is, according to Wikipedia:
The Truman Show Delusion, or the Truman Syndrome is a type of delusion in which the person believes that their life is a staged reality show, or that they are being watched on cameras.
As my story tells, I’ve been through this. Furthermore, here are some other versions of my delusions I’ve categorized under movie references:
*** SPOILER ALERT! ***
The following provides details of movies you may want to watch before reading this as they may spoil the movie experience for you.
MY SYNDROMES
Field of Dreams (or Noa’s Ark) Syndrome is a type of delusion in which a person believes he has a calling to implement a seemingly wild and crazy project (e.g.: building an ark).
In Field of Dreams (1989), the main character Ray Kinsella, an American farmer, begins to hear voices. These voices call on him to do things that most people find don't make sense. He embarks on a big crazy project that puts his family's economic situation at risk. Under the direction of those voices he hears, he destroys much of his crops to build a baseball field. He begins to see and communicate with ghosts.
This movie reminds me of the story of Noah who built an ark according to God's direction while everyone around him believed he was mad.
The outcome of the film, as with the story of Noah, shows that the main character was not mad as many characters in the story believed.
From my first psychotic episode in 1997, I dropped out of university to devote myself to a business venture. I had started to hear voices. These voices guided me in the making of my own ark. Seeing that I was making nothing after a few years with this project, my involvement in it seemed, to most of the people around me, to be meaningless. It seemed like unreasonable, even stubborn tenacity. As for Ray Kinsella, this grandiose project put my economic situation at risk and I also depended on my father to make ends meet.
There are movies like this that I see myself in. I'm talking about all the movies that feature heroes throwing everything out the window to pursue a dream. The outcome of these films usually asserts that a person not only is not wrong to take this route, but that they are right to do so and that taking such a risk may well pay off. It's those kinds of allegations that keep me going, to pursue my dream. The hope conveyed in particular through these films motivates my tenacity.
Just like the drugs that would have triggered my schizophrenia, viewing such films should be professionally supervised, controlled and sold through a prescription. Hope can cause a person to behave irrationally and irresponsibly, and to expose themselves and those around them to real dangers.
The Leopold Syndrome is a type of delusion in which a person suddenly believes he is a prophet or messiah, a biblical character reincarnated, a king or highly noble or prestigious spirit of some sort.
The film Kate and Leopold (2001) presents a noble-class character who has come to the present from a distant past, and who must adapt to a time that is not his own and live a new lifestyle while no one around him recognizes his character of a noble origin.
During my first psychosis, the voices made me believe that I was in some way a spirit of great nobility, to the point that I wondered if I was not the reincarnation of Jesus, the Grim Reaper or the Antichrist. I even believed, at a certain point, that I was destined to be crucified.
Indeed, I was raised in a Christian environment and I know the Bible well. I think that these voices made me believe in my interpretation of their identity… and therefore of mine. I know now from experience that voices can be deceptive and, of course, that I am not Jesus.
I recently started reading the Bible again, and I feel like this activity may not be healthy for me. I worry that it could be a psychotic trigger for what I call my Leopold Syndrome.
The Matrix Syndrome whose name refers to the movie The Matrix (1999), is a type of delusion in which a person suddenly believes he is an enlightened or chosen one, a superior mind possessing a truth or source of knowledge shared among only few others or not shared at all, leading him into an adventure or prestigious mission after having to choose between a blue pill and a red pill (a fork on his road, a dilemma involving two options).
In reference to movie Gullivar's Travels (1996), Gullivar’s Syndrome is a type of delusion in which a person had an epiphany of which he cannot stop talking, which, among other factors, contributes to his ending up in a psych ward.
Here are the things Gullivar and I have in common:
The hero of this story is away for almost ten years. His family feared they had lost him. Upon his return, all he does is talk constantly about a world he had visited in spite of himself.
He finds himself interned in psychiatry where he continues obstinately and passionately, in spite of the medication, to recount his experiences in this parallel universe, and to describe the wonders of this world where the moral and scientific laws are very different from those of our world.
Doctors are at their wit's end and, in order to impose treatment, they allow themselves to cut corners in an attempt to force certain desired results.
The hero's family, who love him very much, do not abandon him and offer him a support that will have helped him, at the end of the story, to find a way out.
The Beaver (2011)
In the movie The Beaver, Walter Black, the main character, a father and Director of a company suffering from severe depression, finds a way to deal with his mental disorder through the use of a stuffed puppet. All very quickly realize that he has a very strong addiction to this beaver which allows him to communicate and restore a more normal life. His divorcing wife fell in love with him again thanks to this "therapy" which he alleged, was prescribed by a doctor, even though it was not the case.
There is nothing "normal" about depending on a stuffed beaver to function, but like a crutch, the latter allows Water to get out of bed and reconnect with his wife and youngest child.
I have said since 1997 that I communicate with spirits. I ended up in psychiatric care due to psychosis.
This story appealed to me in the sense that, while listening to the film, I found myself in Walter's shoes; as for him, a part of me speaks to me, reasons me, guides me and reassures me in my progress. I'm even afraid that I might come to a possible realization that, as was the case with Walter, the "guide" was nothing more than the figment of my own imagination.
Later in the movie, this therapy turns sour and Walter severed his arm to get rid of this puppet that was in control of his life and that threatened to maintain its role in his life against his will.
In my life, severing that arm would be akin to eliminating projects that I created that arose out of my psychological imbalance. I am talking here about my "ghost" project, a Noah's ark that I have been building for years without success, and also a set of texts that represent my reflections in what I consider to be my communications with spirits.
Severing his arm to finally put an end to the dictatorship of this unhealthy being will have been a first step towards his recovery. Does life suggest to me by my interpretation of this film, to sever my own arm?
City of Angels (1998)
My first psychosis took place on the eve of my 21st birthday in 1997. This movie came out in 1998 and I saw it soon after. I consider it as a reference regarding unproven facts related to the spirit world and the way it works.
It depicts hearing thoughts of others, seeing angels, and feeling their influence guiding and inspiring us. It also deals with issues of crossing over beyond death. This movie portrays the fact of realizing the truth about their existence (the angels) and their world, as overwhelming.
The main character Maggie speaks with Seth (an angel). “So I’m crazy and chemically unbalanced”, she said sarcastically when trying to talk about her intuitions to a friend. The movie suggests that Maggie’s openness leads her to realizing the existence of this invisible world. She begins to actually see Seth. It suggests that you actually have to be looking for it in order to feel it.
There is also a scene where a child smiles back to the angel, which reminds me of parts of my own childhood, in experiences of what I now consider to be interactions with spirits.
Although this story seems to suggest that angels and spirits are not the same, I think that they are.