It’s characterised by a number of delusional states, the
most common being that when you’ve had a day when nobody spoke to you, nobody
hurled anything at you for making inflammatory comments on YouTube, and even the
sheep couldn’t be bothered to look at you, you begin to suspect that you’ve
died and the man who was supposed to come and conduct you up the big staircase
got lost in the fog. And then when the postman turns up, you can turn very
grave and ask him:
‘Are you he?’
‘He?’
‘Yes.’
‘What d’you mean, he?’
‘The man who has come to conduct me up the big staircase. I
assume you got lost in the fog.’
‘No, mate, no. I’m just the postman.’
‘Oh.’
And that would be really useful, because the postman is
second only to the village gossip in being good at putting the word about.
‘Have you seen that bloke from up near the school recently?’
‘Yes, I saw him yesterday.’
‘What was he doing?’
‘Talking to some sheep, but they were ignoring him.’
‘Mmm… I reckon he’s got Morgan’s Dissociative Syndrome.’
‘Really?’
‘Yup.’
‘Oh, right. Better start humouring him, then.’
And this is the good bit: Eventually the rumour will pass
into urban legend, and when you get famous the Wiki article will say ‘In 2015,
JJ Beazley was diagnosed with Morgan’s Dissociative Syndrome.’ And that’s when
everybody will realise just how important you really are.
4 comments:
Sounds kind of like Cotard delusion: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotard_delusion
Very interesting, but where do you get all these bits of obscure knowledge from?
Fortunately, I think I'm OK. I don't actually suffer the delusion that I'm dead, I just wonder sometimes. (Although the bit about denying the existence of certain body parts was eerily familiar.) The only delusion I seriously suffer is that I'm mildly insane.
Did you get my email, by the way?
I took a couple of very interesting psychology courses in college. I think we all wonder about the status of our existence at times. Plus, the binary between life and death is very much a Western construct. Other societies recognize a variety of intermediary zones, and the movement from life to death isn't always unidirectional. I read a lot of Hertz (Death and the Right Hand) this semester, so if I sound pretentious, you can blame him.
I didn't get your email, but I've recently realized (as in just today) that that account has a tendency to send certain emails off to places I can't find them. Maybe try my other account - madeline_kearin [at] brown [dot] edu? Sorry about that.
That maybe explains why you never replied to the other couple I sent. I just thought you were being dismissive (and maybe you were.)
OK, will send it to the posh one.
I worry about you sometimes, you know. Where are you ever going to find anybody clever enough share your breakfast table?
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