Researchers in the United States have identified a new psychiatric condition known as "Truman syndrome." It's a delusion afflicting people who become convinced that their lives are secretly being played out on a reality TV show.
After Dr Joel Gold, a New York psychiatrist, first mentioned at a medical conference in 2006 that he had five patients with such delusions, other psychiatrists came forward to report that 50 more people had similar symptoms.
The syndrome's name refers to the brilliant 1998 Peter Weir movie, The Truman Show, in which the lead character, Truman Burbank (played by Jim Carrey), lives within a TV soundstage bubble, unaware that his life since birth has been a 24/7 television show in which everyone else involved, including his wife and close friends, are actors.
Researchers in London reported in the August issue of the British Journal of Psychiatry that they have also come across a "Truman syndrome" patient, a 26-year-old postman. They wrote that he "had a sense the world was slightly unreal, as if he was the eponymous hero in the film."
Unlike the film, which ends happily, the British postman was diagnosed with schizophrenia and is unable to work while one of Gold's patients planned to commit suicide if he couldn't leave his unreal reality show. (Via AP/Google)
