Blog 4

The Truman Syndrome

For a while now I've had this weird fantastical feeling, which I attributed to my wild and sometimes vivid imagination, that my life wasn't completely real. I felt that everything and everyone around me were only set there to make me believe that what happens around me is destined, fated or the way life is. I felt like the people in my life or that I interact with are basically acting and when I turn the corner they unloosen their character that I know them as. To an extent I felt like things centered around me, but it never seemed that way from how life played out around me, but sometimes I wondered if there was a microscopic camera watching my every move, observing me and controlling my environment without my knowledge. I morally didn't believe that my life was that important that people around me would stage my life for their amusement or interest. I chalked it up to knowing that there were cameras, especially the different kinds and sizes that are in existence and the things that they could do.

I was a bit surprised to find out that other people had greatly similar feeling as I did. I’m not as drastic as the other people I’ve read about in researching this feeling. This feeling is something called The Truman Syndrome. The Truman Syndrome, named after the Jim Carey lead movie, The Truman Show, is a paranoid delusion where a person believes that their lives are constantly being watched by hidden cameras for an elaborate reality show.

In various articles that I’ve read, the common thread that drives people to these delusions are reality shows. I’ve had this feeling before the massive expansion of reality shows in mainstream media. Reality shows are the current driving force toward this delusion, but this delusion has been around in one form or another and driven by other forces, based on the information I’ve read. With reality shows and other additions to this current generation, such as social networking, cameras on almost anything, such as phones and computers, and cameras almost everywhere, this elaborate paranoid delusion is achieved faster than ever before.


Rockwell - Somebody's Watching Me