Sucked Into The Capgras Portal ...

Today, I got sucked into the Capgras Portal! What is it you ask?

Let me try to explain it. Every once in a while something I type during the day sparks me to read up on it out of curiosity. A lady, now 41 years of age, was applying for disability and undergoing a psychological evaluation, which is commonplace. According to her history, at the age of 29, she had suffered a psychotic break after the birth of a third child. She seemed educated obtaining a bachelor’s in finance, working as an administrative assistant and trainer, and then in customer service; also stated she was laid off after seven years with a soft drink company (2001).

She has an extensive psychiatric history, with medications and therapy at different time-frames, inconsistently, but despite all that she remained psychotic. At the time of initial diagnosis and psychotic break, she believed her husband and son to be imposters. She expressed paranoid ideations of being stalked by people she worked with, and of having transmitting devices implanted in her home. She said that when she would go to the school where her children attend that she would hear other parents saying things that they could only know if they had been listening into her conversations at home. She was told by a psychiatrist that she was at risk for losing her children, if she did not continue with treatment, however, did not consistently stay in treatment, and was diagnosed with Capgras syndrome.

All of this sparked my curiosity about Capgras and I ventured into the portal of the psychotic! According to the official capgras syndrome site, people with Capgras Syndrome act as if they are in a parallel universe in which the people they know are "doubles" or "impostors."

When people with Capgras Syndrome see a friend, spouse, or themselves in a mirror, they believe they are seeing an exact double or an impostor. Sometimes, people with Capgras Syndrome even believe that inanimate objects -- like a chair, watch, book, or lamp -- have been replaced by exact replicas. If people own a pet, the pet may be seen as an impostor, a strange animal roaming through their lives and homes.

Capgras patients are often so disturbed when they see a doppelganger (a ghostly double of a living person, especially one that haunts its fleshly counterpart) in the mirror that they remove all mirrors from the home. The syndrome, named for French psychiatrist Jean Marie Joseph Capgras, is unusual, but still probably afflicts thousands of people in the United States at any given moment, said one expert, Dr. Todd Feinberg, associate professor of neurology and psychiatry at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York.

The Capgras' patient identifies his or her spouse as being an imposter - identical in every possible way, but an identical replica. The patient will accept living with these imposters but will secretly "know" that they are not the people they claim to be. This reminds me of the movie "Invasion of The Body Snatchers". I don't know about ya'll, but one has to wonder if the writers of these movies and books housed the syndrome themselves how else could they dream up such stuff?

This was a fascinating read. Did you know that when we dream, we sometimes have Capgras-like perceptions. For example, have you ever been in your home, while in a dream, but it seems to be not quite right, not really your home. Is your loved one not really your loved one?

What does Capgras Syndrome say about the thin fabric of reality? Click here to discuss.

If you're interesting in reading more like I was, here's a couple of sites:

Brain Sydrome Opens Portal to New Universe
DMT, Moses, and God.