WEBVTT - Now I am Become Death: Cotard's Delusion 0:00:03.080 --> 0:00:06.120 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from housetop work 0:00:06.200 --> 0:00:25.360 dot com. What seems to be the problem. Well, so 0:00:25.440 --> 0:00:30.120 the thing is, dr I am dead? Mm hmm, you're dead? 0:00:30.400 --> 0:00:36.519 Well can you explain I'm I'm dead. My organs have 0:00:36.680 --> 0:00:40.720 stopped working, They've ceased to function, my heart, my intestines, 0:00:40.880 --> 0:00:45.560 my brain. That you're speaking to me right now, well, 0:00:45.640 --> 0:00:47.800 I agree, I don't know how to explain that. I 0:00:47.840 --> 0:00:50.559 guess I should be quiet, but I need to be 0:00:50.600 --> 0:00:54.720 put in a grave. I'm registering a heartbeat, a pulse. 0:00:54.840 --> 0:00:58.560 You're certainly breathing now. I think you're just getting the 0:00:58.600 --> 0:01:02.960 sound of air moving through the empty skin, empty, I guess, 0:01:02.960 --> 0:01:06.600 except for the bones. Everything else feels like it's gone. 0:01:06.640 --> 0:01:10.160 It's rotten, melted away. Well, if this were the case, 0:01:10.240 --> 0:01:13.360 you wouldn't be able to think, or reason or or 0:01:13.400 --> 0:01:17.880 even travel to my office and tell me these things. 0:01:17.920 --> 0:01:23.119 Something isn't letting me die. Something not God, I mean, 0:01:24.720 --> 0:01:28.480 not not God, but something. Anyway, doctor, I need you 0:01:28.560 --> 0:01:44.400 to destroy my body, if that's possible. Hey, welcome to 0:01:44.440 --> 0:01:46.440 stuff to blow your mind. My name is Robert Lamb 0:01:46.680 --> 0:01:49.320 and my name is Joe McCormick. And that is an 0:01:49.320 --> 0:01:53.240 odd scenario that most doctors probably would never find themselves in. 0:01:53.480 --> 0:01:58.360 But it is actually not not just a fictional contrivance. 0:01:58.440 --> 0:02:02.200 There have been scenarios where a doctor has had someone 0:02:02.200 --> 0:02:04.920 show up at their office claiming not that they're dying, 0:02:05.320 --> 0:02:08.080 but that they are dead. Yes, yeah, and it would 0:02:08.600 --> 0:02:11.640 I mean, it would be comedic if the examples of it, 0:02:12.000 --> 0:02:16.160 the actual case studies, weren't so depressing and heartbreaking. And 0:02:16.360 --> 0:02:20.160 then the condition itself we're not so real. Yeah. Um, 0:02:20.240 --> 0:02:22.760 so this is going to be the subject of today's episode. 0:02:23.200 --> 0:02:27.959 What it looks, What it's like to experience being dead 0:02:28.160 --> 0:02:32.520 while still being alive. Yes, it is sometimes referred to 0:02:32.720 --> 0:02:38.040 as Quatard's syndrome, also Qutard's delusion, and I think delusion 0:02:38.200 --> 0:02:42.160 is more accurate based on the commentaries we've been reading 0:02:42.560 --> 0:02:46.400 the idea that this is not a a specific affliction 0:02:46.560 --> 0:02:49.120 so much as kind of an array of symptoms that 0:02:49.200 --> 0:02:53.120 emerges from a few different conditions that can occur neurologically. 0:02:53.919 --> 0:02:56.239 So let's go back into history where do we first 0:02:56.320 --> 0:02:59.720 see this emerging? That the concept of someone who presents 0:02:59.760 --> 0:03:02.040 to a doctor claiming to be dead yet from the 0:03:02.080 --> 0:03:07.240 outside there obviously alive. Well, it's an interesting question, and 0:03:07.240 --> 0:03:09.239 and some of the individuals who have tackled it have 0:03:09.360 --> 0:03:13.079 certainly pointed to examples in myth and legend and saying, well, 0:03:13.120 --> 0:03:18.600 this could possibly explain these scenarios. Um. However, it seems 0:03:18.639 --> 0:03:22.519 to be that the earliest case of Qatar's delusion, even 0:03:22.520 --> 0:03:25.400 though it was not known as Guitar's delusion yet, possibly 0:03:25.400 --> 0:03:29.800 goes back to seventy sev UM. And this is when 0:03:30.160 --> 0:03:35.920 Geneva naturalist and philosophical writer Charles Bonnet encountered what might 0:03:35.960 --> 0:03:39.360 be the early example, earliest example the condition. Uh. And 0:03:39.400 --> 0:03:42.880 this was a seventy year old, otherwise healthy woman who 0:03:43.000 --> 0:03:46.640 upon experiencing something like a stroke. And this was after 0:03:46.720 --> 0:03:49.400 a draft of air hit hit her in the neck, 0:03:49.520 --> 0:03:53.160 according to the the studies. I read the same thing 0:03:53.200 --> 0:03:55.480 there and she reported a draft of air hit her 0:03:55.480 --> 0:03:58.080 in the neck and then she felt like a paralysis 0:03:58.120 --> 0:04:01.120 across half her body and uh. And then she was 0:04:01.200 --> 0:04:04.480 silent as a corpse for four days. And then when 0:04:04.520 --> 0:04:08.040 she opened her mouth finally she demanded burial. That is 0:04:08.080 --> 0:04:11.000 a strange thing to demand. Yeah. Yeah, Like I said, 0:04:11.040 --> 0:04:14.680 it would be comedic if it weren't so serious. Um. 0:04:14.720 --> 0:04:17.120 But yeah, so she seemed to be under the real 0:04:17.320 --> 0:04:21.400 persistent idea that she was no longer alive even while 0:04:21.480 --> 0:04:25.560 she was alive to tell people this. Yeah, yeah, she so, 0:04:25.680 --> 0:04:28.760 she she apparently, it's just very insistent of it, Like 0:04:28.800 --> 0:04:32.040 it was very much like a delusion, like something again 0:04:32.080 --> 0:04:36.200 that the individual that's believing it is it in completely 0:04:36.200 --> 0:04:39.320 invested in it, completely convinced of its of this reality, 0:04:39.600 --> 0:04:41.800 no matter how ridiculous it might seem to anyone on 0:04:41.839 --> 0:04:44.440 the outside. It's like she became agitated, and she was 0:04:44.440 --> 0:04:48.440 scolding her friends for for not for not doing it. 0:04:48.560 --> 0:04:52.080 She she asked, she said, I'm not alive anymore. I 0:04:52.160 --> 0:04:55.120 need to be buried. Um, you know. They they ended 0:04:55.160 --> 0:04:58.240 up calling a doctor, and eventually everybody thought it was 0:04:58.400 --> 0:05:00.719 necessary to dress her like a co warps and layer 0:05:01.200 --> 0:05:04.960 layer out to calm her down, and they actually had 0:05:05.000 --> 0:05:07.840 a sort of funeral for her, like they essentially had 0:05:07.880 --> 0:05:11.040 to indulge in her delusion a bit just to to 0:05:11.240 --> 0:05:14.800 calm her down, and and she eventually fell asleep and 0:05:14.960 --> 0:05:19.200 was undressed and put to bed. But but yeah, how 0:05:19.200 --> 0:05:24.240 do you even treat something like this? Certainly well, uh, 0:05:24.279 --> 0:05:27.560 Bennet arrived on the scene and he treated her with quote, 0:05:27.640 --> 0:05:31.080 a powder of precious stones mixed with opium. And I 0:05:31.120 --> 0:05:33.720 guess it worked because he reported that she emerged from 0:05:33.720 --> 0:05:37.320 her death delusion. But while she she gave up the 0:05:37.320 --> 0:05:40.440 notion that she was dead. She then became became convinced 0:05:40.440 --> 0:05:43.359 that she was in Norway with her daughter while she 0:05:43.440 --> 0:05:45.880 was actually in Copenhagen the whole time, and insisted that 0:05:45.880 --> 0:05:49.960 she needed to return to Copenhagen from Norway. Um And 0:05:50.040 --> 0:05:52.040 during this time she was otherwise normal, but she could 0:05:52.120 --> 0:05:56.560 not sweep without the opium, So sadly, she ended up 0:05:56.600 --> 0:06:00.160 suffering the same condition every three months thereafter. So mean 0:06:00.800 --> 0:06:04.120 a reprisal of the idea that she had already died, right, 0:06:04.200 --> 0:06:07.280 the idea that she she had died would return, she'd 0:06:07.279 --> 0:06:09.279 have to be talked out of it, and then she 0:06:09.279 --> 0:06:12.919 would register surprise when she finally learned that she was 0:06:12.960 --> 0:06:19.240 in fact alive. Now, I wonder what it's like, um, Like, 0:06:19.279 --> 0:06:21.719 what what is the behavior of a person who truly 0:06:21.760 --> 0:06:25.520 believes themselves to be dead? Like? What does that entail 0:06:25.760 --> 0:06:28.680 for how they act? Well? It seems to vary from 0:06:28.960 --> 0:06:31.520 case to case as we look at it, I mean 0:06:31.560 --> 0:06:33.520 a lot of it seems to boil down to just 0:06:33.600 --> 0:06:38.520 an essential breakdown in conception of self and identity. Instead 0:06:38.520 --> 0:06:41.760 of like the like, we all walk around through our 0:06:41.800 --> 0:06:46.160 lives with a de facto statement, I am alive. And 0:06:46.200 --> 0:06:48.360 you know, maybe being alive is fantastic, maybe it's not, 0:06:48.640 --> 0:06:51.280 but we at least begin the sentence with I am alive. 0:06:51.720 --> 0:06:54.000 It's sort of an axiom. Yeah, like you, you don't 0:06:54.000 --> 0:06:56.440 need to debate this point. But for them, the accident 0:06:56.800 --> 0:06:59.760 axiom is vacant. It's it's absent, and in its place 0:07:00.360 --> 0:07:03.159 I am dead. I'm clearly not alive. I must be dead, 0:07:03.480 --> 0:07:08.040 and then therefore x sometimes that excess clearly I must 0:07:08.040 --> 0:07:12.320 be buried, or my body must be destroyed. Or in 0:07:12.360 --> 0:07:15.560 some cases it's uh, I'm not alive and yet I exist. 0:07:15.880 --> 0:07:19.960 Perhaps I have entered some deathless state, perhaps some afterlife, 0:07:20.120 --> 0:07:24.200 some afterlife, etcetera. So it kind of varies depending on 0:07:24.240 --> 0:07:27.160 what's going. The underlying conditions that are causing these symptoms 0:07:27.160 --> 0:07:30.720 come into play as well, is presumably the the exact, 0:07:31.600 --> 0:07:34.920 you know, worldview of the individual afflicted. Yeah. Another thing 0:07:35.000 --> 0:07:37.320 that I've read about in many of the cases here 0:07:37.440 --> 0:07:41.440 is a sort of denial of life sustaining activities like 0:07:41.560 --> 0:07:44.760 the person seems to in many cases lose interest in 0:07:44.960 --> 0:07:48.720 eating and going about their business as one normally would 0:07:48.720 --> 0:07:51.840 and doing any of the things that would constitute a 0:07:51.920 --> 0:07:57.520 life going on. Yeah, sleeping, it's etcetera. Um. Authors Hands 0:07:57.800 --> 0:08:02.600 Forstal and Barbara Beats wrote about the the Benet case 0:08:02.840 --> 0:08:07.200 for the British Journal of Psychiatry, and they theorized that 0:08:07.280 --> 0:08:11.360 the idea of imminent death played a role in this too. Uh, 0:08:11.480 --> 0:08:14.080 the the idea of imminent death during the old woman's 0:08:14.080 --> 0:08:17.560 stroke overpowered her thoughts at least, and so she regained 0:08:17.560 --> 0:08:21.520 full consciousness. Um So, so like while she was having 0:08:21.520 --> 0:08:23.960 a stroke, she had the idea that she was dying, 0:08:24.600 --> 0:08:28.280 and then in some sort of liminal state following the stroke, 0:08:28.440 --> 0:08:33.720 she had not yet overcome the conclusion of that assumption. Yeah, 0:08:33.760 --> 0:08:36.520 I mean, because like if the last, if the last 0:08:36.559 --> 0:08:40.200 experience you have with like a full consciousness and a 0:08:40.240 --> 0:08:43.320 full conception of self is that of oh crap, I'm 0:08:43.360 --> 0:08:45.680 about to die. Oh crap, something horrible is happening to 0:08:45.720 --> 0:08:48.520 my body. And then when the then then the next 0:08:48.520 --> 0:08:51.960 phase you exist in is this altered phase in which 0:08:52.640 --> 0:08:58.319 some of your normal neural processes are adjusted. That maybe 0:08:58.440 --> 0:09:02.440 the explanation you've all back on that at least is 0:09:02.480 --> 0:09:05.440 one one theory. Here's a quote from what they had 0:09:05.480 --> 0:09:08.880 to say. The most exceptional and strange ideas can gain 0:09:09.040 --> 0:09:12.320 such acceptance if the mind is suddenly thrown from its 0:09:12.400 --> 0:09:16.200 ordinary reasoning and forced into a new main idea. A 0:09:16.280 --> 0:09:19.319 sudden physical disorder in the brain or a sudden violent 0:09:19.360 --> 0:09:22.640 excitement can cause such a change there that we are 0:09:22.679 --> 0:09:26.840 pushed beyond insight into its unreasonable nature, because we assume 0:09:26.960 --> 0:09:31.559 to notice a correct functioning of our imagination, even in delusion, 0:09:32.440 --> 0:09:34.880 which I love that because it I think one of 0:09:34.880 --> 0:09:37.920 the things that's fascinating about delusions such as this with 0:09:37.960 --> 0:09:41.079 other neurological conditions is that it not It not only 0:09:41.120 --> 0:09:44.720 illustrates what is possible in terms of human perception of reality, 0:09:45.000 --> 0:09:50.480 but also how ultimately ephemeral the quote unquote normal perception 0:09:50.520 --> 0:09:53.240 of reality actually is. Well. Yeah, and it also I 0:09:53.280 --> 0:09:59.880 think underlies our our inherent predisposition for a completely a 0:10:00.080 --> 0:10:03.440 rational thinking um like Obviously, I don't mean this as 0:10:03.480 --> 0:10:07.440 an indictment of people suffering from Catard's delusion. I'm not. 0:10:07.640 --> 0:10:11.720 I'm not trying to impugne their rationality, but this seems 0:10:11.720 --> 0:10:15.040 to be a thing that's it's latent in the human brain. Uh, 0:10:15.080 --> 0:10:19.080 the ability to hold thoughts that are impossible, because in 0:10:19.080 --> 0:10:23.439 a strange way, this this is perhaps the most delusional 0:10:23.720 --> 0:10:27.560 possible thought, like from a Cartesian point of view. And 0:10:27.600 --> 0:10:29.679 what I mean by that is, you know, so Renee 0:10:29.679 --> 0:10:33.480 Decartes was trying to come up with an axiom that 0:10:33.559 --> 0:10:38.240 he could start his deductive philosophy with, right, um, And 0:10:38.320 --> 0:10:40.560 so he could start with like, well, I observe that 0:10:40.600 --> 0:10:43.079 I'm in a room. But then you can't actually start 0:10:43.080 --> 0:10:45.599 with observations, according to him, because there's no way you 0:10:45.640 --> 0:10:49.199 can be certain you're not hallucinating every aspect of your surroundings. 0:10:49.760 --> 0:10:53.120 But Decarter eventually said, you know what, I can start 0:10:53.160 --> 0:10:58.200 with cogito ergo some I think, therefore I exist, because 0:10:58.360 --> 0:11:01.559 I mean, it's pretty much that is true by definition, 0:11:01.640 --> 0:11:05.800 it cannot be false. So this syndrome is kind of 0:11:06.040 --> 0:11:09.880 some form of the denial of the Cartesian axiom. It's 0:11:09.960 --> 0:11:13.200 denying the thing that could not by definition be false. 0:11:13.280 --> 0:11:16.600 I think, but I do not exist. Yeah, in this 0:11:16.720 --> 0:11:21.599 it would be the ultimate denial, the ultimate nihilism, right yeah. 0:11:21.800 --> 0:11:23.840 And indeed this is uh, this is some of the 0:11:23.920 --> 0:11:28.880 thinking that the namesake of French neurologist Jewels Qatard had 0:11:29.080 --> 0:11:32.560 as well. So again this is this is where we 0:11:32.640 --> 0:11:35.720 get the name. Obviously. Uh, the year was eighteen eighty, 0:11:35.960 --> 0:11:39.640 so it's about a hundred years after the original KI. Yeah, 0:11:39.679 --> 0:11:43.319 and it wasn't ye until later people piece that together. Um. 0:11:43.400 --> 0:11:47.280 He received a most curious patient, okay, a forty three 0:11:47.360 --> 0:11:50.679 year old woman who believed she had no brain, nerves, chest, 0:11:50.800 --> 0:11:54.040 or entrails. She believed she was merely skin and bones 0:11:54.120 --> 0:11:58.000 and it quote neither God nor the devil existed, and 0:11:58.040 --> 0:12:00.640 that she no longer required food as she was quote 0:12:00.800 --> 0:12:04.120 eternal and would live forever. So she requested to be 0:12:04.160 --> 0:12:07.960 burned alive and attempted suicide several times thereafter, and then 0:12:07.960 --> 0:12:11.760 eventually died of starvation. So this is a pretty pretty 0:12:11.800 --> 0:12:15.000 severe and grim case. Well, so what did Quatard make 0:12:15.040 --> 0:12:17.440 of this? Well, he initially saw it as an extreme 0:12:17.480 --> 0:12:23.160 form of hypochondriasis, you know, hypochondriacts, and he he thought 0:12:23.160 --> 0:12:26.000 that this is a this would occur during a severe 0:12:26.240 --> 0:12:29.960 psychotic depression. And in many cases this delusion has been 0:12:30.040 --> 0:12:33.200 linked strongly to depression, not not in every case, because 0:12:33.240 --> 0:12:35.400 there are a lot of different scenarios that seem to 0:12:35.440 --> 0:12:38.839 produce similar effects and delusions, but we do see that 0:12:38.880 --> 0:12:42.240 as a recurring factor along with like near death or 0:12:42.280 --> 0:12:46.199 some traumatic experience. But it has been often linked to 0:12:46.280 --> 0:12:49.640 severe types of depression. And he He indeed is a 0:12:49.800 --> 0:12:53.679 one that mentioned that tales of the wandering Jew might 0:12:53.720 --> 0:12:57.680 be related to bits of myth that extend from such abouts. 0:12:57.720 --> 0:13:01.480 So so he's thinking that cultural ideas like not not 0:13:01.559 --> 0:13:05.000 just the hardware of the brain malfunctioning, but that software 0:13:05.080 --> 0:13:08.400 running on the brain, you know, received ideas or informing 0:13:08.559 --> 0:13:12.760 this syndrome or sorry, you shouldn't say syndrome the delusion. Well, 0:13:12.880 --> 0:13:15.319 or at least that like these ideas of saying that 0:13:15.320 --> 0:13:17.840 they're being an immortal, depressed wanderer out there in the 0:13:17.880 --> 0:13:20.480 world might have some ties to this condition, that this 0:13:20.559 --> 0:13:24.080 might be the nugget of truth behind such a concept, right, 0:13:24.120 --> 0:13:26.480 if you're not familiar, the concept of the wandering Jew 0:13:26.640 --> 0:13:29.920 is the idea that, of course uh in in the 0:13:30.000 --> 0:13:33.400 New Testament, the Christ predicts that he will return to 0:13:33.440 --> 0:13:37.319 Earth before everyone standing before him has passed away. Obviously 0:13:37.360 --> 0:13:40.160 a lot of time has passed, and so one solution 0:13:40.240 --> 0:13:43.480 to this textual problem is that people assumed that at 0:13:43.559 --> 0:13:46.600 least one person standing there listening to Jesus was actually 0:13:47.080 --> 0:13:51.040 essentially immortal and had continued to wander the earth since then. Yeah, 0:13:51.200 --> 0:13:55.880 essentially cursed because some tellings the wandering Jew laughed at 0:13:55.960 --> 0:13:58.320 Christ on the cross. Oh, I don't think i'd heard that. 0:13:58.320 --> 0:14:01.120 That's that's the version I ran across recently. So it's 0:14:01.200 --> 0:14:08.080 kind of like Highlander, except more anti Semitic. So Inquitard's 0:14:08.320 --> 0:14:11.160 later writings on the condition, he he described it as 0:14:11.240 --> 0:14:15.880 a nihilistic delusion, a negation of everything, God, food, life 0:14:15.880 --> 0:14:19.840 itself quote, a marked tendency to deny everything. Well, then 0:14:19.840 --> 0:14:22.240 in this case, it would seem that the way that 0:14:22.320 --> 0:14:25.520 we originally characterized it as the belief that one is 0:14:25.560 --> 0:14:29.960 dead is actually not the not the overarching nature of this, 0:14:30.080 --> 0:14:33.480 but it's sort of like one expression of it. Ultimately, 0:14:33.480 --> 0:14:37.119 as Qutard conceived it, it's just a denial of everything, 0:14:37.640 --> 0:14:41.080 and the denial of one's own continuing life is one 0:14:41.240 --> 0:14:44.400 facet of that. Right. Yeah, if if this absolute denial 0:14:44.640 --> 0:14:47.800 enters your consciousness, then even if it's an altered consciousness, 0:14:47.800 --> 0:14:50.040 then how do you make sense of it? Um? So 0:14:50.120 --> 0:14:54.280 I assume he didn't name this this delusion after himself. No, No, 0:14:54.400 --> 0:15:00.640 that wasn't until three uh Emil Regius coined the term 0:15:00.680 --> 0:15:05.040 Qatard's syndrome, and it was made famous by Jules Sieglass, 0:15:05.080 --> 0:15:08.720 who himself thought that it was all a severe anxious 0:15:08.800 --> 0:15:12.760 melancholia rather than a distinct clinical condition. Now, of course, 0:15:12.760 --> 0:15:14.960 if it were just two cases, that wouldn't be much 0:15:15.000 --> 0:15:16.480 to go on. But of course there have been other 0:15:16.840 --> 0:15:20.880 cases of Cotard's delusion, which we'll get to right after 0:15:20.920 --> 0:15:29.880 this break. All right, we're back, alright, So, uh, there 0:15:29.920 --> 0:15:32.520 have been more than just these two historical cases we 0:15:32.600 --> 0:15:37.120 talked about. But it also is not an extremely common condition. Yeah, 0:15:37.200 --> 0:15:40.240 it's exceedingly rare um and perhaps even more so in 0:15:40.240 --> 0:15:44.760 the modern age, since swift treatment of the underlying psychotic 0:15:44.800 --> 0:15:49.920 disorder uh typically occurs. And most studies related to Qatar's 0:15:49.960 --> 0:15:52.720 delusion are, of course about a single patient. This is 0:15:52.720 --> 0:15:54.920 not the kind of thing where a doctor is going 0:15:54.960 --> 0:15:59.280 to encounter multiple Qatard's delusion patients, say with him, you know, 0:15:59.440 --> 0:16:01.920 within the core of an entire lifetime, right Like here, 0:16:02.040 --> 0:16:05.160 here's this one clinical encounter, Not like I recruited a 0:16:05.160 --> 0:16:08.880 group of a hundred people suffering from Qatard's delusion, right, Yeah, 0:16:09.080 --> 0:16:11.400 it's that this is, you know, one of those conditions. 0:16:11.400 --> 0:16:14.400 It's super rare, probably, but it gets more attention because 0:16:14.440 --> 0:16:18.400 it is so alarming. Um. In fact, some of you, 0:16:18.440 --> 0:16:20.840 I know we have some Hannibal fans out there. There 0:16:20.880 --> 0:16:23.840 was actually an episode of Hannibal where we had the 0:16:23.840 --> 0:16:26.600 the sort of killer or character of the week with 0:16:26.640 --> 0:16:31.520 somebody with quitards syndrome. Um. But I don't have a 0:16:31.520 --> 0:16:34.320 clear enough memory of the episode two to do any 0:16:34.400 --> 0:16:37.840 kind of critiquing of it of how they presented it. Well, so, 0:16:37.920 --> 0:16:40.560 now that we've seen more cases showing up throughout history, 0:16:40.640 --> 0:16:44.320 what are the most common symptoms, Like, how does this 0:16:44.400 --> 0:16:48.640 delusion present itself most frequently? Claims of being dead obviously, 0:16:49.080 --> 0:16:53.000 of organs missing or having rotten or melted away. Claims 0:16:53.040 --> 0:16:55.440 of a missing brain. Oh yeah, I saw that one 0:16:55.920 --> 0:16:57.800 with the guy who said I don't have a brain. 0:16:58.120 --> 0:16:59.920 I don't know how to explain this, but I just 0:17:00.120 --> 0:17:03.960 don't have one. Claims of course of being I didn't 0:17:03.960 --> 0:17:06.200 see any encounter where someone actually said hey, I'm a 0:17:06.280 --> 0:17:09.800 zombie or I am a litch or something. But that 0:17:09.920 --> 0:17:13.159 is they basically explained undeadness. Yeah, they basically are like 0:17:13.240 --> 0:17:16.399 I'm not alive, I'm dead. But I'm also in some 0:17:16.480 --> 0:17:19.880 sort of protected state, as if in some cases it's 0:17:20.760 --> 0:17:22.240 there are a few cases will look at where that 0:17:22.280 --> 0:17:25.200 where the individual is saying like, God won't let me die. 0:17:25.320 --> 0:17:28.480 But then other times they're just they're just totally negating 0:17:28.520 --> 0:17:31.879 God or the devil as well. So, yeah, there's this 0:17:32.000 --> 0:17:34.840 sense of what, you know, what what a a Dungeons 0:17:34.840 --> 0:17:38.560 and dragons um A fan might term litch um, the 0:17:38.560 --> 0:17:40.919 idea that you're not dead, you're not alive, but somehow 0:17:40.960 --> 0:17:47.160 death is given you a either a cursed or elevated status. Well, 0:17:47.240 --> 0:17:50.359 let's look at some more modern examples of what this 0:17:50.440 --> 0:17:53.800 actually looks like in people who present with it. Okay, well, 0:17:54.160 --> 0:17:56.119 one interesting case, and we're not going to touch on 0:17:56.160 --> 0:17:58.439 all of them, because even though it is rare, there 0:17:58.480 --> 0:18:01.159 have been multiple cases. Some of them just aren't particularly 0:18:01.160 --> 0:18:05.760 noteworthy or or provide much illumination for our purposes here. 0:18:05.800 --> 0:18:08.080 But in two thousand four, there was a case of 0:18:08.119 --> 0:18:10.600 an individual by the name of Graham Harrison, and he 0:18:10.640 --> 0:18:15.120 attempted suicide by empty entering a bathtub with an electrical appliance. 0:18:16.000 --> 0:18:18.879 And the next thing he knew is he awoke in 0:18:18.920 --> 0:18:21.560 the hospital and he thought he was dead. So in 0:18:21.640 --> 0:18:25.240 this we see we definitely see elements of the traumatic 0:18:25.760 --> 0:18:29.800 like occurrence, the near death event, and then waking up 0:18:29.840 --> 0:18:33.440 with this condition. And he was indeed diagnosed with Guitard's delusion. 0:18:34.000 --> 0:18:36.960 But most interestingly, given the time in which this took 0:18:36.960 --> 0:18:40.359 place in the hostile environment, it allowed doctors an unprecedented 0:18:40.480 --> 0:18:44.639 uh PET scan peek into the brain of the deathly 0:18:44.680 --> 0:18:47.600 deluded here. Oh, so they could get some imaging results 0:18:47.640 --> 0:18:50.640 see how the brain of a person experiencing this delusion 0:18:50.720 --> 0:18:53.280 looks compared to someone who's not. Yeah, at least in 0:18:53.280 --> 0:18:55.760 this particular patient. Yeah, And they found that his brain 0:18:55.840 --> 0:18:59.639 wave patterns were were vegetative despite his being awake, so 0:18:59.680 --> 0:19:03.399 he had very low metabolic activity across large areas of 0:19:03.400 --> 0:19:06.560 the frontal and parietal brain regions. Some of his this 0:19:06.680 --> 0:19:11.320 expanse related to the default mode network, which we've covered before. 0:19:11.440 --> 0:19:13.760 This is the you know, the constant chatter in your 0:19:13.800 --> 0:19:17.560 your head that's uh, you know, questions about the and 0:19:17.680 --> 0:19:20.120 worries about the past in future, that sort of thing. 0:19:20.960 --> 0:19:24.439 But also the regions afflicted here uh were involved in 0:19:24.520 --> 0:19:28.080 formulating theory of mind. Now, one of the researchers who 0:19:28.080 --> 0:19:30.080 worked on this case, who was interviewed in an article 0:19:30.119 --> 0:19:33.320 and New Scientists about it. Stephen Lori's of the University 0:19:33.320 --> 0:19:37.560 of Louisian, Belgium said that the pet scan results were 0:19:37.680 --> 0:19:40.879 essentially what you'd expect to see in someone who is 0:19:40.920 --> 0:19:45.399 asleep or under general anesthesia. Like you know, so you 0:19:45.440 --> 0:19:47.960 mentioned the low metabolism. It was as if the brain 0:19:48.040 --> 0:19:51.800 had sort of been shut down. And however, the researchers 0:19:51.840 --> 0:19:54.399 also cautioned that this scan could be affected by the 0:19:54.440 --> 0:19:57.840 antidepressants he was taking, So you know, we shouldn't draw 0:19:57.920 --> 0:20:01.719 too many conclusions from one case, right, but apparently something 0:20:01.800 --> 0:20:04.960 had happened to his sense of self. Yes, inde, that's 0:20:04.960 --> 0:20:07.080 what's really interesting here, and that's that's what we're going 0:20:07.119 --> 0:20:09.040 to see reflected in some of the other cases. We're 0:20:09.040 --> 0:20:12.320 gonna look at this idea that that the brain's ability 0:20:12.640 --> 0:20:16.320 to conceive self, uh, and and and and indeed to 0:20:16.359 --> 0:20:21.879 conceive the identity of others is what is afflicted here. Um. Now, Luckily, 0:20:21.880 --> 0:20:25.720 in the case of Harrison here, thanks to psychotherapy and 0:20:25.760 --> 0:20:29.560 drug treatment, he was eventually able to overcome these symptoms 0:20:29.560 --> 0:20:32.040 and return to something of a normal life. And there's 0:20:32.040 --> 0:20:34.520 actually an interview with him in New scientists from a 0:20:34.560 --> 0:20:38.200 few years back. You can find it Mindscapes First Interview 0:20:38.359 --> 0:20:40.639 with a dead Man. Yeah, and I was just gonna 0:20:40.640 --> 0:20:45.000 say that it's an interesting read worth checking out. Now. 0:20:45.040 --> 0:20:47.520 In some of these papers, I found reference to an 0:20:47.560 --> 0:20:52.199 individual who wanted to erase their body with acid, but 0:20:52.240 --> 0:20:54.480 I wasn't able to track down a particular study on 0:20:54.600 --> 0:20:58.320 that one. But there were some other interesting cases that 0:20:58.680 --> 0:21:01.240 came up, But one of which was a two thousand 0:21:01.320 --> 0:21:04.760 five I ran i in case covered in the article. 0:21:04.960 --> 0:21:08.440 This is a telling title covered in the study coexistence 0:21:08.480 --> 0:21:12.640 of lacanthropy and Qtard syndrome in a single case. Wait, lacanthropy, 0:21:12.880 --> 0:21:16.280 that's werewolf syndrome andn't indeed, Yeah, something you don't really 0:21:16.280 --> 0:21:21.160 expect to pop up in a in a serious psychological paper. Now, 0:21:21.160 --> 0:21:23.639 in the clinical definition, I think like canthropy is what 0:21:23.760 --> 0:21:26.479 the belief that one has been transformed into an animal 0:21:26.680 --> 0:21:29.720 or behaviors indicating such a belief, right, Yeah, so we're 0:21:29.720 --> 0:21:32.560 not talking about actual transformation into a wolf for a 0:21:32.640 --> 0:21:35.960 dog or what have you. Uh. This individual is a 0:21:36.000 --> 0:21:38.280 thirty two thirty two year old man who arrived at 0:21:38.280 --> 0:21:41.199 the hospital and complained a that he was dead and 0:21:41.280 --> 0:21:43.560 be that he had turned into a dog both yea, 0:21:44.119 --> 0:21:46.880 and that the same was true of his wife and daughters. 0:21:47.040 --> 0:21:49.399 Well that I think. He claimed that his wife had 0:21:49.400 --> 0:21:51.680 been turned into a dog and that his daughters had 0:21:51.720 --> 0:21:54.919 been turned into sheep. That's right, So his delusion of 0:21:56.359 --> 0:22:00.320 zoological transformation extended to his family, but not necessary really 0:22:00.440 --> 0:22:03.679 the same animal. Now. I claimed that his relatives had 0:22:03.680 --> 0:22:07.000 tried to poison him as well. Yeah, I think by 0:22:07.280 --> 0:22:11.159 putting cyanide in his tea. Well, that's one tactic to employ. 0:22:11.840 --> 0:22:14.679 And he also claimed that God protected him even in 0:22:14.720 --> 0:22:18.720 this undead form, which which is interesting. It ties back 0:22:18.720 --> 0:22:20.919 into this this theme we see again and again that 0:22:20.960 --> 0:22:24.840 they're they're dead, but somehow undying. So what did the 0:22:24.880 --> 0:22:28.320 study conclude about this patient? Well, here's the here's the quote. 0:22:28.320 --> 0:22:31.359 A patient meeting a d s M for criteria for 0:22:31.400 --> 0:22:35.560 bipolar mood disorder mixed type with psychotic feature had the 0:22:35.600 --> 0:22:38.440 delusion of being transformed into a dog. He was also 0:22:38.560 --> 0:22:41.320 deluded that he was dead. He was restless, and had 0:22:41.359 --> 0:22:44.359 a serious sense of guilt about a previous sexual contact 0:22:44.359 --> 0:22:48.200 with a sheep. Coexistence of lecanthropy and Cotard syndrome has 0:22:48.240 --> 0:22:52.440 not been reported before and this patient, zoophilic orientation assorted 0:22:52.600 --> 0:22:55.040 associated with a sense of guilt were concluded to be 0:22:55.119 --> 0:22:59.000 important factors causing his delusions. So he had also like 0:22:59.280 --> 0:23:03.720 some guilt going on about a zoophilic encounter. Essentially, yes, 0:23:03.840 --> 0:23:07.439 that's that's what the paper is getting at. So a 0:23:07.520 --> 0:23:10.760 rather disturbing case all around. I think everyone will agree. 0:23:11.600 --> 0:23:14.480 But it's interesting because we're seeing this delusion here. In 0:23:14.480 --> 0:23:19.439 this case, perhaps have causes that are less tied to 0:23:19.600 --> 0:23:23.600 physical trauma and more to just like severe guilts of 0:23:23.640 --> 0:23:28.520 your psychological trauma over over a past incident. Uh. Matt 0:23:28.920 --> 0:23:32.119 Soniac has a great blog post about this at Matt 0:23:32.400 --> 0:23:34.920 Sonia soni Act. That's m A T T s O 0:23:35.119 --> 0:23:38.560 in I A k dot com uh, and he adds 0:23:38.640 --> 0:23:42.359 that quote in Persian folklore, the dog is both the 0:23:42.400 --> 0:23:46.480 symbol of loyalty and a symbol of impureeness. The man's 0:23:46.480 --> 0:23:49.440 sexual history was sheep, coupled with his desire to protect 0:23:49.520 --> 0:23:52.919 his sheep daughters and many dogs roles as herders and 0:23:52.920 --> 0:23:56.719 protectors of flocks, adds another layer of paradox. So this 0:23:56.800 --> 0:24:00.320 is another thing perhaps comparable to whether this is sumption 0:24:00.440 --> 0:24:03.840 was correct or not. The The original assumption of Qatar that, 0:24:04.000 --> 0:24:08.360 like the Wandering Jew, mythology could figure into the presentation 0:24:08.440 --> 0:24:11.879 of this delusion. Here, it's saying like cultural ideas or 0:24:12.119 --> 0:24:16.119 beliefs or sort of received associations can also play a 0:24:16.240 --> 0:24:19.800 role in how this delusion is manifest because you have 0:24:19.880 --> 0:24:23.199