NY Times on Capgras Syndrome
Caprgras Syndrome is a mental condition that causes those afflicted to think that they people they know have been replaced by imposters, a la Invasion of the Bodysnatchers.
My patient, a 37-year-old homemaker, gazed at the man in the red plaid shirt as he sat on the couch in her living room.Link“Who are you?” she asked.
There was something familiar about him. He wore her husband’s boots, but the shirt made him look like a truck driver.
“Yeah, and who are you?” the man replied with a laugh. “Come here and give me a kiss.”
She gave the man a peck on the cheek, but she felt guilty, fearing that her husband would arrive at any moment and admonish her. Not only did the man want a kiss — he also wanted sex!
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Article link seems to be kinda broken?
Anyway, for people interested in this kind of thing, I recommend "The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat: And Other Clinical Tales" by Oliver Sacks. It's about $10 on Amazon, full of interesting stories.
Nevermind, link is working, I think I was just failing at the internet. As you were.
It's a great article, but OH MY GOD why did the psychiatrist even broach the topic of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers"?
Oliver Sacks' book is fun, but infuriating -- he didn't discover anything that wasn't previously known; and at times his rediscovering of the neurotic wheel feels a bit creepy, like he's toying with the patients.
Damn Interesting did a good writeup on this back in February.
http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=793
This condition has been in the news in Toronto recently because Tony Rosato, a very good comic actor known for his work with Second City and Saturday Night Live, has just been assigned to an institution because of behaviour which could be traced to his Caprgas Syndrome. This was the culmination of years in jail without trial, an injustice revealed by the Toronto Star. Here's the Star's piece about the sentencing.
[subliminal_command command = sleep]
I for one welcome our pod-spawned overlords.
[/subliminal_command]
Richard Powers' recent novel, The Echo Maker, deals with a character who develops Capgras' Syndrome after an accident, and features another character clearly based on Oliver Sacks. Not Powers' best novel, but quite intriguing.
In the words of David Byrne,
And you may tell yourself
This is not my beautiful house!
And you may tell yourself
This is not my beautiful wife!
What do you call it when you wish that everyone you know would be replaced by impostors?
Reminds me of a Steven Wright quote:
"I woke up one morning and looked around the room. Something wasn't right. I realized that someone had broken in the night before and replaced everything in my apartment with an exact replica. I couldn't believe it...I got my roommate and showed him. I said, "Look at this--everything's been replaced with an exact replica!" He said, "Do I know you?"
that article doesn't seem to say anything, it seems more "freak-show headline" than brief introduction.
for a thoughtful insight into Capgras turn to the neurologist Vilayanur Ramachandran... Yes, neurologist; Capgras would seem to be explained better through neurology and when you start thinking about most headline grabbing 'mental conditions' you'll find that neurology holds the key most of the time.
Rama's 2003 BBC Reith lectures (available to download from the BBC Radio 4 website) are a great introduction to many wonderful experiments and also theories. He takes such extraordinary and extreme conditions and (in my mind) shows how years of misdirected psychology have ignored the science, the patient even, in search of novelty and perhaps headlines.
Oliver Sacks' "manias" in 'The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat' may also be of interest, btw.
There is also the wonderful novel by Richard Powers called The Echo Maker, where the principal character suffers from Capgras. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Echo_Maker
As always Powers links seemingly unrelated elements, such as Cranes (the birds), migration, memory and recognition, personality (static versus dynamic).
Definitely worth a read!