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The Truman Show Delusion

Gaurika Kumar 

The Truman Show is a film which blurs the lines between reality and fiction. Truman Burbank, played by Jim Carrey, was adopted in-utero by a big multinational cooperation and is made the subject of a long-running televised project where his entire life is turned into a reality show without his knowledge. Everything around him is fake, including his friends and family who are actors playing out their roles. Even Seahaven, the island where he lives, is a TV studio under a large dome, run by the show producers. But, Truman’s emotions and actions are truly genuine and his own. Overtime, instances occur, like the falling of a camera light from the “sky”, but they’re covered up as normal events with logical, rational reasoning. His attempts to address the seemingly weird instances are shut down by the people around him, and he is kept in the dark about his life being a reality show. This develops into paranoia about his existence, and the obvious fictitiousness of his life. Combined with elements of drama, product placements, and romance, the film ends with Truman finally setting foot in the real world for the first time, and the audience switches the channel to find a new program to watch.


Michel Foucault’s concept of “panopticism” talks about something similar. The panopticon was first proposed by Jeremy Bentham as prisons, mental hospitals, schools, factories etc. to monitor and regulate people. It led to a heightened sense of internalised coercion because of the constant monitoring and observation. "Constant observation acted as a control mechanism; a consciousness of constant surveillance is internalised. Panoptic discipline, therefore, while being rooted in total surveillance, refers to the internalisation of a constantly regulated and monitored reality"[1]. This is in accordance to what is known today as the Truman Show Delusion (TSD).


The people suffering from this delusion believe they are being watched by people on a constantly televised reality show through multiple hidden cameras. They falsely perceive everyone around them to be involved in the reality show as actors and extras following a script. TSD can be classified as comprising delusions of grandeur, delusion of reference, persecutory delusions, over action of the suspicion system of the brain, and a sense of loss of control. It is not recognised as a disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-V), but is referred to as a “symptom of psychosis” and a “variance on known persecutory and grandiose delusions"[2]. According to DSM-5, psychotic disorders occur on a spectrum, ranging from schizoid personality disorder to schizophrenia. Paranoia and suspiciousness are classical traits of psychosis.[3] Patients of psychosis may distrust their immediate social circle, and believe that their friends and family are out to get them, or hate them. This harks back to the persecutory and grandiose delusions that are the common ground between Truman Show Delusion and Psychotic disorders. People with persecutory delusions believe they are being mistreated, subjected to hostility, and spied on. Additionally, this has also been seen as a manifestation of delusion of grandeur, which is characterised by a false sense of self-importance. But the overarching delusion that best describes TSD, analogous with the metaphor of the panopticon, is the delusion of control, i.e, the false belief that another person, or group of people is controlling one’s actions, general thoughts, feelings, and impulses.


The Truman Show Delusion is a prime example of the role that zeitgeists play in the formation of delusions; as cultures and society change, the content of delusions changes. Because reality shows are readily accessible to people, it is easy for people to incorporate elements of it into their existing delusional systems. Reality shows do not provide causation for the existence of delusions, or psychotic disorders, but the role they play in influencing the content of the delusions is noteworthy. The Truman Show Delusion has not been incorporated into the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association, but that doesn’t negate its importance in highlighting the importance of culture in mental disorders.
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1. Mason, K. M.. "Foucault and his Panopticon". Retrieved from http://www.moyak.com/papers/michel-foucault-power.html
2. Wright, Suzanne. "The Truman Show Delusion: Real of Imagined." Retrieved from Psychology Today.
3. Brogaard, Berit. (2016). 10 Subtle Signs of Psychosis. Retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/the-superhuman-mind/201610/10-subtle-signs-psychosis



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