Truman Syndrome -Life's a TV show

Reuters

NOT PARANOIA? 'Truman Syndrome' - named after the 1998 movie The Truman Show in which Jim Carey played a man whose life was all part of an elaborate reality television programme.

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Ever wondered if your life was a reality television show and you the star? You're not alone - other people think they're on The Truman Show too.

Researchers have begun studying a condition dubbed "Truman Syndrome", a delusion where people believe their lives are being filmed as part of a reality television programme, the Associated Press has reported.

The syndrome's name comes from the 1998 movie The Truman Show, starring Jim Carrey. In the film Carrey played Truman Burbank, a man whose pleasant suburban life was shattered when he realised his town was a sound stage, his friends and family actors, and every moment of his life was being broadcast.

While Truman's journey to separate fact from fiction is heart-warming, researchers say it is often a horrifying process for Truman Syndrome sufferers.

Scientists say the disorder illustrates the influence pop culture can have on mental conditions.

Bellevue Hospital Psychiatrist Dr Joel Gold said within a two year period he saw five patients with delusions that their lives were reality television. Several mentioned The Truman Show.

"Is this a new twist on an old paranoid or grandiose delusion... or is there sort of a perfect storm of the culture we're in, in which fame holds such high value?" he asked.

While a few inflicted with the syndrome take pride in their imagined celebrity many are upset at what they believe to be an Orwellian intrusion into their privacy.

Dr Gold treated one patient who planned to kill himself if he could not leave his supposed real life reality show.

Dr Gold and his brother, a psychologist, began presenting their findings on "Truman Syndrome" at medical conferences in 2006.

After word spread of their findings, they learned of about 50 more people suffering similar delusions.

Researchers in London described a Truman Syndrome patient in an article featured in the British Journal of Psychiatry in August.

The sufferer, a 26-year-old postman, was said to have "a sense the world was slightly unreal, as if he was the eponymous hero in the film".

- © Fairfax NZ News