My Real Life Interview With A Zombie
Introduction
This account is to the best of my recollections since it happened about a decade ago.
Memory is fluid and susceptible to distortions.
No matter how clear it may appear to us we are always looking at things through a mist of subjectivity and retrograde reinterpretation.
On this occasion it was not long since I had qualified as a doctor - perhaps only a few weeks.
Medicine can be intimidating as a new doctor and often the most frightening types of cases tend to be those that involve some kind of mental illness because you can't just wheel the patient off to the operating theatre or give them some morphine.
I had been on call that weekend and had not been able to sleep or indeed even really sit down and rest for a good 24 hours.
I was both mentally and physically exhausted. Thankfully the end was in site and my warm bed (albeit in the form of an old lumpy mattress in the doctor's mess) was beckoning.
There was just one last patient to see and he just happened to be on the old psychiatric ward....
The Last Patient
The room was small and dark. There was a medium sized man sitting in an armchair in the far right corner of the room.
He (the patient) looked to be in his mid sixties with short grey hair which was neatly combed with a side parting.
He was dressed in pyjamas with a dressing gown over the top. He seemed to be clean and well kempt with a slim build.
There was an oddly blank expression on this face when I first entered the room.
It was very dark outside with only a small amount of illumination entering from a window on the far side.
There was a small but rather dim bedside lamp providing a bit of extra illumination.
Due to the the low placement it seemed to be bouncing most of it's light onto the floor from which it was being reflected back under the man's face - giving that "Halloween" effect that you can create by shining a torch under your chin.
Next to the window was a stool on to which was placed a large teddy bear.
The way it was illuminated dimly from behind and to the side gave it a somewhat sinister air.
There was also a small table between the man and the the seated bear. The table had some wilting flowers on it, chocolates and various personal effects.
I could hear the wind outside and faint "tip" -"tap" sound from sink in the near left corner of the room.
There was an odd air about the whole situation.
Walking into this old building at night a few minutes earlier had reminded me very much of those old asylum buildings you see in classic horror movies.
It might seem like a cliche if I told you it was a dark and stormy night but it is entirely true. Life is sometimes oddly apt in that sense.
The man was looking down towards his feet. As I entered and greeted him he shifted his gaze up and looked towards me.
I enquired as to the problem.
"I would have thought that was obvious doctor. I keep trying to tell people that I'm dead but nobody believes me."
He shifted his gaze back down again and fell silent like there was nothing further to say.
The Dead Man
Tip-tap the sink seemed to continue in the background. The old man seemed to shift back into the chair in a manner which placed his face into shadow.
"Dead?" I enquired.
I really don't have time for this is what I was actually thinking.
"Yes quite." He cut me off before I could say anything else.
"I've been dead for over a week and nobody is doing anything about it. My body is starting to rot away. The flesh is decaying. There are maggots everywhere! How can you bear the stench? I've been trying to make funeral arrangements but nobody will let me. It just won't do."
All the while he was saying this he was not looking at me but looking down towards his abdomen as if he could actually see rotting, decaying, putrid flesh.
"If you are dead how can you be talking to me? How can you be making funeral arrangements? How many dead people can do that?"
I was too tired to really say any more than this but the old man wasn't perturbed. He sat forwards in his chair which brought his face back out of the shadows.
"Look we both know that I am dead. That much is not in question. The real question is what you are going to do about it now?"
"How do you know you are dead?" I asked as if it was not a ridiculously obvious question in the first place. I think there may have been a hint of frustration mixed with incredulity in my voice.
"That is not my concern. My innards are rotting. Maggots are eating what remains of my guts. My body needs to be disposed of now."
"If you are dead then who is talking to me now? Are you a ghost?"
There was now an air of both exhaustion as well as frustration in my voice. The man paused and then looked down as if in thought.
There was a discomfort in the silence. It seemed too long.
It was broken by the constant rhythmic drip from the tap and the howls of wind outside. Shifting tree branches created mesmerising patterns on the wall - when you are tired your focus tends to freeze on little details like this.
I found my gaze being drawn further and further into these patterns.
"It doesn't matter." He said, suddenly breaking the silence. "None of this is real anyway. You don't exist. I don't exist. This is hell. I am in hell."
"But if you are in hell?" I enquired, "You must in some sense exist right?".
The old man wasn't having it though. He looked me directly in the yes with an intense expression of anger.
"You are trying to trick me. I don't want to talk to you any more. Nurse!" With that he started pushing the buzzer next to his chair repeatedly - at the same time his head and the rest of his body seemed to shift back into the shadows.
In some ways I was relieved. I was too tired to have a philosophical discussion about the illogicality of claiming that you are dead in a verbal conversation.
I reviewed his observation levels, wrote in his notes and gladly retired to bed.
Discussion
I actually spoke to this patient a number of times. According to his notes he was a widower who had a history of depression with nihilistic delusions.
He always wanted to talk to me every time I visited the ward. Every time he would be adamant that he was dead and that something must be done about it.
On each occasion no matter how hard I tried to show him evidence to the contrary he would either ignore, sidestep it or change the subject in some way.
Sometimes he would claim that I or the nurses or various other people were trying to trick him in some way by trying to disprove the "FACT" that he was dead.
Our logical arguments seemed to do little more than annoy him.
What I find fascinating about this is how it provides a window into the way our minds and our beliefs can shape our reality.
In his reality he was dead. There was nothing ridiculous or illogical about the statement. He knew he was dead and therefore he was dead.
No amount of rationalisation or logic could change that.
One of the central features of delusions is that you cannot rationally talk someone out of them no matter how irrational they are.
Someone of sound mind knows that rotting corpses don't speak and ask to be buried.
To this man the only "known" fact for him was that he was dead and everything else in his reality was subservient and secondary to that.
Cotard's Syndrome
This man appeared to be suffering from something known as Cotard's syndrome (or delusion). This can occur in a variety of mental illnesses (most commonly depression).
Personally I think the name Cotard's delusion is more appropriate as it is a particular set of symptomatology that is secondary to other psychiatric disorders and does not normally arise in isolation.
It is thought to be an extreme form of nihilistic delusions. I may do a further post on the delusion itself from a clinical perspective in the future.
The Wikipedia page has a good summary though if you would like to read a bit more.
Conclusion
Whilst the vast majority of us will never have such extreme thoughts I think that we all shape our reality based on certain beliefs and assumptions that are not necessarily based on logic or rationality.
Observing the pathological extremes of mental health can make us more acutely aware of how we do this.
I think what I learned the most from this incident was that our minds construct reality from a combination of our senses and our pre-existing beliefs.
It is not a simple case of input coming in from the external world and creating the internal mental world.
Rather it seems more like a two way street, where our perceptions are shaped and focused by the "lens" of our beliefs to create our mental image of the outside world.
Impairment to either side of the equation (perceptions or beliefs) can distort reality in ways which are both surprising and at the same time fascinating.
Sources:
Wright, Padraig; Stern, Julian; Phelan, Michael : Core Psychiatry. 3rd Edition. Edinburgh: Saunders/Elsevier, 2012. p352-353
Thank you for reading.
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Wow, a great creepy write up highly unusual for this time of the year. Very well written again, thanks for the the enjoyable read. Namaste :)
Thank you:)
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Thanks:)
All I ask is that you produced more "quality" like that. You capture the creepy atmosphere perfectly and turn the scare factor up to 11. Loving it! You know how much I appreciate reading so I must say I find myself very impressed with your storytelling abilities.
Very nice work, my friend! Multi-talented and very smart to boot! Fantastic job! :)
Also want to wish you a very Merry Xmas, brother! :)
Thanks mate you are too kind. Merry Christmas to you too:)
Wow, great story! It sounds like you have quite a few interesting stories you could share :)
Thanks , yes for sure I have lot's of stories and I will have even more once I can get back to work!
Excellent article! The descriptive language seemed to transport me into the room with you.
I think it's incredible what the mind can do. Even Buddha said "What we think, we become," and this is a perfect example. Because he believed he was dead, in a sense he "became" dead. Now imagine what we as people could do with more positive thinking!
Thank you. Yes great point. The mind can do amazing things - yes if we were more positive great things could be achieved for sure:)
Very well written... It's amazing how powerful beliefs are. He was an extreme example. But think about the beliefs and delusions we all have and believe everyday. We make them so real that they literally create our reality.
I have spent years learning about, removing old beliefs and installing new beliefs and you can feel a difference and then see it shape your life. The problem is most people fall back into the old beliefs before the nuropathways are solid enough to hold.
Thanks. Yes very good points:)
That poor man having to be like that must be horrible bless him
The strange thing was he didn't seem (on looking at him) as depressed as he was. There is a high suicide risk with these patients. Belated Merry Christmas!
Its sad to think he thinks like that, must be horrible to have to live through.
Merry Christmas :)
Yes for sure.
I enjoyed reading your post, your pictures fitted in perfectly!
Thank you. I'm so pleased you enjoyed it:)
Well, that was interesting lol
I am not even sure what else to say. Can I ask what profession you were in or connected to for this encounter?
I tend to not ask specifics really as some ppl. really value their privacy and I respect that a lot.
Yes I was a junior doctor in my first few months out of university.
Neato!
But, did you open up his gut and determine that it was not full of maggots?
And if you did, and saw nothing, was it because of the absence of maggots, or your belief that they weren't there?
BTW a real zombie doesn't act like this.
Unfortunately I was too tired to do that! Also real zombies act in a variety of ways. I know because I have watched every single horror movie you can imagine (and some you can't)!
Sorry, I didn't mean movies. I don't watch movies.
If you could have removed the maggots from this person's gut, you may have been able to cure them.
There were no maggots in his guts. He was physically fine.