Mens agitat molem

Following one reverie that I always wonder about since my childhood, I came up with a quite interesting question on my demented mind: What if a person with “Capgras Delusion” entered an eternal house of mirrors? What would happen to that person’s sense of being? Would that person starts to ask himself about the veracity of himself? That question always hunted me… Like a demon in a world without candles…

“Capgras Delusion” is a rare mental illness, or disorder according to more political psychiatrists, in which the “haunted” one holds a deep belief that other people, or people that are around them are in a certain manner impostors, or more commonly have being replaced by an identical-looking impostors. In general cases, the syndrome is related to a paranoid nature where the delusional person truly believes in its dementia.

But returning to our main topic, image a poor haunted soul entering a place where even the best cognitive system would be putted at test. Someone that is doubtful of his closest friends is faced with its most inner self. As a grain of sand drops, the soul that once questioned the veracity of his own family now starts to look inside itself, and as Nietzsche would probably say: The abyss gazed back into him.

Suddenly all that was inside that needy soul gets released, like a inner Pandora box, all his villains, fears, sensations, emotions, memories, sins, knowledge and information converted into one and many person as his ego, id and superego were liberated to participate in his walk through the valley of mirrors. Now he is not alone anymore, there are several “me’s”, formed through the mix of his ego, id, superego in a never ending dance as they shape-shift from one reflection into the other as the haunted soul just stares through the looking glass trying to get familiar with all this “new” impostors that have being replaced, and now surrounds him.

As the person starts to walk deep inside the maze of mirrors delusion and beliefs regarding him are at clash. Every time he looks at a different mirror the reflection shows itself as a new “him”, or more properly said the reflection brings light into a new side of his personality that was up to now in a deep shadow. Every single stare at the mirrors is a window to his haunted soul, and so as the reflections are replaced by impostors, id, ego and superego take turns or commingle in a venture to expose its truly identity. As the journey continues, I can only imagine that questions regarding the “true me” start to pop into his head. As Id, ego and superego starts to make the mirrors become more and more alive and one starts to ask himself whether the reflection is the real self and the flesh and blood is an impostor. And in this exact moment is where the subject is faced with probably one of the most difficult choices during his walk into the self-awareness: “Who am I?”

Sartre would probably argue that deep down this appeal to a transcendental ego, or a true me, conceals a conscious flight from freedom. Our pour soul quest into knowing the veracity regarding himself is truly a search for authenticity, as it is the true virtue, in a society marked or defined by oppression and exploitation. The foundation remarking our subject quest, again, is the basic ambiguity of human reality that in the darkest hours “is what it is not” and “is not what it is”, an eternal motor of internal negation. Sartre would say that authenticity, or in our case the search for it, is fundamentally a condition where the human kind remains in a deep sleep state dreaming about the basic ambiguity that states that one is never identical with one’s current state but remains responsible for sustaining it. And in that way, the claim “who I am” would be tantamount to a manner of self-deception or bad faith as would all forms of determinism, since both instances involve lying to oneself regarding the fact that one’s nonself-coincidence and the concomitant responsibility for “choosing” to remain as one self.

Given the essential division of the human condition into factice and transcendence, bad faith or in-authenticity can assume two principal forms: one that denies the freedom or transcendence component and the other that ignores the fatidic dimension of every situation. Sartre talks as if any choice could be authentic so long as it is lived with a clear awareness of its contingency and responsibility. But his considered opinion excludes choices that oppress or consciously exploit others. In other words, authenticity is not entirely style; there is a general content and that content is freedom.

So as the “Capgras Holder” ventures into the jungle of self’s, realities, choices and thoughts translate as impostors reflected in every single mirror, deep down his journey into reveling its truly form turns into a quest for freedom. A quest for learning how to live with his choices. As certain as he is about a particular decision he becomes aware that no other alternative is possible, when a particular decision is made a new path is set. And since each path is full of possibilities, it seems that he cannot accept the responsibility for his choices, the responsibility of letting others paths go, or more likely of not exploring every single path possible.

And as a Salomonical curse, the feeling and memories of missed paths and opportunities will eternally hunt the “Capgras Holder” and all his inner self-reflections seen as impostors, but truly representing all dreams, emotions and sensations stored deep down at the holders id, ego and superego that were not properly followed…




"In all intellectual debates, both sides tend to be correct in what they affirm, and wrong in what they deny." - John Stuart Mill




Listening to "Dr Jackle" - Miles Davis feat. Milt Jackson Quintet