The White Queen, in Alice Through The Looking Glass, claimed to be able to believe in six impossible things before breakfast. If quality, not quantity, is the measure, then Cotard’s Delusion must score pretty highly on the "impossible things" scale. This is the strong, unshakeable belief held by the sufferer that he or she is, in fact, dead. Mind Hacks draws our attention to a good article in the FT about the condition.
Cotard’s Delusion
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2 responses to “Cotard’s Delusion”
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Bloody scary if you ask me. It’s one thing that really frightens me, losing control of your mind. I remember finding myself standing awake in my room once in the middle of the night (years ago), obviously startled from some dream. The worst thing was that though I was essentially awake, I did not recognise my room or surroundings at all – it was like I’d been put somewhere else. I waited for it to pass, it didn’t. I got scared, suppose I stayed like this? I decided to go and wake my parents, but the thought of looking at them and not knowing them was too ghastly, so I stayed put. It faded after about ten minutes presumably as full consciousness returned. Very unpleasant.
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Me too (scared of losing control of one’s mind). I’ve not had an experience like yours, but I do recall that when I was a young teenager, I sometimes felt as though I was outside my body. This usually happened when I was riding my bike downhill, for some reason…
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