Learning from Delusions

OPINION Brian Martin nce or twice a year, I receive a call or Learning email from some- O one claiming to be under intensive targeted surveillance by the govern- from Delusions ment. They contact me because there’s a lot of material on my website about whistleblowing, and some about surveillance. I know governments carry out massive surveillance operations, for example collecting all sorts of electronic With others, the delusion is more ers, it just doesn’t make sense: there communications. However, these obvious, for example when they say is no obvious reason for them to be callers believe they have been spe- that a television program contains a an ongoing target of personalized cially selected as surveillance tar- message specifically designed and surveillance and harassment. gets, and sometimes for electronic inserted to affect their minds. or chemical bombardment too. My friend Steve Wright used The Truman Show Delusion One caller said he had written to work for the Omega Founda- With this background, I noticed a a political novel — unpublished — tion in Britain, which studies the book entitled Suspicious Minds. On and therefore the government was technology of repression, includ- the book jacket is the teaser “The monitoring his calls and following ing technologies for surveillance Truman Show delusion and other his every movement. He was very and electronic assault. He told me strange beliefs.” convincing. I suggested that he the Foundation would regularly The Truman Show is the name obtain evidence of the surveillance, hear from people who believed they of a film presenting the fictional but he always had some excuse, so were being electronically harassed. story of Truman Burbank, a man after several calls I became skepti- He calls them “wavies” after the who is unsuspectingly the center of cal. Then, during one call, he said a electromagnetic waves they believe a reality TV show, seen worldwide. helicopter was above his house spy- are beamed at them. (Steve and I From birth, he has been surrounding on him right then. I said, “Grab have written about tactics against ed by artificial sets, with cameras a camera, go outside and take a the trade in torture technology and recording everything he says and picture.” He immediately changed about possible uses of such tech- does. Everyone he meets — even the topic, which convinced me that nology in border control [1]–[2].) members of his own family — are he was imagining the surveillance. I could believe a story about long- actors. Eventually he discovers the term continuous targeted surveil- grand deception. lance of leading figures in organized After this film appeared, a few crime syndicates, terrorist cells, or individuals began presenting at Bel- Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MTS.2015.2425613 Date of publication: 19 June 2015 radical trade unions. For most oth- levue Hospital in New York, where 18 IEEE TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY MAGAZINE ∕ JUNE 2015 there is a major psychiatric facil- them into 12 categories. Examples is the slow, careful, rational part ity, claiming to be at the center of are delusional jealousy, in which a of the mind [4]. An autonomous a reality TV show, just like The Tru- cheating partner is seen as threat- suspicion system would be an aid man Show. They were the stars, ening, and grandiosity, in which a for survival: without conscious pro- which meant that everything around person believes they are Napoleon, cessing, it would constantly be on them was artificial, and the people have the key to cancer, or can fly. the alert for subtle signs of dan- in their lives were actors. Joel Gold, However, by far the most common ger. The sound of a leaf crunch- a professor of psychiatry at New delusion is of being persecuted. ing might indicate a predator, and York University, attended some of At this point, I reflected on my people would be safer responding these patients at Bellevue and was contacts with whistleblowers and to lots of false positives — taking intrigued by their strange delusion. dissidents. Unlike those with delu- action, although there is really no He was familiar with delusions sions of inescapable surveillance, danger — than being complacent caused by mental illness. Some dissidents tell much more plau- when actually there is danger. individuals believe they are Jesus sible stories, and in many cases Gold and Gold say delusions Christ. Some believe that someone there is good evidence to back up can be understood as products of a is manipulating their behavior by their claims. One academ- inserting thoughts into their minds. ic dissident named John, The emergence of Truman Show whose case I investigated delusions was one of a number of in some detail, told me a One caller said he had factors that led Joel Gold and his revealing anecdote. One brother Ian Gold, a professor of phi- of his supporters had sat written an unpublished losophy and psychiatry at McGill in on a discussion by col- University, to begin rethinking their leagues. They said “John political novel – and therefore ideas about mental illness, espe- is paranoid” and then pro- the government was monitoring cially about schizophrenia, in which ceeded to plot how to get delusions are common. In their rid of him. Although much his calls and following his book Suspicious Minds, they lay delusion is paranoid, not out a hypothesis about the origin all paranoia is delusional. every movement. of delusions, along the way offering Gold and Gold com- an alternative to today’s dominant ment that, in principle, approach to psychosis, namely that there could be an infinite it is neurological [3]. number of types of delusions. For disordered suspicion system. Their example, a person could believe hypothesis has an attractive fea- Psychiatry and Delusions they are a tree or a clock or a gal- ture: it explains why people with To accomplish this ambitious agen- axy. But delusions in practice fall delusions can’t see how irrational da, Gold and Gold review the his- into just 12 categories, and every they are. Systems 1 and 2 do not tory of psychiatry. They then examine one of them involves people. This communicate directly, so there is some recent research about psycho- is obvious in the case of delusions no way the rational mind can inter- sis, in particular how it varies accord- of persecution. Gold and Gold com- vene and switch off the delusion, ing to the surrounding environment. ment, “Paranoia is nothing more which continues to seem complete- One striking finding is that when pop- than an overly sensitive form of sus- ly real. Eventually system 2, the ulation centers are larger, psychosis picion that cannot shut itself down” rational part of the mind, offers a occurs at higher rates: it is lowest in [3, p. 192]. seemingly plausible explanation for rural regions and small towns, higher To make sense of the observed the delusion. in medium-sized cities, and highest types of delusions and research In large, complex societies, the in large cities. Other factors increas- on patterns of psychosis, Gold and primary dangers are from other ing the risk of psychosis are being Gold postulate the existence of a people. The larger the population, abused as a child, having parents suspicion system. This, they pro- the greater the risk of a disordered who separated, being an immigrant, pose, is one of several modules in suspicion system and the higher the and being discriminated against. the part of the mind that is fast, rate of psychosis. Gold and Gold’s Gold and Gold then examine vari- intuitive, and automatic, sometimes idea allows a prediction that psy- ous types of delusions. They classify called system 1, whereas system 2 chosis will become more prevalent JUNE 2015 ∕ IEEE TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY MAGAZINE 19 as more of the world’s population And just as thoughts relating to evidence, such as photos, screen crowds into cities. Another predic- other people can cause illness, shots, and measurements of elec- tion, or worry, is that more people thoughts can also redress it, for tromagnetic fields. Just because revealing lots of personal informa- example through cognitive-behav- something could be happening tion to strangers via social media ioural therapy. doesn’t mean that it is happening. may be setting the stage for more The ubiquity of general surveillance mental illness. Surveillance and Delusion probably has blurred the boundary Gold and Gold note that delusions Writing about delusions of surveil- between reasonable apprehension adapt to current technological possi- lance is tricky, because in industrial and delusions of persecution. bilities. Today, with governments and societies nearly everyone is under Those who want to reduce the corporations undertaking massive surveillance. There are surveillance amount of information gathered surveillance of nearly all electronic cameras in shops and public plac- about them can, for example, pay communication, delusions of perse- es; telephone numbers and times of in cash, use proxy servers and cution and being controlled are likely calls are recorded; Internet brows- encryption, and avoid using mobile to become more frequent. ing is monitored; electronic fund phones. If you have undertaken transactions are registered; positions such measures but they seem to The Neurological Imperative of vehicles are logged; and mobile do little to reduce the amount of Gold and Gold, in their brief history phones are potential surveillance surveillance and harassment, then of psychiatry, note that in the early devices, with location data collected. maybe it is time to read Suspicious decades of psychotherapy, practitio- Is it a delusion to believe you are Minds to better understand the psy- ners believed that the key to mental under surveillance? Certainly not. chology of suspicion.

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