People who think they're Zombies

The rising profile of zombies that I have documented in the background links, at the foot of this post, is continuing right up to the end of 2015, at least. However, one thing few zombie movies consider is what is it actually like to be a zombie? The concept of the zombie comes from western Africa and the word is derived from the Niger-Congo language family root nzumbe. This was a human corpse that had been animated into an undead state by a black magician. They were fundamentally mindless because the soul of the deceased was absent; often the sorcerer would keep the victim's soul in a bottle. The zombies of modern fiction are usually the same. What's interesting about the classic and definitive Dead series of films by George A Romero is that in some of the films the zombies exhibit a modicum of memory from their lives and traces of their former personalities; although they always maintain the obsessive urge to eat living human flesh. In Land of the Dead they even gain the awareness to plan and organize as a team. There is a real mental illness people can suffer from in which they sometimes describe themselves as zombies and psychiatric associations call it "life as a zombie". Cotard's syndrome was first identified in 1880 by the French neurologist Jules Cotard. A patient he was treating believed that she was dead, her personality didn't exist and that her body was actually decomposing. The fact that she was still breathing, walking and talking etc failed to register with her due to a breakdown in her logical thought processes. Sadly this patient died of starvation because she stopped eating. Cotard's syndrome can be associated with other psychotic disorders, depression, dementia and schizophrenia. A recent sufferer was the writer Esme Weijun Wang of San Francisco, USA. Her descent into the Cotard's delusion, in 2013, took a number of weeks. At first she started feeling deeply depressed and disorganized. Then she woke up one morning and told her husband that she was in fact dead. This wasn't bad news for her because she concluded that she was now in heaven and that her husband and other loved ones were there with her too. Mrs Wang's bliss did not last for long. Her melancholy returned and she decided she was really in some kind of purgatory or hell. She eventually recovered from her condition and got back to her normal life. However she has recurring mental illness; earlier in the year she had come down with a bipolar episode. Here's an article she wrote about her experience: http://the-toast.net/2014/06/25/perdition-days-experiencing-psychosis/. (Thanks to Samantha Mansi for finding this). There are a number of related sicknesses such as Capgras syndrome in which the victim believes that somebody they know well has been replaced by an identical impostor. There is a philosophical school called solipsism which is based on the idea that the only consciousness in existence is ones own (Paradoxically solipsists do form groups and organize meetings etc). However believers in solipsism can become obsessed to the point of madness; and they fall into an inversion of Cotard's syndrome, in which they claim that everybody around them is dead and they are the only living person in the world.

There is a fascinating film called Jacob's Ladder in which the main character begins experiencing horrifying visions, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJztRnDxdM8. Apart from that his life seems normal; he has a job, family and home in a city he's lived in his entire life. However, in the end he finds out that he actually died a number of years ago and that he's been living a false life, a completely immersive illusion. The film might give you an idea of what it's like to experience one of these mental illnesses, although in the story the protagonist's experiences are real. The direct cause of Capgras and Cotard's syndrome is unknown, but damage to the amygdale region of the brain is linked with it. This is plausible because the amygdale contains the mechanism that allows us to recognize individuals from sensory input; such as identifying faces. And malfunction of the amygdale can cause us to lose the awareness of individual identity, both our own and that of others. In fact one sufferer of Cotard's syndrome saw his reflection in a mirror and felt that it was actually the image of a stranger looking at him. For me the most worrying element is something else in the story of Esme Weijun Wang. She had undiagnosed Lyme disease. Along with her psychiatric problems she had presented symptoms of Lyme for a number of years before being finally treated in 2014. Although her doctor doesn't agree, Mrs Wang is convinced there's a link between her Lyme infection and her mental illnesses. Indeed Lyme disease can cause inflammation of the brain and spinal cord which can lead to serious chronic pain and delirium; but most neurologists deny that it can cause Cotard's. Lyme disease is a very mysterious condition that was only first identified in 1975. There was an outbreak in the town of Lyme, Connecticut USA. At first it was mistaken for syphilis because its symptoms are comparable and it is caused by a similar bacterium, known as a spirochete. It's usually caught from a tick bite, but it can be transmitted to others. If you catch it you'll be treated by a course of antibiotics; however some people continue to experience effects afterwards. This is known as "post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome", but a growing number of physicians now suspect that the illness lingers on; this has resulted in the chronic Lyme disease controversy. As I say in the background links, I suspect that Lyme disease may be the result of a government biological warfare experiment at the top secret "Building 257" facility on Plum Island, New York; just across a sea channel from Lyme, Connecticut. The reason there is a mindset of establishment denial when it comes to chronic Lyme disease could be because acceptance of its reality might lead to the true origins of the pathogen being revealed. I have made predictions about how the methods the government is using in their possible agenda to turn natural humans into zombie-like beings. If Lyme disease can really have that effect on people, the way it did on Esme Weijun Wang, then perhaps it is the basis for the proposed zombie plague. No doubt it will need to be recombined and mutated to make it more effective and contagious, but that work may well be in progress since Mrs Wang contracted her own infection. It is only by speaking out about this subject that we can put a stop to their scheme to make us all into walking corpses.

See here for background: http://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/real-zombies-2015.html.

And: http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/zombie-update-november-2014.html.

And: http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/zombie-update-september-2014.html.

And: http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/zombies-fact-or-fiction.html.