Seeing Through Delusions
Back in episode 11 we discussed madness in Lovecraftian games and how, if at all, it relates to the real world. Paul made mention of the new rules in Call of Cthulhu 7th edition that deal with delusions and attempts by investigators to see through them. I was reminded of this today when I stumbled across a comment on Reddit from someone with schizophrenia, who talks about how he tries to determine whether he’s hallucinating.
This is fascinating stuff, and Paul was comforted to learn that he wasn’t too far off base.
I read recently of a woman being treated for Parkinson’s who started to hallucinate troubling images (dead bodies on the bed, unknown children standing staring in the garden, that sort of thing). This is a standard side-effect of one of the treatments. Her husband took pictures to prove that there was nothing there; she was the images in the pictures too. Fair enough. Then she got treatment, and the hallucinations stopped happening… except that she can still see them in the photographs.
Good lord, that’s creepy!
Poor woman. But a wonderfully creepy idea nonetheless.