Empty Space

I remember my seventh grade social studies teacher walking into class one day and saying he read an article about a theory that the world only exists in our minds.  He said that some “crazy people” believe that everything that happens to us is just a figment of  our imaginations. So, being the over-thinking person that I am, I pictured something like The Matrix: our bodies are asleep somewhere and our minds are fabricating our entire lives. Or, worse yet, we don’t have bodies and our minds are nothing but blots of dust floating through empty space. It sounds ridiculous, I know, but ever since seventh grade, I haven’t been able to completely shake this idea from my mind.

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This theory is known as solipsism, which was philosophized by René Descartes several centuries ago (even further back by Greek philosophers as well). In his book, Rationalized Epistemology: Taking Solipsism Seriously, Albert. A. Johnstone presents his readers with two important solipsistic ideas:

The first problem (the one commonly associated with Descartes) is whether the world is real rather than a dream or personal illusion, or the conjuration of a devious demon bent upon deceit. The second problem is whether things in the world (and indeed the world itself) continue to exist when not perceived by oneself….Each raises one form of a question which would have made an appropriate title for this work, ‘Does the World Exist?’ (Johnstone xi)

Essentially, Descartes said that we only know for certain that the self exists, and everything else is some form of falsity (Johnstone 2). Then, there is the idea that things no longer exist when one isn’t looking at them. The old question of “If a tree falls in the forest…” or more distinctly, a quote Johnstone mentions by Bertrand Russell, “tables, whenever no one is looking, turn into kangaroos” (Johnstone 7). Many people dispute solipsism because it causes them to question their core belief that at least their surroundings are permanent (Johnstone 23). But, is there a way to truly disprove the entire theory? Not really, because “nothing is provable or disprovable,” according to Robert G. Brown who we will later explore as a solipsism skeptic.

The Matrix movies present a slightly different take on solipsistic ideals. While solipsism often argues that the self alone exists in a world he/she is creating, The Matrix presents the idea that other people are programming the fake world around the self. This may be the modern take on Descartes’ musing that a demon has created his world as a trick. An article on the Discover Magazine website discusses the studies, improbabilities, and probabilities of a Matrix-like universe existing. The author, Zeeya Merali, said a quantum-mechanical engineer at MIT named Seth Lloyd calculated a number for every event that has happened since the Big Bang, and concluded that the universe does not have enough energy to have performed those tasks for both the “real” world, as well as an artificial one. So, that’s comforting. However, others realized that there wouldn’t need to be an exact copy of the universe and all of its events, it could be missing things like the “farthest stars [which] might only be filled in by the programmers on the rare occasions that people study them with scientific equipment” (Merali). Again, we have the idea that things only exist while we’re looking at them.

Is there anyway to know the truth?   

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I often describe feeling “cloudy” or “out of it” when I feel anxious, sad, tired, or just not myself. Sometimes I literally feel like I’m sitting inside of a cloud during a drizzly rain shower and my vision is becoming less clear, and my head is getting jostled around just enough for me to be unable to think straight.  I don’t think my terrible eyesight helps much either. I could also describe the feeling through glasses as my head being in a bottle, and I’m breathing too heavily inside and causing the corrective lenses to fog up; I can almost see the condensation droplets in my vision. What explains this phenomena? Well, I can blame it on all kinds of outside factors, but there’s a point when I have to accept that feeling not quite yourself sometimes is just human. Or, you know, my body lying outside of The Matrix could be trying to wake up and the foggy feeling is this dream world starting to slip away.

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Merali writes that John. D. Barrow of Cambridge University said that if the simulation of reality were actually imperfect, we would notice glitches like a computer game. Barrows said that there are certain aspects of nature that are supposed to be static, but they would slowly slip  away from their “constant” values if they were not constantly undergoing upkeep procedures.

However, Merali says, a few weeks before the release of The Matrix in 1999, astronomers “found that the value of the fine-structure constant — which determines how the galaxies’ light should appear — is one thousandth of a percent bigger today than it was 10 billion years ago.” Also, in 2011, physicists “claimed to have measured subatomic particles called neutrinos traveling faster than the speed of light, considered the universal speed limit.” So, maybe these natural “norms” really aren’t as stable as we once thought. Sure, this is evidence that a glitching simulation of our world may be present, but it also doesn’t prove anything.

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Whenever I close my eyes at night, everything I envision is disproportionate. For some reason, I can’t picture a person without a balloon head a toothpick body. If I shift the weight to make it right, their feet blow up instead. If I picture my room, my bed takes up half of it. One flower in the vase of dead roses comes to life and blooms until it tips the vase over and the crunchy leaves and petals that I try to preserve spill out onto the floor. If I assume the theory of solipsism or The Matrix, this would mean that there three planes. One in the “real world” (if it exists at all), one in the made up mind world, and one within the latter of imagination and dreams…And that one may even divide further. What happens when we dream within a dream? Are we dreaming within a dream within a dream?

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Johnstone tells us that Descartes questioned whether or not the world is all a dream. “Surely he would be mad, Descartes tells himself, to doubt that he is sitting by the fire with a piece of paper in his hands, and yet, he reflects, he has often been convinced of just such things in dreams.” Descartes also says there are “‘never any sure signs’ for distinguishing waking from dreaming” (Johnstone 5).

In “A Vindication of Solipsism,” Pravas Jivan Choudhury affirms the idea of everything being a dream by asking his readers if they have ever experienced a moment in life that transcended all practicality and only had aesthetic value? This is where he believes we are able to see through the dream. “And are not the moments of this aesthetic attitude really lucid ones in our life, when, as it were, we see through the world and life and find them as objects more to amuse ourselves with than to be seriously bothered about?” (Choudhury 384) He argues that our minds are constantly searching for all that is real, so both good and bad things happen to us because our dream-states have no idea where to look and are “haphazardly” wandering (Choudhury 384). He seems to think we are constantly dreaming, and he knows this because when we find these artistic, beautiful moments, they are “lucid” and we can see that they are unimportant, too perfect, and therefore, can’t possibly be real.

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No matter how hard to try avoid it, sometimes I can’t help but think that when something bad happens, it’s my fault because I made it up in my mind. I often question this belief, though, when I see terrible things happen in the news. Do I truly have the brain capacity to make up those attacks in Paris?

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These are the kinds of ideas that cause most people to immediately reject solipsism. Robert G. Brown challenges how, “My perceptions of what is nearby are so limited, but my perceptions of what is going on thousands of miles away through the glass teat of a television tube are crystal clear, complex, different, and correspond perfectly to what I see when I visit Paris, the Parthenon, India.” He, too, wonders how we can know what’s happening on the other side of the world — and adds that we may know through television — but not what’s going on down the hallway right now. The hallway, I guess, could just be nonexistent as I am currently not there or in site of it.

Brown also says that if we are “figments” of our own imagination, then we have split ourselves into at least two beings or “personalities” who are somehow unaware of each other — the artist and the audience. He says, “The artist that is constantly making up the story that I find myself embedded in, and the audience (the “me” that is typing this on what appears to be a laptop computer obviously created by my artistic half)” (Brown). He asks, how can he be two selves at once who are completely unaware of each other?

Johnstone also lists several skeptic arguments. Notably, it is “an irrational demand for the impossible,” a “ covert self-contradiction, or denying its own factual and conceptual presuppositions,” and “incapable of being sincerely believed” (Johnstone 3). There is also the idea that the theory is “irrelevant to practical concerns” anyway. While discussing the theory, a friend of mine said, “So what if it is all a dream? It’s not going to change anything. I’m happy with my life.” And that’s true; if we knew that our lives were all fake and our friends and relatives were only illusions we created in our dreams, then we would be irrevocably alone and unable to live happy “lives” any longer.

All of this taken into account, I will still on occasion wonder if the stars disappear when I’m not stargazing, or if tables really do turn into kangaroos when I’m not looking. I may also contemplate whether or not the elated feeling I get when it’s beautiful outside is a hoax due to my mind’s haphazard wandering.

Works Cited

Brown, Robert G. “Why Solipsism Is Bullshit.” Duke University Department of Physics. Duke University, 17 Dec. 2007. Web. 31 Mar. 2016.

Choudhury, Pravas Jivan. “Vindication of Solipsism”. The Review of Metaphysics 6.3 (1953): 381–385. Web..

Johnstone, Albert A. Rationalized Epistemology: Taking Solipsism Seriously. Albany: State U of New York, 1991. Print.

Merali, Zeeya. “Do We Live in the Matrix?” Discover Magazine. N.p., 15 Nov. 2013. Web. 31 Mar. 2016.

Vampires: Fact and Fiction

URGENT NOTES:  

• There’s a psychological disorder called Clinical Vampirism or Renfield’s Syndrome—named after a character in Stoker’s Dracula who “ate flies, spiders, and birds because he longed for their life source” (Oppawasky 59)

• “You put a candle, coin, and towel into the hand of a dead person, so that he won’t turn into a strigoi [Romanian vampire]. It is also a good idea to pierce the dead man’s skin with a needle If a corps has even a small hole in its skin, it cannot become a strigoi. (recorded 3/27/1937)” (Perkowski 37).

In the past two decades, vampires have become popular in entertainment. From television shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer to an outbreak of  paranormal romance novels, vampires are the new craze. But, these modern tales didn’t start it all, vampires have been haunting folklore and history since the 1500s or earlier. Included in this history is  psychological disorder called Clinical Vampirism or Renfield’s Syndrome—named after a character in Stoker’s Dracula who “ate flies, spiders, and birds because he longed for their life source” (Oppawasky 59) . Sure, we can fantasize about dating a vampire or even being immortal, but what happens when someone turns to drinking actual blood? Clinical vampires are typically born from an underlying mental illness (usually Schizophrenia) and an obsession with vampire pop culture (Oppawasky 61). I aim to present the ways in which Clinical Vampirism is similar and dissimilar to vampire stories in folklore, movies, and television.

Clinical Vampirism is a rare psychological disorder in which the typically male patient believes he’s a vampire. He drinks blood compulsively and has an obsession with death. He believes that drinking blood or injecting blood into himself will either make him immortal or improve his health and power (Oppawasky 60). For a more concise definition, “Hemphill and Zabow attempt to define vampirism closely to the Dracula myth as a recognizable, although rare, clinical entity characterized by periodic compulsive blood-drinking, affinity with the dead, and uncertain identity” (Jaffé and Dicataldo 147).

In pop culture, vampires are typically very attractive, human-like beings that blend into society. Usually, instead of being monsters without souls, they find ways to live like humans (e.g. Twilight). They steal bags of blood from hospitals to avoid sucking it straight from the source (Being Human), or drink a synthetic substance called True Blood. In Buffy, they are portrayed as savages, but there are exceptions — curses that restore their souls or chips implanted in their brains that cause them pain when they try to hurt humans. They can also create and be created by other vampires.  They are intelligent and strong and everyone wants to be them, or date them. People with Renfield’s Syndrome aspire to be these cool, desirable men:

Vladimir B. (name changed), Vlad for short, a tall, thin Caucasian 36-year-old male, entered the therapy room dressed in black from head to toe. He had on a black bandanna and wore black sunglasses in black frames. He wore a black long-sleeved shirt, black pants, and black shoes and socks. He wore a black fanny pack around his waist. When asked if he came on his bike, he said, “No, I’m a vampire.” In a provocative tone, he said that the fanny pack held his vampire paraphernalia. (Oppawasky 61)

Vladimir B. seems to want to be one of those brooding male vampires smoking in the darkness in his leather jacket. The sun hurts his eyes, or burns his skin (depending on the story), so he has to include those black frames. Not to mention his “provocative tone” used to try to lure his psychotherapist in with his sensual personality.

In folklore, however, none of this is the case. Vampires in folklore are obsessive compulsive. “One may also offer the dead a peaceful occupation by putting quantities of sand and poppy seed into the coffin. The sand and poppy seed must be counted grain by grain before the vampire can leave its coffin” (Oinas 49). Because of their obsessive qualities, they will have to lay there and count every grain of sand or each seed before they can even start digging. This can be related to the way clinical vampires are also obsessive. Vlad B. attended “psychiatric sessions to help him deal with his ‘addictive behavior’ and his ‘compulsive blood-drinking behavior’” (Oppawasky 62). Regardless of the implementation, both types of vampires are inherently obsessive and compulsive. They must either count each poppy seed, or drink human blood before starting their days.

The way someone becomes a vampire is also different in folklore. They are not turned by others, they become vampires when they die based on their lives or the circumstances of their deaths. Vampires can be created when a cat or dog walks over a dead body, because a person never married, or because the burier forget to make a pinhole in the dead person’s stomach (Perkowski 36-40). There seem to be more ways for one to become a vampire than to stay dead. In folklore, the risen vampire is always malicious. They may pretend to be kind, but they always come back to murder their families and everyone who was close to them in life. “He tries to feed on his relatives, to draw them to the grave” (Perkowski 39). The folkloric ways of vampire creation and after-death habits don’t seem to apply with clinical vampires — except maybe trying to draw more members into the vampire “peer group” in order to feel more “normal” (Oppawasky 62). Clinical vampires have no origin stories and seem to simply exist.

Clinical Vampirism may be rare and bizarre, but it can be a fatal psychological disorder. Vlad in the Oppawasky article had symptoms of a specific type of clinical vampirism called “auto vampirism.” This is characterized by self mutilation, suicide, and drinking one’s own blood. These people don’t typically hurt other people, but treat themselves as vampires. In one case a woman in the hospital kept vomiting blood and doctors couldn’t figure out why. They later discovered that she had been biting the back of her tongue and sucking blood from it. She would also remove the transfusion IV from her arm and drink blood from it instead. This woman eventually died from anemia because she drank more blood than was flowing through her veins (Jaffé and Dicataldo 148). Despite comparisons between folklore and pop culture, Clinical Vampirism is a serious mental illness that isn’t widely known or acknowledged.

Oppawasky says, “Peer-reviewed articles and research on Renfield’s syndrome would promote awareness among therapists of a possible hidden number of clients who may participate in vampiristic behaviors” (63).

 

Works Cited

Jaffé, Philip D., and Frank Dicataldo. “Clinical Vampirism: Blending Myth and Reality.” Dundes, Alan, ed. Vampire : A Casebook. Madison, WI, USA: University of Wisconsin Press, 1998. 143-58. ProQuest ebrary. Web. 21 March 2016.

Oinas, Felix. “Eastern European Vampires.” Dundes, Alan, ed. Vampire : A Casebook. Madison, WI, USA: University of Wisconsin Press, 1998. 47-56. ProQuest ebrary. Web. 21 March 2016.

Oppawasky, Jolene. “Vampirism.” Annals of Internal Medicine (2010): 58-63. EBSCO. Web. 21 Mar. 2016.

Perkowski, Jan Louis. “The Romanian Folkloric Vampire.” Dundes, Alan, ed. Vampire : A Casebook. Madison, WI, USA: University of Wisconsin Press, 1998. 35-46. ProQuest ebrary. Web. 21 March 2016.

 

A Reason to Write

Throughout college, I’ve felt like I needed to be given a reason to write. As a creative writing major, I waited for professors to give me prompts or 5-10 page assignments about “adversity” or an entire portfolio filled with words about my evolution as an English major at Ohio Wesleyan. If I had an idea of my own (and I do quite often), I tried to figure out how it could work for a piece in a current or future class — because what else would I do with writing if not submit it for a grade? Now, as I’m searching for a job, I find that the applications often ask for a link to my blog or website. I ignored the first few, but then it started to hit me: This is what I can do with my writing!

I used to be a short story writer — I even tried to write a novel about acid rain that is now a 42-page draft on my Google Drive. I was a fiction writer, until I learned that essays were much more than 5 obligatory paragraphs about 500 pages of obligatory reading. A nonfiction writer named Leslie Jamison came to my school last semester as the Carpenter Lecturer, and she talked about her essays and writing process. Her work is about bizarre topics from Morgellons Disease (an ailment that causes the sufferer to believe threads, bugs, and other foreign objects are inside of them and coming out through their skin) to the Barkley Marathons (a marathon of about 160 miles that takes place every year in Frozen Head State Park in Tennessee). I went to see her speak at two separate events and was so invested in her work and advice that I was persuaded to cross the line between fiction and nonfiction. She said nonfiction writing is still storytelling, the only difference is that the facts aren’t made up — you have to dig to find them.

So I’m here now, with a blog, domain, whale logo, and an introductory statement…what’s next? I hope to fill these web pages with interesting essays about weird topics and oddities — Jamison taught me that there are things out there no one even knows or thinks about — and maybe even personal stories and explorations. And while I, as a student, don’t have the time to travel somewhere on a whim in search of experience and interviews for a fantastic story idea, I do have a blog. In On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, Stephen King said, “The scariest moment is always just before you start.” And I feel that fear now, but he also said, “Just remember that Dumbo didn’t need the feather; the magic was in him.” And that gives me hope that, at the very least, my ears could turn into wings.