Man Thinks He's in Video Game, Gets Sent to the Crazy House
Forget video game addiction... what if you think you're IN a video game? In 2001, the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine reported a man was arrested for stealing cars and assaulting people with weapons. Now that doesn't seem so strange, right? Well after he was found to be "acting in a bizarre manner," he was sent to a psychiatric ward because he thought he was inside a "computer game":
At interview he was found to be experiencing the delusion that he was a player inside a computer game (adult-certificate game, widely available) in which points are scored for stealing cars, killing assailants and avoiding police vehicles. ... He broke into a car and drove off at speed, believing he had 'invulnerable' fuel and so could not run out of petrol. To gain points he chose to steal increasingly powerful vehicles, threatening and assaulting the owners with weapons. Later he said he would have had no regrets if he had killed someone, since this would have increased his score.
Sounds like Grand Theft Auto doesn't it? (Remember: GTA III came out in 2001.) The man was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and was also forbidden to play any more "computer games." Good call.
Computer game delusions [JRSM]
[via Boing Boing]
Lazy Panda
Posted to Hot Stuff, Video Games on 30 June 2007
· Comments (9)
Other stuff like this: grand theft auto, journal of the royal society of medicine, mental health, paranoid schizophrenia
That's pretty funny, but how exactly is the word "speed" misspelled or misused?
It confirms my belief that people are odd. And yeah... why have you added [sic] to "drove off at speed"?
It's acceptable British grammar.
I once thought I was stuck in the "Super Princess Peach" game, but it turns out I wasn't.
A similar but less violent case: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/6425333.stm
You earn points in GTA?
I once thought I was in a video game. It was during a math test and I had stayed up all night playing Legend of the Dragoon and insisted I take my test to the next town. I failed miserably, by the way.
Why is it people always pretend to be in GTA? I know its a popular game, but if this is a TRUE disorder, wouldn't other games be emulated?
I'm just waiting for some guy to be picked up for ramming his head into bricks and stomping on turtles.
Y'know, I think I'll start to worry when people think they're actually in Silent Hill more than when they think they're in GTA...
I'd love for someone to think they were Samus.
"pew pew! pew pew! BALL!"