Patient 031571

Case study 002586.2/5

Bethlehem Hospital, London

Attending Physician: Dr. Mihelic

The patient seems to be responding to the stimuli that have been presented him, albeit in an unorthodox manner. His blood pressure responds in an inverse pattern against what would be experimentally expected. In the last test, we sent him out to collect some items from the scraps of his house fire, which is the inciting incident in the patient’s psychosis. He gathered a small handful of items, which had no seeming connection, but my colleague, Dr. Seelbach, wants to find patterns in everything, so he gathered some wild hypothesis about the connection between the items. (For further reading, see case study 002586.2/1)
Under observation, the patient gathered what was closest to him, relatively intact. We would naturally not expect him to collect the charred remnants of his bed, nor would we expect him to bring out something unidentifiable, but the stimuli was to enhance sentimental emotions, trigger nostalgia for the better times, but this had no effect. He gathered, in order: a pair of black aviator sunglasses; an empty package of Marlboro Light cigarettes; a twenty-four pack of Crayola Crayons; a novelty set of glasses, complete with a large nose and fuzzy eyebrows, in the Groucho Marx mold; a tin button in support of the ACLU; an empty can of the energy drink RedBull; and a full pack of matches, advertising the local sports bar BW3.
Upon questioning about the relevance of the items collected, the patient could not identify the impulse behind the collection of the group of items that he grabbed. We suspect that his malaise created a lack of impetus in him, and that he grabbed whatever was closest, and easily identifiable as a cultural item, since five of the seven items were advertisement of some sort, and the other two involve the eyes, we think the patient’s subconscious is making some sort of statement about the reality of perception in today’s cultural marketplace. We will follow this case in detail, as the patient is of mush interest to the researchers here.