Capgras Syndrome: You Are Not Who You Think You Are

not in Quebec, that's right, umque right. This is basically our our Invasion of the Body Snatchers episode podcast that unless we do one on the Invasion of the Body Snatchers,

that's kind of the deal. Though. We're talking today about a very very strange and once thought to be uncommon and rare disorder um a delusional disorder, a delusional misidentification disorder, to be specific, where the sufferer believes that the people in his or her life, people very close to him, have all been replaced by impostors, that they're there, like I'm looking at you right now, Chuck, and you look just like Chuck, and you're doing a great job with

the voice and everything, but like, I don't want to say it, and I don't want to look you in the eye, but like, you're obviously not chucking. What's going on? I think we all feel that about each other occasionally, but imagine like that all the time, Like, how would you just not lose faith in the reality of anything if you thought, first of all, how are people? How are they coming up with great impostors like this? Who is they? Why are they doing this? Why you? Is

it just you? Or it's the whole world? Yeah, it's it's like there's a lot of really weighty questions involved with this, and as a result, science has been trying to really figure out the mystery behind it and has failed thus far. Yeah, and you know we we already should say. It's not only difficult on the person, but it's difficult on the person being misidentified as well. And

you don't really don't hear a lot about that. I read a bunch of articles on this and only one said, and don't forget if someone if your wife thinks that you're an impostor, it's really tough on you as well. Yeah, that just kind of overlooked, Yeah, very much. So. Yeah, so this is actually kind of a newish phenomenon as

far as description goes. UM Dr Copgraw and Dr Rebu last show UM described Madame m who believed that she had as many as eighty husbands, all of them the same, looking the same, but they were all impostors and she never could get close to him because Um, eventually they would just kind of leave and be replaced by a new one. And she was really convinced of this. And I'm sure at the time they thought, what this lady

is just nuts? But then the more people did research, the more they found and I couldn't find any good stats on how rare it is undered thousands and that means nothing. So the one I saw it was in two thousand or six five. I believe the estimate was between one point three to four point one percent of all psychiatric patients have cap Craw And you can probably say that if that's close, then that's probably close to

the general population. Because if you believe that the people who are closest to you in your life are impostors and you're accusing them as such, they're probably gonna force you to go seek psychiatric help. So that would probably be a pretty close statistic for the society. For society at large, and where you really see it though, is in Alzheimer's patients. The statistic was between two and thirty percent of Alzheimer's patients possibly suffer from cop craw or

crab grass. But isn't that just all timers. No, not necessarily Alzheimers. You know, let's it can be forgetfulness. Um, that can be uh, yeah, I guess this orientation. This is the you're accusing your husband, your wife, your son, your daughter of being somebody else, somebody posing it is them. Okay, that makes sense. So this is different than something we've covered face blindness before, right, we talked about it came up in something else, but yeah, maybe we did do

a whole podcast on it. I'm not sure. But that is uh, proso pregnosia, and this is not proso pregnocia. That's when you you can see your face over and over and over and still you just don't know who it is. Right in this case, you know, like, hey,

that's Josh, I'm looking at him. I know that face, but um, they they've done studies with skin conduct conductance is when they're basically measuring the amount of perspiration on your face, which is a it's a measure of the limbics system being active, which is in turn a measure of your emotions going off. Yeah, with the you being that if if you're sweating a little bit on the face, then that is a physiological or psychological queue that like, hey,

look at this picture of your mother. I would recognize that as my mother, and maybe my face will sweat a little bit. Right. If you are what's called a normal if you have propagnosia um you will not recognize that picture intellectually consciously, but your skin conductivity will go off. So that means that the emotional cue is still triggered even though you don't know who you're looking at. That's

the opposite of studies of um cap cross syndrome. Yeah, they'll see a picture and they will not have It's basically like they're looking at a picture of a complete stranger, right, and and they don't have they they don't have that emognized face right exactly, but they don't have an emotional response. Here's the thing. They recognize the face enough to know this is my dad. They are rational enough. That's the

other thing too. Other than this the rational, it's what's called a mono thematic syndrome where you have one delusion and it's a whopper and it basically consumes your whole life. So the irrational otherwise and the rational enough to say, Okay, this is my dad I'm looking at but I don't feel any kind of emotional stimulation from seeing my dad and I should and because I don't, this is an imposter.

That's what they thing is going on. Yeah. One of the common things that the people with the syndrome will say is that like their soul is gone or their soul is missing. That's a different syndrome. No, no no, No, that that's that's linked to cap GRAB because they'll recognize the other person. Yea, the person they're looking at is that's not my mother, that's not there. There would sense my mother's soul, right. So what they think then is that when we this kind of proves that we make

memories two ways that are connected. That we we take in stimuli, right, like visual stimula. I'm looking at you and at the same time I'm looking at Chuck, and I like Chuck. So I'm also kind of taking note that same memory that I'm forming of the visual representation of you also has an attendant um emotion happiness. I like you, so when I see you again, I should feel that same thing happiness. I'm glad to see Chuck.

That is a full memory with cop craw people who suffer that they're missing the emotional aspect and they have the recognition and the vs rama Shan drawn I think I said his name right. He came up in the Mirror Neurons episode. It's just a brilliant genius dude as text maybe I think so, um he he said. Probably. What's happening then is you have a secondary lesion, secondary damage where your your right brain is very analytical and it checks your left brain, which wants to explain everything away.

And if that right brain analysis is damaged, then the left brain can do go to whatever links that wants to to explain a way strange phenomenon. In this case, if you have that disconnect between the um sensory input and emotional aspect of a memory in conjunction with a loss of the right brain checking your delusions, then the left brain is able to go off and say, oh, well it must be an impostor. Yeah, well the emotional side wins out essentially as an explanation to sort of

reconcile those two things. Yeah, because it's missing. It's not deluded. The person is not delusional. It's there's an impostor. Yeah. You know what's really weird is um. Another one of the characteristics sometimes is it can extend to animals and objects as well, So it's not always just people. They can you know, that's my dog, but it's not. I know that chair is not the original chair. Someone came

in here and replaced it an exact replica. Um. And they're not hallucinating, you know, these they're a air of all this stuff. Yeah, and I mean imagine the paranoia that that would generate in you, like, who moved the chair? Who replaced this chair? What's the deal? And um, they found that it's it is co morbid with things like Alzheimer's and schizophrenia as well and other psychotic disorders. Yeah,

and it's it's usually your spouse to um. One article, are it said it's always your spouse is how it starts? Oh yeah, yeah, but I don't know if that's quite right. That seems a little willing nilly to say every single time it starts with your spouse. So let's talk about some of the explanations that science has come up with, um since it was first described in it was right in Freud's wheelhouse. Oh yes, So the psycho analysts had their had the first crack at it and they swung

and missed. Um. They basically said that it was a repressed edipits or electric complex, right yeah, and that that was kind of pooped pretty quickly. Um. They were saying that, you know that you're just trying to resolve guilt about your circumstances, um, identifying your parents. It look alike, and then pretty quickly scientists and you know that it probably doesn't have to do with repressed feelings in this case, done done everybody. Kenneth took his ball and went home.

Yeah he Yeah, he's really been kicked to the has he Yeah, even by psychology. They've turned their backs on him. Yeah yeah, uh psychodynamic approach. Sorry, Um, that was the psychodynamic approach, and that that's like we said, it's kind of been pooh pooed. Well, that was the psychodynamic approach, was the one where it's repressed feelings. Freudian approach was that you wanted to have sex with your mom, so you so you resolved that the guilt from that by saying,

my mom, you're not my mom, you're an imposter. So but I want to have sex with you, and that's okay. I mean the Glenn Miller version of the mood I feel really guilty. Um. Again, again we should say that one was thrown out. A lot of researchers think that it's a result of an actual organic cause, something physically

wrong with the brain, which makes sense to me. UM. They look for lesions, UM, cerebral dysfunction, signs of atrophy, and like you mentioned, it is also co morbid a lot of time with psychotic disorders UM, epilepsy, even Alzheimer's, and you mentioned schizophrenia, which makes sense. I think bipolar

is on there as well. Yeah, so other doctors say, you know what, it might be a combination of these things, like physical and cognitive causes, Like you have some sort of organic damage, but then you're you're mentally you're rationalizing it inappropriately, like you can't accept that you're delusional because of any sort of brain damage. You're projecting it's everyone else is an impostor. But that would be a combination of mental and physical. And again it's your brain trying

to explain something that doesn't quite add up in your head. Yeah, So what's clear is there's a breakdown and communication. There is UM somewhere in the brain. It's they Rama Shandron, Um and his partner. I don't want to just call out the star, but Hrstein and Rama Shandron did a

paper in nineties seven that was pretty interesting. They consider it a problem of memory management, wherein, like you or I, if if our brain is to be um, if it's a computer, look it as a computer, right, UM, when we see somebody or meet somebody, we create a file on that person, and then when we encounter that person again, we access the same file and then add to it.

But it's the same file. What Rama Shandron and her Stein we're proposing was that, uh, people who have cop craw make a new file every time for the same person. But there's also there has to be some sort of link between these files. I don't think that's necessarily an app description. I think there are more onto it with

it's just missing. It's the same file it's just missing something that the patient senses is missing, the void there and they're saying, well, I'm missing something because you're an imposter and I don't really know you, like some sort of emotional identification marker. UM. This is really interesting to me. They have studies that showed that UM blind people. It can actually extend to their voice of the person. But other times they've shown that they recognized them on the

phone but not in person. Yeah, that was a dude named DS. That Rama Shan Dron. It can be both. He could his was UM. The only modality is what they call it. For his UM. His delusion was visual. So like when he saw his parents, his dad was not his dad, and actually his dad was pretty cool. His dad one day UM the DS was a thirty year old Brazilian guy who got into a car accident and started suffering cap gross syndrome and UM. His parents started to get really worried didn't know what to do.

So his dad one day came in and declared that the man who had been replacing him as an impostor, he had sent him away to China and he would never return. And I'm your father and I'm back and it worked for a couple of weeks, and then it just went back the The guy became convinced that no, the impostors back. He had cap Cross syndrome so bad that he came to believe that he himself was an impostor, and he asked his mother, when the real DS returns, what you still love me and treat me as your friend?

Can I still stay around? And she said, I don't know who you are. So this guy thought, um, everything including himself, was an impostor. I thought there were two Panamas that he'd been to recently, thought there were two United States, there were doubles for everything, and um. When he talked to his parents on the phone, though that he didn't suffer that delusion. It was strict dad, where like, there's this other guy here pretending to be you. Oh, I I don't know. He would like he didn't hide

it from what I understand. Interesting, which is something that's probably healthy if you have cap Grafs syndrome, because there is UM. There have been instances of violence with cap Cress syndrome. Yeah. This one guy thought a robot had replaced his father, so he decapitated his father to look for the robot. Inside. UM. A woman in a mental institution killed another patient because she thought that she was

going to kill her double, her daughter's double. So she was actually protecting the impostor from somebody who she didn't necessarily think was an impostor. It's very interesting. So as far as treating this, there's you know, since it's pretty rare, there's not a lot of you know, prescribed regular treatments. UM. Sometimes it goes away, it doesn't. Yeah. Sometimes if it's like a physical brain trauma, uh, you can re establish that connection and and things start firing correctly again, and

it just kind of disappears. I wonder when you come out of it, Chuck, like, do you feel like, wow, that was really crazy what I used to think? Or do you feel like all the impostors have left in all of my families back now? Oh? I don't know. That's weird. Another thing that they say, if it's linked to a mental disorder, sometimes it can be helped by medication that would also help that mental disorder. UM, but they're really for most people there is no treatment, uh,

and there is no cure. I think it's just probably a long series of of sessions on the couch. You know what I'm saying, But I mean, how do you forge trust that's it, you know, in somebody when you which is required to say, Okay, it's me, everyone's not impostors. I have a false belief when ultimately, if the closer you get to, say, like your therapist, the more likely you are to come to believe that they are going to be replaced by an impostor. This is a sad condition.

So let's talk about some mother Stag conditions too that are similar. I mean, it's a it's a delusional misidentification syndrome. It also falls under the umbrella of reduplicative para amnesia in a while, Uh yeah, it's a mouthful. So another similar one is the Fregoli system and it was named after Leopoldo Fregoli. He was a quick change artist and that leads you to believe that people around you are

people in disguise, so not replacements. But hey, I know that you should be my dentist, but you're really my sister in disguise as my dentist. Yeah. It's like over recognition, like everyone in your life that you see and interact with on a daily basis, like your your dentist or somebody on the subway or whatever is actually somebody very close to you dressed up in disguise. Coutard syndrome. That is a belief that you are missing body parts or

you are emotionally dead. And sometimes they think like my heart doesn't beat, or I don't have bones, or I don't exist any longer. And it's not I mean, these are people that really feel this way. It's pretty much like the psychological manifestation of an existential crisis. Yeah, like do you think your brain is rotting inside of you and like you're dead? I mean, you don't feel anything.

What about inter metamorphosis? This one's odd. It's kind of like, um, it's kind of like cop graft syndrome, but it's it's more complete like the and it's not imposters. It's people close to you switching. Just your brothers now your father psychologically and physically, the whole ball of ax. Like apparently you see them, like when you're interacting with your father, you see and think you're interacting with your brother if

they've switched. Yes, Wow. Indeed. The thing about this though, and you kind of get this from the Ramashan Drum paper which I strongly recommend reading. It's it's only like nine pages. It's pretty interesting stuff is Every once in a while he comes he pulls back and he's like, can you f and believe the brain? Yeah? It is incredible what what it can do? And when it malfunctions? Man,

can it ever a malfunction? But he's pointing out that, like, through these really really rare cases, um, you can start to get a glimpse in how we form memories and how we retrieve memories, and to better understand human consciousness through you know, these these very unique, unusual patients. Yeah.

I'd like to think at the end of our run, you know, in fifty years, we're gonna have a nice body of work on the brain for people to pick and choose and you know, from like alien hand to cap craw to how memories are formed and how you taste and the brain. Yeah, it's just pretty amazing stuff. I know you take it, taste delicious, it's it's our I think it's probably our favorite topic. Did you just say fifty years? Yeah? Man, hey, I going for you. Have you seen the impostor Ah? Yeah, I think I

talked about it before too. It's good documentary. Good documentary. Go check that one out. Yeah. Uh, And you got anything else on cap graw No, sir, okay, cap craw crab grass cap grass, COUDI gras butter all those things. Type them into the search bar how stuff works dot com and it may or may not bring up this article. At least a couple of them will. Uh. And since I said, um, search bar, let's have a let's take a message break and now listener, Yes, buddy, I'm gonna

call this one. Email from a former Mormon, former Mormon foreman before Norman. Uh. Hey, guys and Jarious listening to the podcast on marriage. Want to give you some information on Mormon marriage. Though the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints no longer practices nor supports the secular act of mirroring multiple spouses, men can still be sealed

to multiple women. And I'll try and explain sealing to you, But even though I was raised a member of the church, the details are a little bit fuzzy because he's been out for a little while. Uh. Those ceiling is related to marriage and takes place at the same time. It is a separate ordinance where marriage insures that a couple receives all the legal benefits promised by the government. Sealing insures all of the religious benefits promised by the Lord.

That was a good preacher, Thank you. The two main benefits that I can remember are one, the sealed persons will be together for all time and eternity. And to the sealed persons will enter into the highest level of heaven of the three, it's just three levels. I found out a man can be sealed the multiple women when my parents went through their divorce. Even though they went through the legal process of divorce, they never had their

sealing nullified. When my dad remarried, he was sealed to my stepmother and to my biological mother at the same time. Later on, when my mom remarried, she had to nullify her sealing to my father because women are not allowed to be sealed to multiple men, only men to multiple women. Furthermore, my new stepfather was sealed to his late wife when he married my mother and he still is to this day. Yeah,

my intentions aren't to bash the church in any way. Um, but that fact that the fact that men can be sealed to multiple women is a little known fact that most people inside and outside the Church. Uh, the church's practice of polygamy doesn't bother me anymore. Educated consenting adults should be allowed to be with the ones they love in my opinion, and that's his opinion. I am bothered by the fact that they don't inform people of their

policy on being sealed to multiple spouses. That's all I've got. Guys on Mormons in marriage. No longer remember the church, but I still find the religion and culture very fascinating. A podcast on how the Church of Jesus Christ at Saturday Scenes works would be amazing. And that is from Ethan even Clark. Yeah, long lost brother, and we've been asked by many uh Mormons and members of that church to do one on their religion. So we've got a whole we have a whole queue of ones that we

have to do. That's kind of piling up. It's like before we hit the fifty year mark. Let's just like one after any other, the never ending cycle. We will add it to the cycle, the never ending cycle starting a tray you Uh. If you want to suggest a podcast and accompany it with the story or some outsiders former insider analysis, um, we want to hear it. You can tweet to us at s Y s K podcast, Join us on Facebook dot com, slash stuff you Should Know.

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