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Capragras delusion

Capgras Delusion

Capgras delusion is a rare psychological condition in which sufferers become convinced that the people around them have been replaced by exact copies. It's a trope we see in stories time and time again — as NPR pointed out back in 2010, Invasion of the Body Snatchers is probably the most well-known example — but the scariest thing about it is that it's absolutely, 100 percent real.

It is most commonly found in persons suffering from schizophrenia, but can also be found in those suffering from dementia.
The delusion is named after Joseph Capgras, a French doctor who first described the experiences of one of his patients, a woman in 1923 who believed that her family members were replaced by other people.

Schizophrenia is a serious disorder which affects how a person thinks, feels and acts. Someone with schizophrenia may have difficulty distinguishing between what is real and what is imaginary; may be unresponsive or withdrawn; and may have difficulty expressing normal emotions in social situations.

Written by Stephan D. Harris in 2012 (apparently a bumper year for Internet horror stories), this tale is about a kid using an imaginary friend to keep the darkness at bay. The imaginary friend is a sock puppet–like being that the child sews himself—at best an ugly-cute creation that you would expect a six-year-old to be able to make. It does keep the darkness at bay, until the day the kid loses his first tooth. His doll says he wants it, and the kid is happy to oblige. Apparently, Ickbarr Bigelsteine is very fond of the teeth. He wants the kid to keep providing them. When the kid runs out of his own teeth, he has to get more if he doesn’t want Bigelsteine to bring him into a nightmarish world.

Seemingly about a person suffering from schizophrenia, the story has an especially unpleasant resonance for many parents. This is because children with imaginary friends often say things their parents really don’t want to hear. Yet they should definitely pay attention to what their children say. Take January Schofield, who claimed that her imaginary friends—“400 the Cat” and “Wednesday the Rat”—were telling her to kill the family dog and to jump from buildings. Ickbarr Bigelsteine and his equivalents aren’t real, but the danger they represent is.