The mysterious case of a young woman who started to believe one day that she was a character in 'The Walking Dead.'
Lauren Kane* was exceptionally bright and an academic force. In college she started to write about atypical families—stories of adopted children, single parents, step-parents, and found parents. But everything changed one August morning in 2016 soon after she graduated. She woke up early and went downstairs, where her mother was preparing breakfast. Clutching mugs of coffee, the women chatted while sausages and eggs crackled in the frying pan.
“Don’t you see it, she’s a walker,” Lauren yelled, pointing at one of the guards. A page rang out overhead, calling for reinforcements. Days passed with little progress toward making a diagnosis. Lauren’s doctors tested her for seizures, strokes, and infections. Everything was negative. According to blood tests and brain scans, she was normal.
As Lauren’s world morphed into that of The Walking Dead, her mother’s world narrowed to Lauren’s 9-by-9 hospital room. A plastic chair that had been crammed into the space became her official place in the world. Day and night, she kept watch over her daughter, hoping one of the always answerless doctors would burst into the room and announce the reason for Lauren’s illness.
In the 1950s, chemists at a drug company in Detroit began looking for a solution. They collected molecules they thought could be useful for sedating people, then set out to modify each compound and observe the effects. They added and subtracted carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen atoms. They stirred ingredients together, dried them under a vacuum, heated them, cooled them, and filtered them. Finally, they infused the modified substances into laboratory mice, cats, hamsters, dogs, and fish.
Within months of the drug’s release, stories of Sernyl-induced hallucinations proliferated. Some patients felt they were floating in outer space without arms or legs. A third of patients experienced confusion and agitation as the drug wore off. Doctors described “maniacal excitement” as patients became “noisy and abusive.” People who had no predilection for violence became physically threatening to hospital staff and family members.
Lauren Kane had not used PCP, but her body had created a protein—an antibody—that caused the same effect. The antibody stuck to her NMDA receptors and prevented the tunnels from opening. As a result, she was launched into the same dissociated reality that PCP users experience, with one notable exception: The effect of PCP wears off within a few days, but Lauren’s intoxication lasted for months.
The situation can get even worse. When an antibody recognizes its target, our immune system scurries into action, creating new antibodies that are more and more potent. In fighting infections or receiving a vaccine, our ability to develop better antibodies is beneficial, since repeated exposure to a germ or an inoculation causes us to create even more effective antibodies. But when it comes to autoimmune diseases like the one that afflicted Lauren, the pathway becomes a point of vulnerability.
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Psychology Today Magazine March 2022Don’t miss our new issue—available today! Read about the mysterious case of a young woman who believed she was in a TV show, how to watch out for psychological woo-woo, and the surprisingly normal parts of life that you can use to your benefit.
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