The man who believes he is dead

摘要

Nine years ago, Graham woke up and discovered he was dead. Graham was in the grip of Cotard's syndrome, a condition characterised by the belief that the body or parts of it no longer exist. Now a positron emission tomography (PET) scan of his brain - the first of its kind in someone with this disorder- has revealed unique information about how the brain constructs consciousness. Suffering from severe depression, Graham had tried to commit suicide by getting into the bath with a live electrical appliance. Eight months later, he told his doctor that his brain had died or was, at best, missing. "It's really hard to explain," he says. "I just felt like my brain didn't exist any more. I'd fried it in the bath."