More than a decade ago, in a sleepy little town in western Michigan, a man named Harold couldn’t shake the sneaking suspicion that the world wasn’t as it seemed to be. 

There were little things — things that had bugged Harold for years. The way he and his wife had met. The ongoing interpersonal conflicts he was having with a few co-workers. An off-hand comment his mother had made last Thanksgiving. Individually, these little things didn’t amount to much. But when added together, Harold had reached a chilling conclusion about the world and his place in it. 

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You see, Harold had come to suspect that he was unknowingly the star of a reality television show. His wife, parents, family, and friends — Harold believed they were all paid actors. Every person that he came into contact with, every word spoken to him, every daily predicament he found himself in, these were all carefully scripted segments developed by a television network. 

When he raised this conclusion to his wife and parents, they were taken back. They suggested that he talk to a psychiatrist. But that only made Harold more suspicious. 

Harold pieced together a few more clues. Soon, he posited, a woman would be waiting for him at the United Nations Embassy in New York City. She was the only person who could free him from the nonstop programming of his daily routines. He packed his bags. He drove through the night. 

The next morning, Harold approached the security officers at the entrance of the UN. He explained who he was and that a woman would be waiting for him inside. He even had her name. 

The officers looked up the woman’s name. Bewildered, they conferred with their bosses. They escorted Harold to a private car. He was driven about two miles from the UN until the car suddenly stopped in front of an imposing building. He gazed out the window. 

Harold had been taken to Bellevue Hospital. He was experiencing delusions. 

The story I just told you was fictionalized, but it was inspired by a compilation of real-life accounts from individuals who have experienced what is now known as The Truman Show Delusion. In 2012, in the medical journal Cognitive Neuropsychiatry, researchers Joel and Ian Gold defined it as “a novel delusion… in which the patient believes that s/he is being filmed and that the films are being broadcast for the entertainment of others.” It’s named after Peter Weir’s 1998 film, The Truman Show, which told the fictional story of Truman Burbank (Jim Carrey), who discovered everyone around him was a paid actor and that his life was being played out on a soundstage for the world to watch. 

Delusions are emphatic reminders of the power the mind has over the body. And The Truman Show Delusion is particularly engrossing because its discovery sparked more questions than it answered. Did this delusion exist before the film was made? What, therefore, is the media’s role in creating, perpetuating, or normalizing delusional thoughts? 

University of Oxford clinical psychologist Daniel Freeman believes delusions have three main criteria: “… that [they are] false, impossible, or incredible; that [they are] held with a high degree of conviction; and that [they] tend to remain despite evidence current to the contrary.” Dean Burnett, a neuroscientist, says that delusions “happen when, due to illness or other disruption… things we perceive that would usually be dismissed as innocuous or irrelevant end up being processed as far more significant, and our belief system alters to accommodate it.” 

Perhaps you believe your thoughts and behaviors share very little in common with those of someone like Harold. You may be right. Delusions, after all, are often a very serious symptom of an underlying mental health disorder. Because of this, they tend to be among the most stigmatized of psychological manifestations. But does our society view all delusions as equal? 

In 1948, psychologist B.F. Skinner published a breakthrough study in understanding how fallacious thinking can misguide our behavior. What made this study all the more fascinating was that it came not out of observing humans, but pigeons. Skinner set up the pigeons’ feed on a scheduled timer (at a predisposed time each day, an automated feeder would dispense the food), and he discovered that the pigeons would repeat a set of ritualistic behaviors right before the food was dispensed. One would pace in the same path; another would swing its head in a pendulum motion. It appeared that the pigeons believed their behavior was the trigger for the food to arrive since this behavior had “brought” the food in the past. 

The pigeons, Skinner contended, were superstitious.

Superstitious behavior might very well be an innate tendency across many species. Perhaps you have a jersey you always wear on game day when you’re watching your favorite NFL team. Or maybe you eat the same foods, sit in the same place, or watch the game with the same people. But what distinguishes superstition from delusion? If we were to refer back to Freeman’s criteria for diagnosing delusional thoughts, maybe some of what I just described falls short of his threshold. If push came to shove, we’d all be able to admit that rally caps or seating assignments in our living rooms cannot possibly change the outcome of a football game hundreds of miles away. Right?

Conceivably, this is what is said to separate superstition from delusion. The former is an intuition that we acknowledge to be fallacious but go along with anyway. The latter is held with resolute conviction. And yet, in both instances, the result is the same. In both instances, a misguided thought triggers a behavior. 

More than forty million people play fantasy football in America. This means that something like three to six million people have Alvin Kamara, or Davante Adams, or Tyreek Hill on their rosters. So let’s suppose for a moment that you have Hill on your team, and this weekend, you found yourself trailing your opponent by five or six points heading into the Chiefs-Raiders Sunday Night Football game. Your opponent has no players left to play. Suppose, then, that your opponent texted you before the game started and said something like: “Hill’s got this – congratulations on the win!” How would you react? Would you be annoyed with your friend? My guess is that you would be. And you may masquerade your resentment under the guise of competition etiquette, but anyone who has ever played or watched a game of any kind inherently understands the subtext of that congratulatory message. 

Your opponent is trying to jinx you. 

Never mind the six million other fantasy managers that also have Tyreek Hill playing for their teams. Or the fact that the Chiefs and Raiders are not privy to the stakes of your fantasy contest, or your text exchanges. We act in a way that suggests we believe our conversations will influence what happens on the field. 

Is that superstition? Or is that delusion? 

This is the transcendental power that sports have over us. We are so invested — so emotionally attached to teams, players, and outcomes — that we seek “control” over the experience. Did Boston Red Sox fans genuinely believe the ghost of Babe Ruth haunted them for eighty-six years? Did Chicago Cubs fans believe that a billy goat haunted them for more than a hundred? Socially, these beliefs — whether superstitious or delusional — are not deemed as threatening. In fact, they’re often celebrated. 

What does this say about how we perceive our environment — or about what we normalize, and what we stigmatize? Like The Truman Show Delusion, analyzing the eccentricities of fandom may spark more questions than it answers. And I’m not suggesting this is detrimental.

To this day, I still pace around my living room in a certain path while I watch my favorite team play. If you were to ask me if I genuinely believe this bit of ritualistic behavior helps them win, I would tell you that I know it does not. 

… But it can’t hurt. 

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David Giardino is a featured writer at FantasyPros. For more from David, check out his archive and follow him @davidgiardino.