thisman dreams and mysterious stories.
Ever Dream This Man?
Every night throughout the world hundreds of people dream about this face.
We, human loves to uncover mysterious things. And while uncovering, we constantly try to prove ourselves to be true. That’s where confirmation bias plays a great role without our conscious.
The same thing happened between us, me and my friend. She had just consumed some random video on YouTube that claims some mysterious man is being dreamed of by hundreds of people all over the world. She even shows me some more videos on YouTube related to the topic and pointed out the comments. Those commenters are sharing their own dream story- mostly read they recently saw this man[shown in the picture above] in their dream. Upon scrolling, we found those videos are way old but the comments are newly created.
I doubted. I argue that someone out there is having fun with those comments and we should not take them seriously. She insisted saying why the YouTube algorithm shows her that old video. I try to explain if hundreds of thousands of people start commenting on old videos, the YouTube algorithm will eventually pop up those videos to other users and that’s how the internet works. But she refuges to agree.
Then I started studying those stories on the internet. And here’s what I found on the internet.
Plot
According to the website, in January 2006 in New York, the patient of a well-known psychiatrist draws the face of a man that has been repeatedly appearing in her dreams. The patient claimed she has never met the man in her life. On more than one occasion that man has given her advice on her private life.
That portrait lies forgotten on the psychiatrist’s desk for a few days until one day another patient recognizes that face and says that the man has often visited him in his dreams. He also claims he has never seen that man in his waking life.
The psychiatrist decides to send the portrait to some of his colleagues that have patients with recurrent dreams. Within a few months, four patients recognize the man as a frequent presence in their own dreams. All the patients refer to him as THIS MAN.
Supporting evidence:
The website has a separate page for dream stories about this man from all around the world. It has got many stories explaining what people saw in their dream and trying to convince the reader, all those stories are real. Although it doesn't provide any evidence of those stories.
The official website dedicated to this man has their official Facebook page and this page continuously posts about the people’s dreams and their experiences. Again, there is no evidence about those posts.
Comments on YouTube. If you scroll through the videos related to this-man story and dreams, you will undoubtedly find the recent comments claiming the commenter saw this man in his/her dream last night.
This man — nothing but just hoax. Here’s why:
Unauthentic dream stories: According to website creator, Andrea Natella, all those posts on Facebook and dreams added to website are being sent to them via email by various people all around the world explaining their dreams. This is one way communication and there is no fact-check done before posting them.
Vice Article: Vice is an UK-based magazine. Vice has two article regarding the topic. One — conversation with Andrea Natella and another — article claiming they were being fooled. Both the articles were posted on 15 January 2015 in around 10 hours of difference.
In first article, vice editor was amaze and thought this could be true. After 10 hours of posting the first article, they further studied and found out they were fooled by Andrea Natella.
Wikipedia: If you searched, “ever dream this man” on google, you will find the first result from Wikipedia. On the page, if you jump directly to ‘debunk’ section: it clearly mentions that it is nothing but marketing stunt by Natella. But there is no clue or evidence about the what the campaign is promoting.
If somebody ask you, “Have you ever dream of this man?”
Answer them saying — I am well aware about that marketing campaign.
Thank you for reading. :)
