This Man: Have You Dreamed of Him?
The face was unremarkable yet hauntingly specific: thick eyebrows that met in the middle, a high forehead, and a smile that seemed to hide an inscrutable secret.
Days later, another patient saw the drawing on the psychiatrist’s desk and froze. “I know him,” he said. “He’s been in my dreams, too.”
This was the beginning of the legend of This Man .
1. The Global Pandemic of a Single Face
When the psychiatrist launched a website to share the image, the results were staggering. Thousands of people from Los Angeles to Tehran, from Berlin to Beijing, came forward with the same claim. Despite having no connection to one another and vastly different cultures, they all recognized “This Man” as a recurring figure in their subconscious.
In some dreams, he was a benevolent father figure; in others, he was a silent observer; and for some, he was the architect of their most profound nightmares. The idea that a single face was “hacking” the global collective unconscious became one of the internet’s most compelling modern mysteries.
2. Theories: A Archetype or a Surfer?
As the phenomenon grew, several theories were proposed by psychologists and paranormal investigators: *Archetype Theory : Based on Jungian psychology, the man is a manifestation of the “Old Wise Man” or “Father” archetype that appears during times of emotional crisis. *Dream Surfer Theory : The man is a real person with the psychic ability to enter the dreams of others at will. *The Mnemonic/Meme Theory : Once a person sees the image, their brain stores the highly specific features and reconstructs them into their own dreams. It is an “infection of information.”
3. The Truth: The Experiment of Andrea Natella
In 2009, the mystery was solved. The entire phenomenon was revealed to be a Social Experiment and guerrilla marketing project by Andrea Natella, an Italian sociologist and marketing consultant.
Natella wanted to see how easily the internet could be used to manufacture a myth and rewrite the perceptions of the masses. He fabricated the website, the psychiatrist’s story, and even some of the initial “sightings” to launch a global art project.
4. When the Fake Becomes Real
The most chilling part of the story, however, isn’t the hoax—it’s what happened after. Even after Natella’s confession, people continued to report seeing “This Man” in their dreams.
The image had been planted so deeply into the public consciousness that it took on a life of its own. By trying to prove the internet could create a ghost, Natella may have accidentally succeeded in birthing a genuine archetypal monster. This Man now lives in the wired world’s collective mind, a permanent resident of the dreams of the digital age.
If you see him tonight, remember: he may have started as a marketing stunt, but in your mind, he is very much real.