THE SAGA OF “THIS MAN”

I am maybe a late-comer to the mythology of This Man, but he’s such a paranoid gem that I can’t just let him pass. The idea of increasing numbers of people having the same dream is something that could take us from H. P. Lovecraft to Arthur C. Clarke (in Childhood’s End mode), via Rod Serling, and I would happily steal it as an element for Renquist V but sadly it’s too late for that. The saga of This Man starts with…
A Legend
“From January 2006 until today, at least 2000 people have claimed they have seen this man in their dreams, in many cities all over the world: Los Angeles, Berlin, Sao Paulo, Tehran, Beijing, Rome, Barcelona, Stockholm, Paris, New Dehli, Moscow etc. At the moment there is no ascertained relation or common trait among the people that have dreamed of seeing this man. Moreover, no living man has ever been recognized as resembling the man of the portrait by the people who have seen this man in their dreams.”

The legend is followed by…
A Theory
“This Man is a real person who can enter people's dreams by means of specific psychological skills. Some believe that in real life this man looks like the man in the dreams. Others think that the man in the dreams looks completely different from his real life counterpart. Some people seem to believe that behind this man there is a mental conditioning plan developed by a major corporation.”

Then comes…
The Debunking
“This Man turns out to be the creation of Andrea Natella, the director of Guerriglia Marketing, an advertising agency that uses non-conventional communication techniques, like the creation of fictitious events or campaigns reaching the limits of legality, which stages "subversive hoaxes" and creates weird art projects that are mostly about pornography, politics, and advertising.”

Debunking is naturally followed by
The Movie Deal
“Sam Raimi’s Ghost House Pictures is putting together This Man, which will be written and directed by Bryan Bertino, who last directed The Stranger for Rogue Pictures. A press release from Ghost House says the story is “based on real life accounts,” and will follow “an ordinary guy who discovers that people he has never met are seeing him in their dreams. Now he must find out why he is the source of nightmares for strangers all over the world.”

But – and here’s the bit I really like – after all of the above has come to pass, hundreds people really start to dream about This Man. We have to double down on the conspiracy theories, and mass panic breaks out. Can’t you just visualize the endless potential, and don’t you just love it?

Click here for the original This Man
Click here for a weird This Man video
Click here for the Everly Brothers

The secret word is Spooky