Have them use imagery, anything that could trigger the recollection of events.' 'You just have to find their memory,' explained Moes. 'A person disappears, and then shows up in a new area under a new identity with a new job and new friends.'Īccording to Moes, unlike general amnesia, victims of dissociative fugue have an easier time recalling their past lives than people with Alzheimer's or victims of head injury, but there is no textbook treatment. 'That's typically the kind of thing you hear about,' said Scott Lilienfeld, a psychology professor at Emory University. Rather, they can take on a new name and occupation, as if they've never missed a beat in their new life. Unlike the fictional Jason Bourne, who immediately tries to find his identity, victims in the fugue state don't even realize anything has gone wrong, Schacter told. Then the victim enters a 'fugue state' in which he or she functions completely normally, even though there is no recollection of who he or she is. They go on functioning automatically.'Īccording to Elisabeth Moes, associate professor in the psychology department at Suffolk University, dissociative fugue can be brought on by traumatic events, 'usually after a physical injury together with a lot of stress. 'They don't know who they are, and they've lost all information about their past. ' is a state in which an individual has lost their identity,' explained Daniel Schacter, a psychology professor at Harvard. Ansel couldn't remember anything after he set out to visit his sister's house two months before.Īnsel's 'Bourne Identity'-like case was one of the first documented instances of a rare disorder known as dissociative fugue. Frantic, he ran to the neighbors and was astonished to learn he was in Pennsylvania.Įven more awestruck were the neighbors, who learned that the man's name was not Brown, but Ansel Bourne and that he was an evangelical preacher who lived in Rhode Island.

Nearly two months after his arrival on the morning of March 15, the man who had been calling himself Brown opened his eyes and had no idea where he was. Brown arrived in Norristown, Pa., and opened a small shop.

Salter, former president of the Society for Psychical Research, one day a man calling himself A.J. It is the story of another Bourne: The real 19th century Ansel Bourne that most likely served as inspiration for the super spy's name.Īccording to 'Zoar, or The Evidence for Psychical Research Concerning Survival' by William H.

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