Pay attention to this portrait, ever dream of this man? Does this face look familiar to you? Yes? No? Don’t worry, here we will investigate a strange phenomenon that has plagued the internet for over a decade.
For ages, scientists and psychologists alike have studied dreams. They are asking questions such as why they exist, how they happen, and most importantly, the meaning behind them.
We all experience dreams in one way or another. Whether it’s in the dead of the night, the light of the day, or if you remember them or don’t. They definitely exist, and seem very real.
The Beginning
This story begins in January 2006, when the patient of a “well-known New York psychiatrist” drew the portrait of a man who has been appearing in her dreams.
The patient expresses concern, as the man repeatedly gives her advice on her personal life, even though she’s never met him in the real world. After their session, the psychiatrist keeps the drawing and leaves it on his desk.
A few days later, during a meeting with another patient, they notice the drawing and state how they too have witnessed the same man in their dreams, and once again, swear they have never met anyone like him in the waking world.
Curious, the psychiatrist forwards the drawing to a few colleagues of his who also work with patients experiencing recurring dreams.
And within the next few months, four additional patients admitted to witnessing this strange man in their dreams, all clarifying they had never met him in real life.
The Website
Fast forward two years later to 2008, a website that goes by www(dot)thisman(dot)org was created by Italian sociologist and marketer, Andrea Natella.
The site explains the story from 2006 for the first time and expresses how an additional 2000 people around the world have reportedly witnessed the strange man over the past two years.
Many of these supposed dreams have been documented on the site and its Facebook page; most of which make the man seem friendly. But in addition to these “sweeter” moments, there have also been questionable instances.
Where the man has just stood unmoving, glaring at the person for the duration of their dream, or has even been said to full-on-attack or kill a dreamer, although, this person states it felt more like he did it to wake them up, as they were experiencing a nightmare.
After hearing the abundance of tales from people all over the world, countless theories on why this man appears in people’s dreams began to pop up.
Some of them sounded completely outlandish, but a few of them grew in popularity. They can be broken down into five categories.
Theories
The first is the Archetype Theory, which states that this man is the archetypical image shared by the collective unconscious that can arise in times of stress or hardships.
To summarize, this means we as humans all share a psychological connection and this man is the manifestation we all experience.
The second is the religious theory, where the man is depicted as a god or creator. Although, there isn’t a definitive way to test this theory.
The third is the Daytime Recognition theory. This basically means since most people have a difficult time remembering faces in their dreams, they might think they’ve seen him, even if they didn’t.
This then leads into the fourth theory, Dream Imitation, which states people begin dreaming of this man after being exposed to the phenomenon, regardless if they were consciously aware or not.
It would be in our best scientific interest to agree that the third and fourth theories appear to be the most plausible. However, there is one more theory, though, easy to dismiss, yet captivating, as its nature crosses over to something more, supernatural.
This ‘Dream Surfer’ theory, as it’s called, is one where the man is a real individual, and possesses the power to enter people’s dreams.
You can imagine this in the film Inception, where people have the power to share their dreams, only in this instance, this man psychologically connects to you from an outside source. Of course, all of this information wasn’t published for nothing.
Hoax
In 2009, the website finally blew up, and the whole world caught light of the bizarre situation. This is when the popular image “Have you ever dreamed of this man?” was shared online and became a worldwide phenomenon.
At this point, individuals from all corners of the Earth admitted to recognizing the face and began to share their own stories and thousands of reported cases turned into millions.
It was as if most of the world appeared to have at least a slight notion of this man. But it wasn’t too long before some began to speculate it all as an elaborate hoax.
Just after the drawing became an international sensation, 4chan users speculated it originated from a guerilla marketing stunt, as the this man website was hosted by the same company.
For those of you who don’t know what this means, a guerilla marketing stunt is when someone uses surprising or unconventional means to promote something, in this case, the portrait of a man declared to appear in your dreams.
This became a reality when Andrea Natella, the man responsible for crafting the infamous website, became a partner with Kook, an Italian art-advertising agency.
In a now-deleted, but archived article from 2010, Natella explained the concept, strategy, and outcome behind the dream man phenomenon, even describing the goal of reaching 2 billion people.
It’s then expressed at the end how This Man will ultimately become a film produced by Ghost House Pictures, making it seem like all of this was simply just an ARG to promote the future movie by the same name. Case solved, right? Well, we would be wrong.
Conspiracy Theory
As events several years later revealed something much more interesting. In 2015, Natella was interviewed by the popular media outlet, Vice.
Even though he admitted it was all a hoax five years earlier, Natella still went on with this interview as if the entire situation was real. He explained how the man appeared to him in a dream and instructed him to create a website.
This points in line with the idea that the man sometimes requests dreamers to fulfill certain duties. Duties such as the time an individual was told to “go north” in the event of a nuclear disaster.
And in a lesser-known 2014 article by the Epoch Times, the administrators of thisman.org backtracked from the 2010 statement and released this statement.
“In the past months, some individuals have been trying to stop this website’s research, claiming that we might have a hidden marketing agenda. This is false!”
“Those individuals are probably just scared of what This Man could soon be announcing in many people’s dreams.” The added.
Aftermath
It might sound as if this was a warning or premonition of what this man has planned for the near future. But since then, not much has happened in regard to the phenomenon.
Stories still pour out to this day, but not at the same rate as they used to In the end, it might be easiest to classify the entire situation as a hoax and finish it there.
But Natella’s backtracking and statements about “people being afraid” didn’t stop some from believing everything was true. Some even believe he was instructed to dismiss the events in 2010 as a means to hide a bigger plot.
But whatever the case may be, This Man has left a legacy as being one of the internet’s most elaborate tales. From being in an episode of the X-Files to becoming an internet meme, This Man is still remembered to this day as one of the internet’s most influential legends.
But what do you think of this story? Do you believe it was just a ploy for attention, or do you think there is actually something sinister behind it? Let me know your thoughts in the comments.
