Real-life incident shows “magical realism” is not an experimental, literary technique, but the way the minds of some people work, prompted by traumatic experiences.

Psychiatric News, the newspaper of the American Psychiatric Association, published an article recently, which begins as follows:

“A young woman who lived alone in a third floor apartment stepped out of her shower one morning and confronted a stranger with a knife. He tied her hands and began to loot the apartment. She believed he would rape and then kill her.

“While he ransacked another room, she managed to open a window and jump. As she fell, she saw a pink parachute snap open above her, and beneath its large, life-saving canopy, she felt herself float slowly to the ground. There was, of course, no parachute, and her descent lasted only seconds. Although shrubbery broke her fall, she fractured her wrist and pelvis. Passersby called an ambulance, and the police arrested the invader, still in her apartment.

“When seen eight months later, with her physical injuries healed, she related these events with an ironic smile in a calm, straightforward manner. She had the satisfaction of having testified at the man’s trial and seeing him sentenced to prison, and had then resumed her life without further difficulties…”

If the sentence above, that I have put in bold, had appeared in a novel, you might think, oh, this author is using the literary technique known as “magical realism.” But this real-life incident shows that this is just the way some people think, prompted by traumatic experiences. When novelists write “magical realism,” they are often using subjective experiences that they have had in the past, when coping with things that frightened them.

The psychiatrist who wrote the above article interpreted it as an example of how people may use self-hypnosis and dissociation to cope with mortal threats. He doesn’t say whether he, himself, had interviewed the young woman, or had been told about the case by a colleague. Either way, there is no indication that the woman had been asked pertinent questions. (Search “mental status” in this blog for a discussion of interview issues.)

Why had she “related these events with an ironic smile” rather than with emotion more appropriate to the recollection of a life-threatening experience? Perhaps the one relating these events was a personality who had not felt threatened.

http://psychnews.psychiatryonline.org/doi/full/10.1176/appi.pn.2016.4b13