105 - Paris Syndrome

Unnatural Phenomenon: Paris Syndrome

Everything is a symbol of itself. That’s a messy way to build a universe, but the collective unconscious isn’t known for being especially elegant in its reasoning. Our mental depictions are our own but shared through stories that grant others pieces of our perspective. Common threads, in the absence of grounding experiences, take on a life of their own that supersede perceived reality. This supernormal stimulus pervades our culture in media and advertising, balkanising perception into enclaves that make useful handles for anyone looking to manipulate or trade in people’s desires.

This causes all sorts of problems. Paris Syndrome is among the least harmful of them, a form of culture shock compounded by heavily romanticised images of the French capital that couldn’t possibly live up to the standard. It’s just a place: stone, earth and plaster - not an ideal. This isn’t limited to Paris (to which Japanese tourists are specifically susceptible, its embassy estimates 20 cases a year), other iconic locations and objects cause their own extreme reactions. Religious ecstasy and psychosis in Jerusalem and the sublime, reverential illness-awe of Florence Syndrome’s hyperkulturemia.

Cultural decompression sickness from being too quickly confronted with a disconnected schema in a situation of vulnerability: the mind’s attempt to reconcile what is with a disconnected certainty, like an adept. Unlike an adept, people who experience this don’t reinterpret the world, their delusion isn’t powerful and all-consuming enough for that (usually, it could be the trigger event for an Urbanomancer hellbent on unearthing the “real” city like a lost Camelot). However it can cause temporary hiccups in reality.

These are minor unnatural phenomenon, usually unobserved by their progenitor but in line with their crushed ideal: a Parisian kitchen hand goes to throw garbage in a dumpster and finds two dogs recreating the spaghetti dinner scene from Lady and the Tramp. As lone occurrences they’re mostly meaningless, occult weather that act as a barometer for tourist disillusionment at best. This doesn’t stop people from trying to harness them, in conjunction with a greater effort they could be a useful low-pressure system to fuel the storm.