I read the tragic news today about the death of John Nash. I saw the movie “The Beautiful Mind” and it was one of the best I have seen. Since seeing that movie I have been a bit fascinated by schizophrenia.

As I was watching that movie I remember being pulled into the mind of Mr. Nash, thinking that his delusions were reality.

When I was going to nursing college, I remember that the interventions that my college professors suggested we use on schizophrenics was to try and re-orientate them to our reality.

I thought that was the most useless of all theories. Once a mind goes delusional, reality is no longer within their grasp. To orientate someone to reality who is paranoid is as useless as trying to catch a butterfly by blowing a trumpet.

Recently one of my Alzheimer’s patients had a lapse into delusional thinking. I was called out to assess the situation. By the time I got to the house the patient had calmed down and I noted no change in her from my previous visit.

Apparently something had happened during the night which had upset her and made her feel unsafe. I emphasized to the caregivers the importance of making this patient feel safe. It did not matter if she was in a delusion or not, what mattered most is that she felt protected in whatever reality she was in.

I recalled a story I had read about one Alzheimer’s patient who had the delusion that his bedroom was inhabited by hostile polar bears. His sweet caregiver got a can of air freshener and started spraying that spray wherever the man said that the polar bears were. She said that the spray was a polar bear killer. Once she had sprayed each and every space that the polar bears had been the man was no longer scared. The polar bears had vanished.

Somehow I think it may be imperative to step into someone else’s reality to fully understand the reality that that person beholds. Maybe that is one of the reasons why God became a man, through Jesus Christ His Son.