I enjoyed reading the “The Divine Irreference of Images” section of Baudrillard’s essay. The essay is so dense on a philosophical level that I had a hard time putting it into terms I could understand. When he begins talking about simulation in relation to the medical field, I immediately made some connections that helped me deduce his meaning. He talks about the simulation being both true and false: “The simulator cannot be treated objectively either as ill, or as not ill” (168). This made me think of hypochondriacs and how they work well as a subject of simulation. The hypochondriac simulates a disease to the point that they believe they are really sick. Because of this, they are both healthy and not healthy. Just as Baudrillard points out, the medical profession does not know how to handle such people: “What can medicine do with something which floats on either side of illness, on either side of health, or with the reduplication of illness in a discourse that is no longer true or false?” (168).
Baudrillard’s idea of simulating an illness to the point that it becomes unclear whether the person is sick or healthy, or some form of both, made me recall a time I played hooky from school. I hated elementary school and often simulated an illness to get out of going. I usually concocted fake vomit to pour in the toilet or a fake fever from a light bulb. In reality, I felt fine and spent the day home from school with no symptoms. One time something very different happened. I woke up and pretended that I couldn’t talk and that I had a sore throat. I slipped up a couple of times in front of my little sister, but my performance was good enough to get me out of school and into the Dr.’s office. I knew that after the Dr. did my throat culture I’d have to go back to school, so I really started laying it on thick: “Ouch, it hurts!” To my wonderment, my throat culture came back positive for strep throat. Was I sick or was I healthy? I could no longer tell the difference between my simulation and my reality.
House of Leaves begins with a list of medications Johnny has tried to use against his insomnia. He has become too afriad to sleep. This fear seems to have less to do with the actual events that happen in Zapano’s book and more to do with the implications of this book. The implications deal with the power of simulation. I think that Johnny’s fear stems from Bauldrillard’s idea of neither “real” nor “fake.” Zapano’s book is a simulation of a movie, which is a simulation of a reality that does not exist. Johnny tries to peal back all of the layers of simulation to reveal the inner reality. However, his investigation finds that there is no proof that the Navidson Record ever existed. He is then left with only the simulation, which has begun to integrate itself into his reality.