One Lucky Soul: Random Stuff You May Not Know: Seventeen

Random Stuff You May Not Know: Seventeen by Omar Cherif, One Lucky Soul

To carry on the revival of the series following Sixteen, here is the new article.

1. Three Christs: Based on a True Story

One of the most fascinating stories about the human mind is that of The Three Christs of the Ypsilanti State Hospital. In the late 1950s, three paranoid schizophrenic patients there each believed they were Jesus Christ. Polish-American social psychologist Milton Rokeach decided to put the three men together to see what would transpire, later detailing the experiment in his 1964 book, The Three Christs of Ypsilanti. 

This story is a neat find for those of us who are into psychology and the inner reaches of the human mind. It was eventually adapted into a screenplay, a stage play, two operas, and the 2017 film Three Christs (also known as State of Mind), which is currently on Netflix. I found it there in 2022 when I went back to watching movies while living alone in Sokhna. 

The movie — directed by Jon Avnet and starring Richard Gere (as Dr. Alan Stone), Peter Dinklage, Walton Goggins, and Bradley Whitford — follows the experiment at the Michigan hospital starting in 1959. Rokeach brought the three patients — Clyde Benson, Joseph Cassel, and Leon Gabor — together daily for two years to see if confronting their shared delusion would force them to face reality or re-evaluate their identity. Instead, it resulted in intense conflict and the patients simply adapting their delusions rather than finding a cure. 

Not to spoiler-alert the movie for you, I will only add that the actual study faced heavy ethical criticism. It’s now regarded as manipulative, and Rokeach eventually acknowledged his own “godlike” attempt to manipulate the patients, apologising for his methods. I absolutely recommend it. 

Fun Fact: My shaven teenage face used to get “Richard Gere” from quite a few people. What took it even further is that I was seeing a girl who kind of channelled a Cindy Crawford air — who was married to Gere during those same few years. Boy Oh Boy.

2. Urinals Aiming Flies

During the Netherlands escapade in my 20s, I've seen these flies in Schiphol airport a few times and likely aimed at them. I don’t recall mentioning it to anyone or thought much about their actual use; maybe a cousin brought it up once.

But in fact, before Amsterdam I recall my father and I seeing something similar in 1980s Europe. Maybe not always flies, but other aiming signals. When the above poster was found in my feeds, I connected dots that went further back to my childhood while digging into the history of the whole piss-aim thang.

So, the guy behind the Schiphol fly, Jos van Bedaf, was actually inspired by his own memory of the Dutch Army in the 1960s. He noticed back then that someone had painted small red dots in the barracks urinals, and those specific latrines were always the cleanest.

The 70s “Tinkle Target”: In 1976, a dentist in New Jersey actually patented a bullseye decal called the “Tinkle Target” because he was fed up with his kids’ (and patients’) aim. Those were sold as stickers and were found in European pubs or rest stops during the 80s — probably where my father and I first brought it up.

But that wasn't even the origin.

Victorian Bees: Victorians were doing this in the 1880s. Another true story for you. They used to etch a bee into the porcelain. Why a bee? Because the Latin word for bee is Apis — which was a cheeky 19th-century pun for... well, you get it.

So while the Schiphol flies are the “modern” superstars of nudge theory, there were earlier versions of the invention — whether dots, bullseyes, or perhaps even those Victorian bees that may still be seen in particularly old pubs.

3. The Maths of Human Kinship

Do You Know, Consanguineous Brothers & Sisters?

I’ve always been fascinated by history and my own lineage. I can trace my roots back seven generations — a journey that leads from Egypt back to Turkey. But before the 1700s, the trail grows cold. Imagine going back 500 years, a full millennium; what a vastly different world conspired to create you.

Some years ago, my friend and former teacher from AUC ’96, Osman, introduced me to “Family Constellation”. It’s a therapeutic method designed to resolve unconscious, multi-generational patterns by “mapping” family relationships to reveal hidden imbalances or exclusions. Bringing these shadows to light can help break cycles that have persisted for centuries. Interesting stuff.

Then I saw this graph, and the number of great-grandparents is mind-boggling. But even more profound is the realisation that if we travel far enough back, the branches of our trees begin to overlap. We aren’t just neighbours; we are consanguineous brothers and sisters. That is the open secret of our existence.

Love One Another.

*Recently I found someone offering bespoke, one-to-one Family Constellation sessions... in Dahab, of course. Because where else would you go to unpack seven generations of trauma if not between a dive and a sunset tea?

4. Jujube — نبق / سدر

The Apple of Paradise.

While stocking up at the fruit van I spotted a small, unfamiliar specimen. The vendor called them “Nabq” [ نبق ], which sounded like the protected area in South Sinai, Egypt. Noting they were from Saudi Arabia and tasted like apples. He kindly tossed in six for me to try — a cadeau for a loyal customer.

Back home, curiosity took over after the first bite. These “apples” are Jujube, locally known as Nabq or Sidr (Ziziphus spina-christi). While the Chinese variety (Z. jujuba) is famous for turning into a “red date” [ عنّاب ]*, the Saudi varieties are typically the desert-hardy Sidr or the tropical Indian Jujube (Ber). They did taste familiar and I have probably had them before without all this inquiry.

• Taste & Texture: Fresh, they are yellowish-green, crisp, and mildly sweet — strikingly similar to a miniature apple. Once dried, they become chewy and wrinkled with a rich, butterscotch-like profile.

• Nutrition & Wellness: They are powerhouses of Vitamin C, fibre, and antioxidants. Historically used in traditional medicine to aid sleep and digestion, modern studies also point to anti-inflammatory and immune-boosting properties.

• Culinary Versatility: Beyond snacking raw, they shine in salads, teas, jams, and soups.

Perhaps most notably, the Sidr tree holds deep spiritual significance. Mentioned in the Quran [Surah Al-Waqi’ah and An-Najm] as a tree of Paradise, it is depicted as a thorn-free, abundant symbol of purity and divine creation.

All six didn’t last more than a few hours and I was back for more some days later. And that’s a small “Wasabe” plate in the photo by the way.

Et Voilà. And now we know.

*A story I’ve heard many times is that when my mother was pregnant with me, she had a fierce craving for “red dates” [ عنّاب ]. Local superstition links this to the mole on my left wrist —supposedly a single red date, a عنّاباية, marking me because they couldn’t find any for her since August is not the season. Pfff.

5. The Rosenhan Experiment [aka Thud Experiment]

On Being Sane in Insane Places

Since we’re already dissecting the “God complex” of those 1950s doctors, let’s look at how the 70s proved they couldn’t tell a sane man from a schizophrenic—a story I first dug into for my piece The Intertwining of Genius and Insanity (2014). 

How do we know if someone is truly insane? Does psychology have the final say?
In 1973, Stanford psychologist David Rosenhan set out to test the validity of psychiatric diagnoses by designing a study titled On Being Sane in Insane Places. He sent eight healthy “pseudopatients” to different psychiatric hospitals across the U.S. Their “in” was simple: they claimed to hear a single word — usually “thud” —and nothing else. 

Once admitted, they immediately resumed their normal behaviour and spent their days taking notes on the ward. The result? All eight were diagnosed with serious disorders: seven with schizophrenia and one with manic-depression. Their only way out was to admit they were mentally ill and agree to “treatment” (psychotropic drugs), which they fortunately pocketed and discarded.

The remarkable part? While the doctors were oblivious, 35 actual patients saw right through the act. “You’re not crazy,” they’d say. “You’re a journalist or a professor checking up on this place.” Hm. It takes one to know one, it seems. 

When Rosenhan published his results in Science, it shook the foundations of the field. It revealed how heavily psychiatric labels are influenced by perception rather than objective reality, and how nebulous the line between sanity and insanity truly is. This “Rosenhan Effect” helped accelerate the movement to reform and deinstitutionalise mental health care. 

However, the story has a final twist. The investigative book The Great Pretender: The Undercover Mission That Changed Our Understanding of Madness by Susannah Cahalan (author of Brain on Fire) suggests Rosenhan may have “fudged” some of his data to make his point. Even the man exposing the “God complex” may have had a bit of one himself.  Here is more to the story of Calahan’ follow-up on The Science History Institute Museum and Library.

For a visceral look at this era, there’s always Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1962). While not about Rosenhan, it captures the exact institutional dread he was exposing. The 1975 film with Jack Nicholson remains the gold standard for seeing the “sane” man trapped in an insane system.