This study should be done using "infectious disease" doctors and patients of unknown illness. I wonder how many time we started to believe that "maybe we WERE making it up" and maybe "this is how all people feel, we just complain more!"

While the pretense of brainwashing is still largely fictional (shown in movies ), it may be possible, says psychoanalyst Susan C. Vaughan, MD, an assistant professor of clinical psychiatry at Columbia University Medical Center in New York City. "If you have a person in a position where they are psychologically dominated and keep them isolated from everything else, [a Manchurian candidiate] could be possible," she says.

In this scenario, "you are told what to think and not given the opportunity to express your opinion or hear any other opinions, and gradually the message comes to you and you begin to believe it," she explains. "It helps when the message is delivered by someone who has or who represents themselves as having a lot of power over you."