The Science of Stephen King

Samantha Dansby: “Absolutely. Both through my personal experience and through the accounts of my clients, I’ve seen the struggles of trying to sort through the possessions of a person, of realizing that those things are all that physically remain of someone you love. Often, people are scared to part with anything for fear that they might lose even more of the person that is gone.”

Meg:“Lisey begins to see, hear, and even feel the presence of her deceased husband, which King explains with the supernatural parallel universe called Boo’ya Moon. But in reality, is it common for people to experience auditory or visual hallucinations of their lost loved one while in extreme grief?”

Samantha Dansby: “Honestly, this varies wildly from person to person. I’ve had clients who believed that their loved ones still visit them, sometimes in dreams and sometimes when they are awake. I’ve had other clients who lamented that they could never feel the presence of their loved one once they had passed. I believe most of it goes back to a person’s deeply held beliefs about life, death, and the afterlife. I think people who are raised to believe in an afterlife and in a spiritual realm are more likely to see their loved ones after death.”

Kelly:“As a child, precocious and creative Scott Landon finds solace in the alternate world, Boo’ya Moon, due to his troubled childhood. Have you dealt with patients who have dissociated, or created their own reality? Why does the human brain employ this tactic?”

Samantha Dansby: “Dissociation is such a fascinating subject. I took an intense interest in it when I was a student and wrote numerous papers about it, and I continue to study it whenever I get a chance. According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), approximately 75 percent of people experience at least one episode of dissociation, although only about 2 percent of those people are diagnosed with a dissociative disorder. The trauma we experience is sometimes too much for us to bear, so our brains compensate to protect us by dissociating. We may begin to feel as if the real world is not real, almost as if it is a movie or TV show we are watching from the outside. I believe Scott created Boo’ya Moon to cope with the severe abuse by his father and retreated further there to deal with the traumatic death of his brother, Paul.”

“Dissociation is a way of coping by avoiding negative thoughts or feelings related to memories of traumatic events. When people are dissociating they disconnect from their surroundings, which can stop the trauma memories and lower fear, anxiety, and shame. Dissociation can happen during the trauma or later on when thinking about or being reminded of the trauma.”2

Meg:“When you watch movies or read books with fictional depictions of counselors like yourself, what do they get right? Are there false ideas about your profession that you would like to correct?”