I, Robert

At age 5, Michael J. was a healthy, normal child with a talent for music. Today, twenty years later, he lives in what observers describe as a “fantasy world,” isolated physically behind tall gates and mentally in a Disney landscape, which he thinks is real. His favorite toy is an electric car modeled after Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride at Disneyland. “He has had no adult life,” writes one journalist who has studied his case. His closest friends are animals (“I think they’re sweet,” he explains), including a pet boa constrictor (“Snakes are very misunderstood”), and several life-size mannequins. (“I surround myself with people I want to be my friends. And I can do that with mannequins. I’ll talk to them.”)