Pandorum as a real pathology

Spoiler alert: The reader is advised to watch Pandorum (2009) prior to reading this psychological interpretation of the movie.

Pandorum is a fictional psychopathological syndrome induced by prolonged space travel. Its symptoms include severe paranoia, vivid hallucinations, and homicidal tendencies. The onset of pandorum can be triggered by psychological trauma under stress conditions of space flight.

In the movie, one of the characters experiences acute pandorum when receiving the shocking news that the Earth has been destroyed. He kills other crew members and single-handedly takes charge of the giant spaceship that has been launched to colonize an Earth-like planet locating far from the Solar system. He decides to play God and wakes up thousands of colonists from their hyper-sleep and locks them away into the darkness of the spaceship. When the spaceship finally reaches the destination planet, he prevents colonization of the land by not initiating an ejection of the last hyper-sleep cameras with colonists aboard onto the planetary surface. He is stuck with himself; and he chooses to continue the pathological self-play, even if that means destruction of the last remnants of mankind. He has fostered creation of a dark pleromatic world inside the spaceship; and he makes the choice to reign in Hell, for this artificially-created hell provides comfortable boundaries to his personality. The boundaries that, as he hopes, are never to be breached.

Even though it is a work of fiction, it might be the case that cinematically-described pandorum accurately reflects the psychological reality of one commonly-shared developmental pathology. Psychological development runs as a series of disidentifications from old ways of being and subsequent identifications with new ones. When the old world is lost and the new world isn't found yet, the sense of disorientation arises. "I have lost everything; and in the world of nothingness I may do whatever I want," and that's when the self falls prey to the infinite loop of pandorum. I bound myself to playing a very limited game. I do my best to prevent the change of that condition, for the status quo lets me stay in the trap of the self-contracted ego. This is the trap I'm adapted to, while the perspective of an unknown world is uneasy. Here, in the self-created hell I feel powerful; "I am a spider and this is my web, the web that I weave."

And once the pathological condition is set—once the web is finally woven—the self is going to defend it at all costs. Salvation is so near; and yet I'm so afraid to let go that I use all my powers to enforce the current disposition, both consciously and unconsciously. Instead of using my potential to explore the land of the new, I focus my energies on sticking to the present condition. There's nothing more important than my current zone of comfort; nothing else matters. In order to defend itself, the pathological condition creates its own immune system. The fixation occurs. I'm getting lost in myself; and others bring danger. ("Wherever there is other, there is fear," as the Upanishads put it.) The pandorum's box is open, all evils are unleashed. Pathology's perpetuated, development's deceased.