Man convinced he was on The Truman Show explains the 'signs' he saw that made him think that

A man who thought he was living in his own version of The Truman Show has explained the signs that convinced him of his delusion.

Jonny Benjamin knew he was different as a child, prior to his schizophrenia diagnosis, partly because of his conviction his life was a replica of Jim Carrey's in the classic '90s film.

Watch him open up about his experience here:

Jonny went to see the movie with his best friend back in 1998 when he was 10 years old - and he never could have known how big an impact it would have on his life.

"The Truman Show with Jim Carrey had just come out, it was big," he told LADbible's Extraordinary Lives: The Minutes With podcast. "I remember, it was big, everyone was talking about it.

"And that film had such an impact on me, and my best friend. And when we came out the cinema, my best friend said to me, 'wow, you never know, but you could be on your own version of The Truman Show.'

"And then it was just like, 'Oh, my God, like, yeah, I could be.'"

Paramount

This idea solidified at secondary school, with Jonny desperate to be liked - like Truman Burbank.

He said: "I didn't fit in, I felt like a complete loner, complete outsider. So the thought of me being on this TV show, and people watching me, people liking me, I was like, 'OK, yeah, maybe.'

"And then it's amazing how you can convince yourself things are happening that aren't happening."

He added: "It didn't help that my best friend, because he knew that it was there in my head, he would do things. I'm sure he didn't mean to do these things.

"He would do things like in The Truman Show, you know, holding things up to the camera."

Eager to make this fantasy a reality, he was easily able to convince himself.

He explained: "Every sign that I could grab to make me believe that I was in this show, I would.

"Even things like, which this is quite farfetched, sometimes I'd have a song playing in my head, and then I'd get in the car and on the way to school, that song was the first song that came on to the radio.

"And so I'd be like, 'Oh my God, they're in my head. They know that was the song and so they put that song on the radio, and everything revolves around me.'

"Or you know, and this happens sometimes today, I'm thinking of someone in my head on the street, or in back in school in the playground, and that person I was thinking of, they're there."

He continued: "In The Truman Show, the cameras are obviously all around, and I'd be like looking around my room and I'd be like, 'well, that's the camera, my lightbulb in my ceiling light is a camera.'"

While he initially enjoyed the fiction he created, it eventually started to grate.

He said: "In The Truman Show everyone loves Jim Carrey, right? Everyone loves him. And so I wanted that.

"At first it was great. But then obviously, as I got older and needed more privacy, I was like, 'I don't want these cameras anymore.'"