Hallucinations of the “China Dream”: Forbidden Voice, Articulation, and Schizophrenia in China

Abstract

I analyze the contents of voices heard by people diagnosed with schizophrenia in China. Rather than pathologizing these contents as symptoms of psychiatric disease, I examine them as a form of disinhibited voice and articulation. Drawing on the literature on ideological reification and articulation, I show that the specificity and contents of heard voices are connotatively or evocatively linked to the “China Dream,” particularly ideologies of the Dream that distort reality. Through these voices, those with schizophrenia articulate their dissent or divergence from the illusory collective world depicted by “China Dream” discourse.