This Man is a mysterious individual who has purportedly[citation needed] appeared in the dreams of numerous people around the world since 2006, yet his real-world identity remains unknown. In 2008, Italian sociologist and marketer Andrea Natella created a website called Ever Dream This Man? that focused on this phenomenon. According to the website, the first individual to report dreaming about This Man was a patient of a psychiatrist in New York City in 2006, and four other patients of the same psychiatrist also recognized the same face.[citation needed] The website received over 9,000 accounts from people who claimed to have encountered This Man in their dreams, sharing their stories and drawings. Various theories were proposed to explain This Man's appearance, ranging from mundane to supernatural, but none were substantiated by evidence or investigation.
The website gained attention from the press and online users in October 2009 and became a viral sensation. This Man's notoriety spawned several internet memes that spoofed flyers of the website, references in films and television shows like The X-Files, and a manga series by Weekly Shonen Magazine. It eventually came out that This Man was a hoax, and was actually a guerrilla marketing campaign by Natella's advertising agency. Natella admitted that he had fabricated the whole story and that he had based the original sketch of This Man on a photo of his father when he was young. Natella said that he was inspired by the concept of dream invasion, which he had encountered in some movies and books, and that he wanted to explore the power of the internet to create and spread urban legends and collective myths.
ThisMan.org posited five theories as to This Man's origins:
- The Archetype Theory: This Man is an example of Carl Jung's concept of the unconscious "archetypal image" people see during very difficult life situations.
- The Religious Theory: This Man is a manifestation of God.
- The Dream Surfer Theory: An outside force implants This Man in people's dreams, whether from someone's supernatural projection, or mental conditioning by a corporation.
- The Dream Imitation Theory: People only dream of This Man after having already learned about the phenomenon and the image has left an impression on their minds.
- The Daytime Recognition Theory: People poorly remember faces from their dreams, and they only assume it represents This Man after seeing the image.