In 2010's Warner Bros. picture "Inception" Director and writer Christopher Nolan raises the possibility that an idea can be implanted in the subconscious involuntarily. In the film, this is achieved through an elaborate group of extractors that infiltrate the mind of a person to seed the idea.
Aside from the whimsical that can be such a possibility, the film, however it is based on a premise that for years psychologists have handled, on real ground: a simple idea planted in the depths of the subconscious mind can thrive and grow to be the dominant idea in a person.
The film shows how the protagonist planted an idea in the subconscious mind of his wife and how this idea completely appropriates her, leading her to think, that she did not live in a reality, but in a dream, and commits suicide to achieve "awakening". It is a good example of how a misconception planted in the subconscious can lead to an irrational act.
What has this to do with Andreas Lubitz? the copilot of GermanWings initially identified as the author of the fall of the flight 4U925 in the Swiss Alps.
In 2007 were reported cases of children who committed suicide after witnessing television images of the hanging of Saddam Hussein. The ages of the children ranged between 10 and 15 years, and the country of residence of the children ranged from US to India and Pakistan. Three cases isolated from miles away, but they had one thing in common: three very young, vulnerable and, specially, impressionable psyches.
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Apart from the responsibility that may have the media to disseminate these images, and why parents allow children or impressionable youngest as witness, what it is evidenced here tremendously is that a child has a mind very susceptible to be impressed by strong images of violence, and even worse, if that mind is impressed by an event of death, his way of dealing with this event is recreating it, imitating it, making it a reality.
This is an event of negative inception. An idea that impressed the individual, keeps trapped in his subconscious and the only way to deal with it, and remove it, is imitating it. This is the sad origin of most serial killers.
When the causes that could lead to the co-pilot Andreas Lubitz to crash the plane in the Swiss Alps are still under current investigation, and is foolhardy to venture any theory, two details are striking:
-The Members of the aviation club in his hometown (Montabaur, Germany) "LSC Westerwald" have stated that he was an enthusiastic member of the club and he joined them when he was 14 or 15 years. Lubitz was 14 in 2001. Did he join the club in that year? After September 11, 2001?
-He studied Aviation in Phoenix, on the same flight school of the September 11 terrorists. Coincidence? Why in EE.UU ?, At Europe there should be good flight schools.
Does the child Andreas Lubitz was impressed by the images of the planes crashing in New York on September 11, 2001 and that day he decided that someday he would do the same?
That's why he studied in detail the steps taken by terrorists, and decided to copy them, including the school of Aviation?
Only investigating authorities may determine what was his motivation, but probably the most needed black box to discover the cause of his criminal action will never be recovered, and that is the content of his sick mind. A mind which was impressed as a child and took him to commit an act of criminal madness 14 years later.
