One morning, a man awoke convinced he had died during the night. Since he was
awake, it was clear he had become a zombie. He told his wife about this state of
affairs.
"You're not a zombie," she said.
"I am a zombie," he answered.
"What makes you think so?" she asked.
"Don't you think zombies know when they are zombies?" he answered.
Realizing she wasn't persuading him, she called his mother and told her what was
going on. "Let me speak to him," she said.
When the man took the phone, she said, "I'm your mother. Wouldn't I know
if I gave birth to a zombie?"
"You didn't. I just became a zombie last night."
"I didn't raise my son to be a zombie, or to think he's a zombie," his
mother said.
"Doesn't matter. I'm still a zombie."
Later, his wife tried getting help from their minister. "You're not a zombie,"
the minister said. "Probably just going through a mid-life crisis."
"Zombies don't have mid-life crises," the man said.
The minister recommended a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist said, "So you think
you're a zombie?"
"Think? You're kidding," the man said. "Know. I know
I am a zombie."
"Tell me," the psychiatrist asked, "do zombies bleed?"
"Of course not. We're the living dead. We don't bleed!"
"Watch this," the psychiatrist said. He took a pin and pricked the man's
finger.
A small drop of blood welled up. "There," the psychiatrist said, "what
do you think of that?"
The man stared at his finger and said nothing for a few minutes. "Well, what
do you know," the man said after a while. "I'll be damned. Zombies do bleed!"
_____
Source: Reality Testing....: Robert Fritz, The Path of Least Resistance, Fawcett,
1984.