A man with "walking dead syndrome" has spoken out about the rare syndrome that makes sufferers feel like they are walking corpses. The man, identified as Graham in a New Scientist interview, described waking up after a suicide attempt feeling as though his brain were dead.

"I didn't have a brain. I'd fried it in the bath," he said. People who have "walking dead syndrome", "walking corpse disease", or Cotard's syndrome often feel like they are somehow dead or zombies. Graham had attempted suicide by dropping an appliance into his bathwater, and although he emerged alive, his brain was damaged in an unusual way-although his condition was thought to be psychiatric, his brain scans were very similar to those of someone who was in a coma.

In Graham's case, doctors were able to study his brain-a new advance in the disease, which, although it is rare, dates back to 1882. And in Graham's case, his brain activity was unusually low. "Graham's brain function resembles that of someone during anesthesia or sleep. Seeing this pattern in someone who is awake is quite unique to my knowledge," said Dr. Stephen Laureys from the University of Liège in Belgium.

"I've been analyzing PET scans for 15 years, and I've never seen anyone who was on his feet, who was interacting with people, with such an abnormal scan result," he said.

So while Graham's brain was normal, it was acting like that of someone in a coma in this bizarre syndrome.

"It seems plausible that the reduced metabolism was giving him this altered experience of the world, and affecting his ability to reason about it," Laureys said.

Graham spent time in cemeteries to get closer to the dead, he explains.  "I lost my sense of smell and taste. I didn't need to eat, or speak or do anything...I ended up spending time in the graveyard because that was the closest I could get to death."

In Cotard's syndrome, sufferers have "the fixed and unshakable belief that one has lost organs, blood or body parts" or lack a soul. In the first identified case, a woman did not feel she needed to eat because she was already dead. She died of starvation.

 With the help of therapy and medication, Graham feels better now. "I don't feel that brain-dead anymore. Things just feel a bit bizarre sometimes."

"I'm not afraid of death," Graham added. "But that's not to do with what happened - we're all going to die sometime. I'm just lucky to be alive now."