John is at Princeton pursuing a graduate degree when he becomes aware of the fact that a large portion of his experiences are delusions caused by schizophrenia. Throughout his struggles with his illness, John remains engaged with his academic pursuits. He first moves to work at a lab at MIT and then, after his illness progresses to a point where he must confront it, he uses his connections within the academic world to build himself a community that can help him as he learns to easily differentiate between delusions and reality. While he is wandering around the Princeton campus, some people jeer at him for his strange patterns and habits. John ignores them, however, like he has learned to ignore the people in his head, even though they still follow him around.