Original subtitles

- The world is my home,

and I just go wherever I want to go.

I can wander around and see so many things

and meet so many people.

Being lost is where I'm found.

female narrator: Filmmaker Nanfu Wang joins

drifter, Dylan, on his adventure of self-discovery...

- Anywhere I am, something likely amazing happens.

- So you're from Utah you said? - Yeah.

narrator: Leaving all expectations behind

to find the true cost of freedom.

- The first time he called me, he said, "Guess where I'm at.

Malibu."

I'm proud of Dylan,

but I think to myself, "What are you doing, kid?"

No parent wants their child to be homeless.

- I really couldn't answer and say

when I'll be done traveling in this way.

narrator: "I am Another You,"

now only on "Independent Lens."

♪

♪

♪

♪

- I left China in 2011.

I left to find something

I'd been searching for all my life.

Along the way I've learned I'm not the only one looking.

Traveling was one of the few freedoms I knew in China.

Every year since I was 20 years old,

I would celebrate my birthday by traveling to a new place.

I started this tradition in China.

On my first birthday living in New York,

I bought a one-way ticket and went to Florida.

I was excited to document every conversation I had.

- Welcome to America. Like, this is--

This is what America is like.

- Since I was a teen, I just wanted to grab a backpack

and go travel, you know,

not know where I'm going to sleep

or who I'm gonna be with. That excited me.

- Tell me what's your next plan, travel.

- I'm going to South America for six months.

- A few days in to the trip,

I stayed at a hostel where I met someone

whose mode of travel was different from anyone I knew.

- Oh, it feels so good though.

- Yeah!

- How do you spell your name?

- D-Y-L-A-N.

- Dylan? - Dylan.

- And your last name?

- Olsen.

O-L-S-E-N.

- The first night I met Dylan, we talked for hours

about our lives and travels.

What did you have when you first, like, got on the road?

- An empty backpack and no money.

I just began to travel across the country.

- How can you pay the hostel if you don't have money?

- I work for them.

I came here offering my work for a place

to close my eyes at night that was safe

and a place to just be at peace.

♪

- So many people come and go, it's hard to remember.

I do know that when I first met Dylan,

I immediately identified he was a street kid.

- How?

- Just because he's a street kid.

You know, you meet so many people,

you can see certain things, it's evident,

and so we had a conversation

and made the agreement that he would leave

all those survival skills of the street behind.

They have no place here.

We identified that immediately,

and it's very rare that we'll allow that, but he's unique.

Very smart, very creative.

He's got one of the best skills that you can have:

fearless in working, fearless in doing.

- This is a very beautiful cage, don't get me wrong,

but it is a cage.

♪

- I wanted to experience the life

that Dylan described to me.

When he went back to the streets,

I decided to follow him with my camera

despite the fact that I hardly knew him.

♪

woman: It says "no entry."

- We need a better map.

Being lost is where I'm found.

Upon arriving, the path that I'm happy to tread

when my shoes come off

and I experience that full connection with the floor,

it's as if I can breathe better,

observing everybody else around in their entirety,

their passions, their bizarre behaviors,

as well as their observing me and my bizarre behaviors.

♪

There's no time living in this sense.

I don't know what day it is.

Every day is now. Right now.

Every time is right now.

- I taught Dylan how to use my camera

so he could document my experience as well.

This was the first time I ate food from a garbage can.

It was the beginning of my short street life.

♪

- Wherever he goes, he leaves an echo to show.

From the pitter-patter of his feet

to the magic incantation he speaks,

a man from the past living in the present

so his presence is living in the future,

yesterday, and tomorrow.

Last week was seven years long.

♪

- A year? - Mm-hmm.

- Why you choose to be on the street?

- Hmm?

- Why you choose to stay on the street?

- Well... - Huh?

- I guess the only objective is eating,

happiness, and community.

- What do you mean? Eating?

- I mean, I feed myself,

and I keep a good attitude,

and...

kinda just go wherever I want to go.

You wander around and see so many things

and meet so many people

that none of that could ever occur

if I were just staying in one place

working for one person.

I've gone through quite a big portion of North America.

I'm just exploring. I'm just meeting people.

Hey, man, you got a Sharpie?

I really couldn't answer

and say when I'll be done traveling

or living on the street in this way,

but anywhere I am, something likely amazing happens.

- My name is Jared. - Jared?

- And this my brother here, John.

- Hello. - My name is Dylan.

- Dylan, nice to meet you. - Nice to meet you, man.

- Yeah. - My name is Nanfu.

N-A-N-F-U. - That's cool.

So you're from Utah you said, originally?

- Yeah. Yeah. - What part did you say?

- Just north of Salt Lake City.

- Oh, did you grow up Mormon?

- Yeah. For a minute.

- For a hot minute? - Yeah. For a hot minute.

- You're welcome to stay the night.

- Neat. - That's a pullout.

- She needs a good rest, so--she's earned it.

- One of the first people to buy here, like 1960-something--

- Jared had known us for just a few hours.

- You guys want a beer? - But he invited us home.

It had been days since I slept under a roof.

- So I've been there.

You know, I've been traveling by myself.

I've had no place to stay, so I just figured

I'd extend a hand, and I like him, you know?

You know, he's a funny cat, man.

You know, he's young. He's finding himself.

It's tough living a life on the street and on the roads.

- Jared took us to dinner that night.

I told myself one day I'd come back and thank him,

but I don't even remember where he lived.

- Am I in the camera? - Yeah.

- A beer, right? - A Budweiser please.

- Budweiser? - Thank you.

Oh, okay.

Oh, okay.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

- I hadn't told my family that I was living on the street

with someone I just met and wasn't involved with.

They wouldn't understand why a homeless person

would be worth following.

The idea that someone would choose to be homeless

would be inconceivable to them,

but this was a kind of freedom

I had never encountered before.

Everywhere we went,

I was amazed by how many people

were interested in this life.

- Dy-lan or Dylan? - Dylan.

- Dylan. - Yeah.

- How long are you planning to do this?

- I don't know, man. I have no idea.

I'll see where the road takes me.

- I'm just fascinated, so what made you--

like, did someone else do this

that you decided to do it, or--?

- I wondered if the presence of my camera

affected how people behaved,

so sometimes I would retreat from Dylan

and wait until something happened.

This guy met Dylan in front of a coffee shop

while I was sitting inside charging my battery.

They talked for hours,

and then he invited Dylan to his home.

- We were just carrying a conversation,

and we got something in common with a hostel.

I stayed in a hostel when I was in California.

I just decided doesn't hurt to have some money if you can.

It just makes me feel good to be able to--

Makes me feel good if I can help somebody.

- What part of his story interested you?

- Well, I guess the way-- choices he makes.

- Street life was free and exciting for Dylan,

but it wasn't that way for everyone.

Why were people so generous to Dylan but not to the others?

I began to realize the privilege of choosing

to be on the streets, which includes both of us.

Thank you.

Who came to hear Ember play tonight?

- Did anybody come to meet with God tonight?

Well, we are glad that you chose

to come here tonight.

Who has been here before

and decided they might come back again?

All right, well, I think we're in the right place.

So let's pray over the meal.

Father, I thank you for tonight.

I thank you for...

- I just love-- I love humanity.

I'm here experiencing humanity in its fullest.

- Do you have, like, any type of, like,

legal issues in your background

that would, you know, add--

I'm just curious-- to like--

- Nothing extreme. - Okay.

- I mean, I made a lot of mistakes.

By the time I was 14, I was on heroin and selling drugs

until about 20 years old.

- I mean, I'm assuming you probably have maybe

some high school or you may have finished high school.

- Yeah, I finished high school, did some college.

- Okay. Okay.

- I quit college 'cause, I mean,

I can learn more in a library

than I could at a school,

studying what I'm interested in for free.

- Yeah, the point I'm trying to bring out

is that it's gonna be that much harder for you

basically putting this on your resume

when you're trying to get a job.

I mean, I'm having a hard enough time myself.

- I don't feel as if I'm doing wrong.

Maybe I'm doing different than anybody else

would think, but, man, I'm--

- Right. No, no it's-- - I'm whole.

- Right. No, I'm not saying you're doing wrong.

- I know that. I know.

- But, yeah, no, I'm just saying, you know--

- Just telling you how I feel about it.

- You know, it just seems like, you know,

like, the easier way out.

- Well, for now I'm only 22.

I feel like a 70-year old person, 100-year old person.

I mean, I've been through a lot.

I've lived through a lot and experienced

a lot of beautiful and ugly places.

- Right. - Dylan told me later

that he was angry for the condescension

he felt from this person.

He told me how much he resented the judgment

religious people had shown him in his life,

but I was amazed by how comfortable he seemed

in situations like this.

♪

- ♪ Holy, holy

♪ God almighty

- I'm so sorry.

- This is Dylan.

- Hi, Dylan, welcome.

God bless you. And who's your friend?

- This is Nanfu.

- Hi. - Hi. Nanfu.

- And what are you doing? Just taking some shots?

- I'm filming. Yeah, him. Yeah.

- Oh, is he a-- - Our journey.

- It's a journey?

Oh, thank you for coming today. Fantastic.

Come on in. Well, look who's back in town.

- They don't want to be filmed, those two.

- In Jesus's name, we come to you, Lord.

Give us thy gifts

- I told you [indistinct].

- It's just like a cast on us, on our mind, Lord.

Where we want to have that fix that only you can give us.

When we ask for forgiveness

for whatever we've done to somebody,

if we spoke and feel--

- And for whatever reason you have come on this journey,

Lord God, we just want to pray

your holy spirit will capture his heart

and capture his mind and capture Dylan

and turn him in to the man

that you have designed him to become, Lord.

And he is seeking--

He's on a quest, Lord Jesus.

I pray that you will just give him the answers

that he's looking for, Lord.

We pray your favor upon Dylan.

We pray that salvation, healing,

and deliverance will come to Dylan's body, soul, and spirit,

and to his friend, also Lord, we just pray for her.

We pray that as they travel together that, Lord,

you will put a hedge of protection around them

and that, Lord, your spirit

will fall upon them like it did

when you fell upon Saul, oh, God.

And we just bleed your blood, Jesus, over their lives,

over their hearts and their minds

and their emotions, Lord, and we say,

"Thank you, Lord, for the opportunity

to pray and bless them in Jesus's name."

- I typically never make a sign,

but I figured why not.

A simple sign manifested

into encountering this man, George.

- How do you like the United States?

You like it? - Yeah.

- He offered me the $50 bonus

to tour a luxury timeshare in North Beach in Miami.

- Guys, I need you to come over here

for a minute and just initial this.

- It required a bit of paperwork

and fibbing as far as my occupation and salary.

So what?

I could use $50 to help myself

and to help this man

make a few dollars off of referring me.

- Hey, you got to wash your hands, all right?

Come on, let me take you to the bathroom.

Here's your ID.

Okay?

You've gotta finish the tour in order to get the gift.

So in an hour, hour and a half,

they're gonna have snacks up there.

They're gonna tell you about a vacation club,

and, you know, if you like it, buy it.

If you don't--if you don't make spur-of-the-moment decisions,

whatever it is that you do or don't do, it's up to you.

You don't have to buy anything for the gift, okay?

Thank you again. I'll be here when you get done, okay?

I'll be here waiting to pay you. Okay.

- Maybe about a 25-minute van ride,

and you end up at this beautiful facility.

Sure, I'll pretend to be a hotshot wealthy young guy

covered in dirt, stinky.

- Okay.

76?

- The pool area's generally [indistinct].

Brothers? Sisters?

Younger sister, okay.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

The pressure that the older ones always get.

- Yeah. - Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Did you guys--

Okay, cool, cool, cool.

- I told her I was a master carpenter.

That was my way of explaining

my hands being all dirty and stained.

- Right on, brother.

- Yeah?

Yes?

Oh, that's good. - Yeah.

- Mm-hmm.

- The $50 Dylan earned could last for a few days,

maybe beyond the few days I had with him on the streets,

but he decided to go to a restaurant for dinner,

and the rest of the money he gave away.

After a few minutes, not surprisingly

Dylan became friends with the people

sitting at the next table.

- What's your name? - I'm Dylan.

- Dylan? - Yes.

- Nice to meet you. Ingrid. - Ingrid?

- Ingrid, yeah.

- That's my grandma. - That's your grandma?

Aww. Bless you.

- This is my mom--

- Nice to meet you all.

- They gave Dylan $20 and their contact information.

- Yeah, keep in touch with us. - I promise. I promise.

- Yes, and then when we come back here--

- God forbid, I hope not, but if--

- Yes.

- All right. All right.

I love it. Love it.

- Absolutely.

- You guys have a beautiful night.

- Thank you. You too.

Bye.

♪

- We're sorry. Forgive us.

- I was worried that we would be kicked out of this park.

Sure enough, I got woken up by police.

such things.

♪

- This won't?

Before we headed north,

I went to a bathroom in a bagel shop to clean myself.

It took me so long in the bathroom

that the staff noticed and questioned me.

I told them about Dylan and that I was filming him.

Dylan, they were preparing bagels for us on the roads.

Do you want to come in and say thank you to them?

- I don't know why he's in that situation,

but whatever reason, he's there, so why not help?

- How much money did you give him?

- Just five, five bucks.

Then, like, a half a pack of smokes.

Then we gave him some bagels and stuff.

That was the boss's idea there.

You know, just some bagels and some cream cheese.

Heard he was living on the streets and hungry,

so, you know, why not help someone?

- Soon after we were back on the road,

Dylan decided to sell the bagels.

No one wanted a bagel,

but many people gave him money.

What did you tell him?

- I said, "Yo, you need a bagel for a dollar?

I'm trying to hit this bus."

And he's like, "Hold on. Hold on,"

and he went inside and bought some beer

and came back with a dollar,

but he didn't ask for a bagel.

- I was annoyed that Dylan wanted

to get rid of the bagels.

I felt that he was ungrateful

for the kindness people showed him.

I felt so disgusted that I lost interest in filming

and gave him the camera.

When I first met Dylan,

he seemed like a symbol for the free America

I had always heard about.

But the longer I spent

observing how he used his freedom,

my feelings changed.

- Spare a dollar?

- I don't eat that much food.

I don't want to carry that around for so long.

I don't want to have to take three [bleep] a day.

I'm not going to get any money from anybody for food

if I'm carrying a big bag of bagels around.

My objective is drinking right now,

and now I have to beg again, which I never beg.

I have to beg today to get some beer.

So I can think straight enough to know what's bothering me.

- But you already knew the answer.

You already knew it, right?

- I need to drink and think about it.

It doesn't involve you,

but I just still need to think about it.

- When he threw away the bagels,

I couldn't stand it.

We had an argument.

I criticized him for taking advantage

of people's kindness.

But then I thought to myself,

"Was I the one who was taking advantage of him by filming?"

Shortly after this, my trip with Dylan ended.

Dylan stayed on the streets,

and I went back to my life in New York.

[car horn blares]

[traffic noises, whistles blow]

Everything looked different after the trip.

My few weeks on the streets showed me

that my everyday worries from before all seemed pointless.

I knew that whatever happened, I could survive.

I soon became busy making a film

about Chinese human rights.

The survival skills I learned on the streets with Dylan

became useful as I was on the run across China

chased by the police.

I often found myself comparing my experience

filming in both countries.

I felt safer sleeping on the streets

than I did traveling in China on buses and trains.

Two years quickly went by.

I often wondered what would happen to Dylan

and if I would see him again.

♪

- I started doing these around 2013.

What I would do is in between calls or, you know,

when I was on call and driving around in my work truck,

I would just stick the GoPro to one of the windows

and just say what was on my mind.

It is a beautiful day.

You've got to enjoy those every chance you get.

I am headed off to do some scouting

on a target house...

a little bit.

And then I got to pick up some new handcuffs

because mine...

got stuck on the last guy I arrested,

and that's really upsetting because I've had that pair

of handcuffs for 24 years,

my entire career.

♪

- Two years after I first met Dylan,

I traveled to Utah for the first time

for the Chinese human rights film I was working on.

I remembered that Dylan was from Utah,

and I was curious to see

if I could learn more about where he came from.

- I have lots of disks

where I've recorded my thoughts,

just like a video journal,

and there's a lot of things that are--

are special to me,

you know, that I'm glad I have documented.

We got an [indistinct] search warrant,

Park City, Utah.

- Police! Search warrant!

- Get on the floor! - Police! Search warrant!

Police! Search warrant!

- I've been a detective since 2011.

I investigate sex crimes.

I'm also assigned to investigate Internet crimes

against children.

We'll execute a search warrant.

High 90% of the time,

we find evidence of child pornography.

Well, the first several times

I had to review material, because I can't say,

"Well...I think this is child porn."

I have to review it and make sure what it is,

and I have to be able to describe

a number of images in videos.

So the first time I did have to do those reviews,

I got some vicarious trauma, and I don't cry hardly ever.

I sat down at my desk one day

and just kind of started to cry.

This was a way to get those things off my chest

even though I'm only talking to myself.

I couldn't talk to other people about it.

Every once in a while I'd wake up really early,

and I just couldn't go back to bed,

so I decided just to go to work.

I started the camera from my driveway,

and it was super dark, so you can't see anything,

but you could hear what I was talking about.

I have three kids.

My youngest is 15.

He gets straight A's in school, very smart.

My daughter is...

Working on graduating from college.

She's so kindhearted and good.

And my oldest boy, he's 23.

He's been a transient all around the country.

♪

No parent wants their child to be homeless on the street.

I think when you're a parent,

you want your children to be kind of like you.

He looks just like I did when I was his age or younger.

We have a lot of similarities in our voice

and the way that we really care about people.

All three of my children grew up

with the same expectations and the same knowledge,

and they all turned out so very differently.

♪

- I'm kind of a religious person.

Well, I'm actually a very religious person, but--

♪

I wouldn't dream of breaking the rules,

but Dylan is all out there happily breaking all the rules

that he can get away with, you know?

I feel like he has this sense of freedom

with breaking rules, you know?

I don't think he likes to be bound by anything,

or I don't think he likes to be told what to do.

The way I see homeless people

is people who made bad decisions,

you know, and I'm sure if they could go back,

they'd change those bad decisions.

- The way Ashton feels was 100% totally his choice.

He can do whatever he wants.

Dylan, the same way.

He has the freedom to choose.

- I learned that Dylan has a very loving family.

I wondered what made him choose to live on the streets.

- Part of it was he hated Utah.

He hated the local religion,

and so he had made some friends,

and they had different philosophies.

There was drug use in those circles.

His drug habit got more and more intense,

and he'd had some psychological problems

that we tried to deal with.

He gets his medications.

Then he'll go out and sell it for $300,

so there was a lot of frustrations.

You know, what can we do to help?

When you have a child you want to help,

you've got to simplify the rules, you know,

and I had simple rules.

Don't bring drugs into my house,

and I made him come up with the consequence.

"All right, so if you violate these rules,

what's the consequences?"

He came up with it. He said, "I'm out."

And so, you know, there was a time

when I found some things in his room here.

I just--

And I pointed it out to him,

and I says, "Well, what's gonna happen now?"

He says, "Dad, I know. I got to go."

He told me, "Just drop me off in the mountains."

We're driving up on 89.

"Just drop me off in the mountains."

I said, "I can't drop you off in the mountains."

I said, "It's getting cold, and you'll die of exposure,"

so I bought him

a bus ticket to San Diego,

and I looked up every social service program

that could help him that was in the San Diego area.

I printed those up with maps.

I had his whole itinerary of being homeless planned.

"Here's where the bus station is.

"Here's where you can get some food.

Here's where someone can help you to get a job."

He was excited to go in a way,

and I'm frightened.

I'm terrified at this point.

So...

at the end of the day,

I took him down to the Greyhound station,

and I had that $400 in my pocket,

and I thought to myself,

"If I just give him $400 here and we part ways,

he'll be in downtown Salt Lake buying drugs."

So I waited until he was in line for the Greyhound bus.

Then I gave him $400.

And I said, "Don't lose it."

"Don't lose any of this stuff.

"I want you to survive, and I trust--

I trust you. I trust that you can survive."

And I watched the bus go away,

and I call that one of the three

saddest days of my life.

One of them being when Brenton died.

Our first son passed away at birth,

and that was tough.

I remember going out to the cemetery

and just crying

and bathed his headstone in my tears.

I couldn't believe all the bad things

that have happened to me in my life.

One of them being when the woman

I was married to for 18 years

said she didn't want to be married to me anymore.

I think the divorce was really hard for Dylan.

♪

- I think it might have had effects on Dylan,

but his behavior had more effects on us.

For me, I kind of had a breakdown

'cause I didn't know what to do with him.

John didn't know what to do with him,

and I think it strained our relationship.

- Dylan's mother agreed to one interview with me,

but she didn't want to participate further

in the film because reliving these memories

was very painful for her.

- There's a lot of moms that have homeless children

that are addicts, and you never sleep at night.

You always worry about them.

As any mom with an addicted child will tell you,

that every time the phone rings,

you wonder if that's the call.

Every time there's a number that you don't recognize,

you--your heart drops

because you know that some day there's a real possibility

that you're gonna get that call,

and that's...

something that I worry about all the time.

- She was always convinced that he was murdered somewhere,

and I would say to myself,

"No, no, if something that bad happened, somebody would--"

I know how law enforcement works.

They would've figured out who he was,

and I would have got a phone call.

So no news is good news, but it was a long time,

and I was just terrified, worrying like,

"Oh, my gosh, what did I do?"

You know, I just like,

"Is he okay? What's wrong?"

Until the first time he called me.

Oh, man, I was so glad to hear his voice,

and he said, "Guess where I'm at."

He said he was on somebody's boat,

and they'd hired him to help them work on the guy's boat

and was paying him money,

and I thought, "Oh, my gosh, hallelujah."

Okay, so now he's in a place that he likes,

and he has something positive, you know,

and that's the first time I learned

"This is where Dylan just started being Dylan."

♪

A few weeks later he calls me. "Guess where I'm at."

"Where?"

"At a mansion in Malibu

drinking a glass of wine looking at the ocean."

And he sends me a text picture of him--

of a glass of wine, and there's the ocean.

He's up on the hill in Malibu.

"Oh, my gosh. Hallelujah. What the heck."

San Diego, Panama City, Florida,

New York, and all kinds of places.

Heck, he got on a sailboat

and was 80 miles off the shore in blue water.

I'm thinking, this kid is living kind of a Forrest Gump,

Walter Mitty kind of existence,

and--and, uh...

I started to talk to my friends about it.

I'm proud of Dylan in so many respects,

you know, and so interested,

but on the other side,

what's he gonna do when he gets old?

I think to myself, "What are you doing, kid?"

I'm confused, and I don't understand,

and I hope he's happy.

I hope he is always up for another adventure,

but I hope he's a healthy guy.

I hope he can find the balance there

'cause I don't want him to die before I do.

- Several months after my first trip to Utah,

John was getting remarried,

and he invited me to the wedding,

especially since Dylan would be there.

It would be the first time any of us had seen Dylan in years.

♪

♪

- First, I would like to welcome everybody

for coming out today.

I could go on all day

talking about how wonderful my family is

and just love them, and my job makes me grateful

even more for my family every day,

but I'm gonna focus a little bit of attention

on my children.

Dylan here. Raise your hand, Dylan.

He's my oldest son.

Dylan is super intelligent.

He is, like, one of the most awesome adventurers

I've ever known, very resourceful,

and one thing about Dylan

is he knows how to write

and express himself.

Like, I read some of the things that this kid wrote,

and I just want him to put it in a book.

Kayla, she is the sweetest,

most kindest person in the world totally.

I love you very much.

Well, without further ado, I'll have Ashton play a song,

and in the middle of the song

is when we'll introduce my beautiful bride to you guys.

- By virtue of the legal authority invested in me

as elder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints,

I pronounce you, John Corbin Olsen

and Wende Sue Mabey,

husband and wife, legally and lawfully wedded

for the period of your mortal lives.

May God bless you in this union with joy,

and your posterity in a long life of happiness together,

and may he enable you to keep sacred covenants you've made.

Mr. and Mrs. Olsen.

- Oh, my God.

- Awww!

- The youngest, five. That's fine too.

You're just five. - Hello.

- I'm Grandma. - Yeah.

- I hear all about you, how amazing you are.

- Well, I don't think I'm that amazing.

People are nice, though, to say that.

- I hear you-- How long will you be here?

- I'll probably be here for a few months.

- That's good. - Yeah, I'll be hanging around.

It's good to be around the family.

I've been away for far too long,

and so being around the family is--

it feels really nice.

- That's good. That's good.

That's good you're going to stay.

- Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I'm excited to stay.

all: ♪ There was this boy whose ♪

♪ Parents made him

♪ Come directly home right after school ♪

♪ And when

♪ They went to their church ♪

♪ They shook

♪ And lurched all over the church floor ♪

♪

♪ He couldn't quite explain it ♪

- While Dylan was in Utah,

he took me to some of his memorable places.

- Ever since I was a kid,

I've always been so attracted

to the--to the aesthetic life,

the guy who lives out of a backpack and just travels.

This is a little place we used to hang out.

I ran away from home one time and stayed here for--

I don't know-- a good couple of days.

Utah, this is a place of geographical wonder.

The high elevation mountain lakes, the deserts,

the red rock,

the mountains, the marshlands,

the lakes, everywhere, this is where I grew up.

This is where I got to explore

and learn how to be a woodsman

and learn how to swim and fish

and explore exploring itself.

Sadly this place is very conservative

and very judgmental,

predominantly populated by people

who want to worship their lord and savior, Jesus.

Somebody like me with tattoos, an open mind,

and--you know, I get shunned out.

You can't get a job. You're judged.

You're scrutinized thoroughly.

You smoke cigarettes, heaven forbid.

You drink a beer, heaven forbid.

I love to come here to visit,

but trying to become part of the inner

social structure of this state,

it's a bit more of a challenge than other places.

A man from the past living in the present

so his presence is living in the future.

He only sought the things that the whole world forgot.

I am he. He is me.

If you only knew he is another you.

- That night, Dylan asked me to show his family

the footage I filmed on the streets in Florida.

Dylan was excited to see it.

- Oh, I remember this dude. This cat was weird.

I forgot about him.

That was the bagel store right there.

I love this man. Good dude.

- But gradually I noticed that not everyone was comfortable

seeing Dylan as a homeless person.

- Oh, .

Oh, he's so awesome.

Oh. [bleep] ass [bleep].

Son of a bitch.

- After the screening,

Ashton told Dylan not to curse in front of him,

which made Dylan very upset.

♪

- You're a pain in the ass. You realize that?

♪

I just wish that he could see

my side of the world a little bit better.

If one day he wakes up and he's like,

"Wow. the Mormon religion is bull

and my entire [bleep] life philosophy is gone,"

just like what happened to me,

if one day he realizes that's gone,

what the [bleep] would he do?

♪

- Instead of sleeping in his parents' house,

Dylan went to do drugs with his friends on the mountain.

♪

Dylan left Utah soon after the wedding.

It was then I remembered something that John told me

the first time I met him.

- He'd had some psychological problems

that we tried to deal with.

He gets his medications, and then he'll go out

and sell it for $300.

- I ignored what he told me back then.

I dismissed it as an overreaction

to Dylan's nonconformity,

but I realized my own bias kept me from hearing

what John tried to tell me.

- Part of his mental issues was severe paranoia.

He starts to tell me that there's people after him,

and he starts naming names,

and I know these--I knew one of the people was here

and couldn't possibly have even known where he was,

so I tried to tell him, convince him,

that he was just having hallucinations.

- How did you know it wasn't from the drug use?

- Because I've known a lot of drug addicts

in the course of my career,

and people who were blitzed on you name it,

and that's not a typical reaction to the drugs.

I know that the drugs compounded the issue.

- I wonder when Dylan first had that type of experience

and whether he had told you.

- It really didn't come on strong until he was 17,

18 years old.

He's always been open and honest with me

about bad things going on in his life.

But I can't guarantee that he wasn't hiding something

that was bothering him,

or that he would even know that this isn't real,

and this isn't the way it is.

I mean, he could've been experiencing things to this day

that he thinks were real that didn't actually happen.

♪

- Every time I close my eyes,

I'm mesmerized by some kind of dream.

Places I've never seen before

but I feel like I've seen before.

The first time that I heard them so vividly,

I just thought I was possessed.

I'd look at somebody,

and I swear I could hear what they were thinking,

and then I'd look at somebody else,

and I would hear what they were thinking.

And I was just afraid.

I don't even remember what happened after that.

I don't even know how I got--

Yeah, I really can't even remember what happened.

I went blank for, like, a week.

I could put it on the inside so it would be hidden.

- Which inside? - See how it's got this--

- Where. Oh, cool. - All right.

Go in the shade somewhere? - Mm-hmm.

Here's the thing that I kept wondering

and I couldn't understand,

because we spent almost a month together,

and I did not notice anything,

whether you behaved differently,

whether you were nervous or panicked or anything.

Was it just a bad time period, just, like, nothing happened?

You didn't hear voices? You didn't see illusions?

- No, I just didn't let it show.

- Really? - Yeah. I just hide a lot of it.

- How could you hide if that's so strong?

- Alcohol. - Really?

- Alcohol helps. When I--I mean, for instance,

there was that one time

we were eating the dinner in South Beach.

We were sitting next to that family,

and some guy gave me a weird look,

some, like, gang-banger-looking guy.

He looked at me and he was like, "What's up?"

And it just--immediately I got this panic going on.

I remember the first thing I did is I went

and bought some alcohol,

and we got on that bus, I was drinking the vodka,

and I was all happy on the bus after that.

- I had been with Dylan

that whole night filming everything,

but I missed this,

this entire narrative that was running in his head.

I went back to look at my footage

and finally noticed how much Dylan had been drinking.

It was constant.

♪

Are you drunk?

He told me that the voices had always been there.

- It's a sensation that I'm gonna deal with my whole life,

and I'm just--I'm basically in the--I don't know--

kindergarten stage

of trying to understand this phenomenon

going on in my psyche and my spirituality.

- I'm trying to understand.

- It's--It's-- Yeah, you can't--

It's something really difficult to explain,

and that's why there's such little compassion towards it.

- I asked Dylan if he remembered

any of the voices he heard.

He said he had written them down.

- And these are true things

that I've actually heard in the past.

"Look at him. He's so foolish. Watch how he's doing it.

"Yep, he hears us. That idiot.

"You're always gonna be someone's bitch, Dylan.

"This is Project Craft unit 27-A.

"Your grandpa's dying right now.

"Listen to him suffering in the hospital.

"And the old man moaning sound and groaning.

He has lasted longer than most..."

"Remember San Diego? That was crazy.

That was so [bleep]."

"He's terrified of everything.

Yeah, PTSD."

- When I was a child in China, people in my village

used to say that mental illness was contagious.

When I grew up, the media said

that people who protested

against the government had mental illness,

and I had seen how dissidents

were locked in mental hospitals.

When John first told me that Dylan was mentally ill,

I was in denial.

But now, hearing Dylan describing his mental trauma,

I started to question my own perception of reality.

How do you know what things in your life are real

and are not real?

- I can just feel it.

I have physical sensations in my body,

and I've had enough experiences

where I know it's not real

and thought it was.

I know when it's not real now.

I can feel it.

♪

♪

- Have you caught anything?

- No.

- I brought you some fish.

- Are you serious?

Aw.

- My relationship with Dylan is, like,

boyfriend-girlfriend, I would say.

He finds so much beauty on the street.

It's so special that I get to see through his eyes

directly how it is.

So we love each other a lot,

but we live a lifestyle that constantly changes,

or we like when it changes, and we love loving people.

After experiencing this,

I feel like I won't be able to,

like, live a quote-unquote, like, normal life ever again.

I don't see Dylan as mentally ill.

We think very imaginatively.

I think that's why we get along so well.

Maybe he's mentally ill

because he doesn't want to be part of the status quo,

but that's not mentally ill.

It's just a different opinion.

♪

- Over the next few days,

I met some of Dylan's homeless friends.

- What's going on, bro? How you doing, my man?

- Many of them shared Dylan's experience.

How long have you been living this kind of lifestyle?

- On and off for a lot of years.

I have OCD.

It makes it difficult to-- I mean, I can do education,

but as far as balancing the things of the workforce,

the life place, it's--

I'm pretty much incapable of doing that,

so this is a lifestyle I can do.

- I had some experiences with voices.

I had little tricksters.

They would either laugh at me,

tell me good things, bad things,

and then there was tricksters, and you'd hear the giggling,

and like, I'd be, like, taking a shower.

"Shut off the water and save--you know,

and save water." You know, I'm like, "Okay."

- And then they're like, "Look at how stupid she is.

She just turned off the water."

- I know. Right!

It goes on and on and on and on.

- Yeah. - And finally you put yourself

in a corner and, like, cover your head start crying,

balling your eyes out like,

"What did I do wrong this time?"

My confidence, you know, like, went to crap.

- If you tell any doctor that you hear things

and see things that other people can't,

then that's schizo effective.

That's just what they're gonna say,

so some people are very afraid of that word.

I don't even like to use that word "schizophrenia"

just for that reason.

I'm sensitive to other energies and forces

in this world that are real.

I'm not mentally ill.

I'm really just experiencing stuff

that's in the ether that most people can't see.

- It was difficult for me to imagine their states of mind.

I wanted to understand Dylan's mind better,

so I asked him if he could visualize

some of his experiences for me.

Dylan came up with the idea

to recreate moments of mental trauma from his past.

He invited his homeless friends

to create the reenactments.

- Yeah. - Yesterday and today, man--

So if everyone can just find a random book,

take a book, and just use your intuition.

Somebody will set their chair close to me,

and they'll just start reading aloud

just, you know, quietly,

and I get confused and distracted,

and then it will just go around in a circle like that.

- I got one question though. - Yeah?

- What is the name of the movie?

- "I'm Another You."

- "I'm Another You?" - Yeah.

- That describes schizophrenia pretty well.

- Yeah, well, I mean, you know,

I'm grateful that all of you are here for this

because, you know, I hate to use the word

"schizophrenic" or "bipolar" or anything like that

because we're really just empathic sensitive people

that don't fit in to this whole machine.

We're really-- we're really emotional,

and we see things other people can't see,

and it's important, so I'm glad you guys are here.

- Right on, brother.

- The homeless are close to the streets, to the pavement,

the curbs, and the gutters,

concrete, the litter, the sewer, the sewer lids,

the fire hydrants and wastebaskets

and the bus stops and the storefronts.

They move slowly over familiar terrain day after day,

stopping to talk to each other because time means little.

- Ready.

- Stopping to watch a stalled car under hats and caps.

- A new drug dealer on the corner.

A strange face on the curb...

- And like sentries they observe...

- Sexual images-- - They sit on their sidewalks--

- Hidden under hats and caps.

- One of our clients said...

- Like sentries they observe-- - Every move--

- Sexual images-- - Every move--

- Hear the sounds of the streets--

- They absorbed the odors of diesel--

- They know it-- - Too much of this life--

- Guns fired-- - Look at that.

They had him hogtied, raped him,

and then put a knife to his chest.

- Look at him. He's so foolish.

- I'm openly expressing the most sensitive and--

things about me.

If some people understood me, which I know they would,

I would appreciate that, but this isn't about me.

Most people with these kind of--with a mind like mine,

they don't have skills to explain

or illustrate what's going on actually.

You asked me if I was homeless by choice,

and I would've said "yes"

initially but--

because I did make the choice to be homeless,

but thinking about it on a deeper level,

it is definitely not a choice.

How am I supposed to keep a job

when I have these social paranoias

and these hallucinations?

How can I call in sick maybe once or twice a week?

It's--it's really not feasible.

By their standards, I'm mentally disabled.

♪

- I came to Florida to find out

whether Dylan was mentally ill

and what his reality was.

But after understanding the complexities

of his mental health, addiction, and homelessness,

the question had become less important.

How do you spell your name?

- D-Y-L-A-N.

- Dylan? - Dylan.

- I had seen how the mind can build prisons for itself.

I had seen through people's treatment of Dylan

how they were limited by their perception.

- You see, you and I, like, we don't differ all that much.

- Yeah.

- I'm just fascinated, so what made you--

like, did someone else do this that you decided to do it or--

- I like him, you know?

And like, he's a funny cat, man.

You know, he's young. He's finding himself.

- I see Dylan's face

in every homeless person that I see.

♪

- I came to the U.S. in 2011.

I followed Dylan hoping to find something

I've been searching for all my life.

Along the way I've learned

what I've been searching for

exists only in the mind.

♪

- What else is there besides this endless kisses

from Mrs. Bliss herself,

escaping the clasp of the second hand's ticking task

kicking back the flask to bask with no mask.

Wherever he goes, he leaves an echo to show.

From the pitter-patter of his feet

to the magic incantation he speaks,

a man from the past living in the present

so his presence is living in the future,

yesterday, and tomorrow.

Last week was seven years long.

The only thought in his mind was the singing bird's song.

He only sought the things that the whole world forgot.

I am he. He is me.

If you only knew he is another you.

♪

♪ ♪