Hallucinations

There are certain expectations for real phenomena. This is not simply based on how many people believe in something. It also has to do with rationality and repeatability. This is essentially what science is for. But on a more practical day to day basis you just have to trust your intuition or the words of others. They are no perfect solutions or definite answers.

>As for trusting- that goes back to the delusion thing. Sounds like paranoia to me. And it might be in the realm of possibility, but the probability is fairly low because what on earth would be the motivation for messing with the afflicted person? Honestly it sounds like borderline psychosis, which isn't a very fun place to be (I've been there).

The purpose of this hypothetical scenario is that neither the afflicted person nor other people know that the afflicted person is, in fact, "afflicted". The afflicted person himself is questioning his perception of reality because the things that other people are telling him contradicts what he himself has experienced. He, of course, has considered the possibility that people are intentionally screwing with his head as part of a prank.

Now, why would a group of people want to mess with the afflicted person regardless of whether or not they know that this person is, in fact, "afflicted" with something?

Schaudenfreude. I have seen first-hand how people could not give a single fuck about a person's mental and emotional instability. When a person is diagnosed with a "disorder", it's like they're having a big label stamped on their forehead that says "WEAK" or "LAZY" or "CRAZY" or "STUPID". And so, people take advantage of this. They see a person who is unfit for this world. They see a person who is deserving of all the hate and mockery.

Hallucinations are pretty interesting. For myself anyway, they imply strongly that sensory perception is not an awareness of the world per se, but rather an 'image' constructed by the brain to inform you about the world (or your immediate [internal and external] surroundings), with information gleaned from the actual sense receptors.
I mean how could one even hallucinate if their sensory experience was simply that fed to the brain by the sense receptors? Impossible. A camera cannot show anything but what is hitting its sensor.
So our perceptions are constructed at a very low level by some neural algorithm working on our sense data.

You just try to punch the shit out of everyone you see and if you connect then you know they're real

can only be distinguished from reality in retrospect in my experience

>You just try to punch the shit out of everyone you see and if you connect then you know they're real

But how can be so certain that you're "connecting"? For all you know, what you perceive to be a "connection" is, in reality, a combination of both visual and tactile hallucinations.

My brain has proven to be very effective in simulating pain within my dreams. I've had dreams where I've hit, been hit, and even gotten myself killed. In the dream, the pain felt as real as it does in the waking world. Looking back on the dream, it all seems so surreal. It did not feel so surreal when I was still in the dream.

The American Psychiatric Association's "Guideline For The Treatment Of Patients With Schizophrenia" states that "Antipsychotic medications are indicated for nearly all acute psychotic episodes in patients with schizophrenia."

Independently, you should also note that there is a significant overlap in terms of the medications for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder (Manic Depression).

There are two main classifications of medications (from a layman's perspective) the traditional antipsychotic medications (Haldol, etc.), and the newer, "atypical" antipsychotic medications that have come out in the past decade (Clozapine, Geodon, Seroquel, Risperdal, Zyprexa, Abilify, etc.). We recommend you visit our (and other) on-line support groups to learn what people are saying about their success and problems with the different medications. We also recommend you read as much as you can on the medications available, and talk with a psychiatrist, to identify the medications that may be appropriate. Keep in mind that while both the older and newer medications can greatly help a person who has schizophrenia, they all have significant side effects that vary by person and medication, and they are unfortunately not yet a cure for schizophrenia

This happens to schizos actually. They might have an entire conversation with a hallucination of someone they know, and not know the difference. And you just wouldn't be able to tell. Actually its pretty horrifying.

>This happens to schizos actually. They might have an entire conversation with a hallucination of someone they know, and not know the difference. And you just wouldn't be able to tell. Actually its pretty horrifying.

So when the schizo is hallucinating, does it happen in real-time? Like, is the schizo out and about among a crowd of people, and all of a sudden they start hallucinating and they start talking to somebody who isn't there, and other people around him will look at him and go, "who the hell is he talking to?" Almost as if the schizo is sleep-walking?

Or is it more like a dream? Does the schizo dream a conversation while sleeping at night, and due to a combination of disorganized thinking and poor memory the schizo misinterprets the dream as something that really happened?

Or could it happen when they're bored at work and daydreaming, and they imagine a conversation but they forget that the conversation was imagined? So they might go up to a co-worker and start arguing with them about something that they said in the imagined argument, and the co-worker just stands there confused?

And what is the difference between a person who is sleep-walking and acting out their dream, and a person who is experiencing a psychotic episode?

The brain will be wired way much more differently than a rational person's brain.

It's like how some of them [mentally ill / drug users] will think their are insects crawling under their skin and no one other than them can see them or feel them.

youtube.com/watch?v=dJcolHaSF8w

I went to the point of amphetamine psychosis once, and this did indeed happen a bit. I experienced and perceived things much differently than they actually were, but it wasn't so comprehensive that I wouldn't realize the stored information was incorrect retrospectively. ie, it's not persistent. Though I imagine the mental conflict involved is a large component of the paranoia aspects.

eg I did a chemistry test and got 0 questions correct because I answered things, in depth, that weren't even asked. I still put everything in the right spaces, had calculations and such written in the margins, but all the diagrams and questions I remembered answering weren't there when I got it back. Teacher looked at me very strangely. I thought I discovered a means for short range mind control as well. Still actually think that might not have been hallucinated.

This ultimately peaked when I started hearing voices whispering in my head, I'd communicate with them and transfer them values or memory clusters to hold on to, or sort (most of it was commentary, or a haze gibberish / nonsense sense, but some was insightful), and seeing flashes of text and symbols moving through the air and along flat surfaces. Realized I was incapable of achieving an erection as well (still orgasmed, eventually, don't remember if there was ejaculate), and thought maybe I ought to stop.

Or maybe they are just talking to someone they know is listening.

Yeah but it's a great excuse to spy and experiment on them for the rest of their lives ;)

what if... X% of those diagnoses are actually such experiments or results thereof...

>I went to the point of amphetamine psychosis once

How much were you taking?

You're basically just rephrasing Descartes into a specific circumstance. Read Meditations and be prepared to fully doubt everything in the physical world.

That's more of a philosophical question than a scientific one desu.

Doctor Lev, son of the most famous abortion clinic owner of Slovakia, always believed that abortions are a sinking market, because as cheap as abortions may get, falling down the staircase will always remain free

Can anybody explain to me what, exactly, schizophrenia is?

When a person is developing schizophrenia, do they notice it? Does it happen gradually, or very quickly all at once?

When a schizophrenic is about to experience a psychotic episode, can they feel it happening (kind of how like epileptics can notice when they're about to have an epileptic seizure)? Can schizophrenics prevent a psychotic episode from occurring without taking medication?

It kind of seems to me as if the symptoms of schizophrenia vary from person to person.

Some people diagnosed with schizophrenia seem to only have it as bad as auditory hallucinations but with no delusions. So they generally seem to function fairly well as long as they remain aware that their hallucinations come entirely from their own minds. There's even something called the "Hearing Voices Movement", for people who hear voices but aren't necessarily "mentally ill". And they apparently don't need to take any medication for this to be able to function.

While others diagnosed with schizophrenia seem to have it so bad that they experience hallucinations that affect all of their senses: visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory, and tactile hallucinations. All accompanied by bizarre delusions, disorganized thinking, poor memory... they can't really function at all. Some of them seem to have poor motor control and so they're just flailing wildly and yelling. Others are catatonic, they simply remain perfectly still for hours.

I knew a guy once who was diagnosed with schizophrenia and prescribed antipsychotics for two years... until a different psychiatrist told him that he didn't have schizophrenia and that what he had been experiencing two years previously were auditory hallucinations caused by drug-induced psychosis (since the guy had been abusing cocaine along with a bunch of other illegal drugs.)

Is there any test that can be done that proves with 100% certainty that a person has schizophrenia?

>Can schizophrenics prevent a psychotic episode from occurring without taking medication?
Obviously not, else they likely wouldn't be classified schizophrenic. I mean it's arguable that normal people are just schizophrenics who are relatively more skilled at this.

>Obviously not, else they likely wouldn't be classified schizophrenic. I mean it's arguable that normal people are just schizophrenics who are relatively more skilled at this.

Well, I've read that it's possible to treat schizophrenia entirely with psychotherapy, no medication whatsoever. But the psychotherapist would have to be highly skilled, and therefore extremely expensive... the sort of psychotherapist that most people can't afford.

So I wonder if this is really possible. To treat schizophrenia only with therapy. If it's possible to treat every type of schizophrenia in this manner, even the most severe types of schizophrenia. And if this is the case, I wonder if a schizophrenic can be trained to recognize when a psychotic episode is about to occur, and "shut it down" before it happens.

Like with people who take hallucinogenic drugs. I've read about the various different effects experienced. The hallucinations seem to occur very gradually, and they seem to vary from person to person.

Some people claim that reality only becomes slightly more distorted, with objects very slightly changing shapes and/or sizes, almost as if those objects are "breathing", accompanied by strange fractal patterns on everything.

Other people claim to experience a complete disconnect from reality, a total loss of sense of self, exploring bizarre and fictional landscapes, encountering strange inter-dimensional beings and whatnot.

Some people who experience things like described in the latter simply brush it off as a figment of their imagination, while others seem to hold on to what they experienced as something of an "epiphany" about the "truth of reality".

People's experiences seem to depend on a combination of various different factors: genetic, prenatal development, postnatal development, childhood experiences, adolescent experiences, hormones, chemical imbalances, stress, etc.

I am a schizophrenic and was wondering if all you anons would discuss this illness further, the reason being is that I have a better understanding of what is going inside in my head :^). It might actually put things into a new perspective for me and change the way I behave and act in my everyday life.

>I am a schizophrenic and was wondering if all you anons would discuss this illness further, the reason being is that I have a better understanding of what is going inside in my head :^). It might actually put things into a new perspective for me and change the way I behave and act in my everyday life.

Very well. Could you answer the questions within these following posts?:

>And what is the difference between a person who is sleep-walking and acting out their dream, and a person who is experiencing a psychotic episode?

ask a doctor that has had many years doing this, I have no idea, since I'm only the patient.

When I dream I have sleep paralysis and seizures and from my groggy sleep I go into the world and the delusions and hallucinations are still there, from the time I wake up until the time I go to sleep, then through the night when I'm sleeping. I have phychotic episodes, because of these hallucinations and delusions.

>Can anybody explain to me what, exactly, schizophrenia is?

Ask a doctor that has had many years dealing with this.

When I started seeing the illness it wasn't in my mind that I was going to become very sick. I started acting isolated and started seeing things. This all happened when I started taking drugs at an early age. It was only until the moment I was hospitalized that I started recognizance that there was a serious problem with the way I viewed reality and the things that were(still are) going inside my head. I only hear voices when I'm all by myself, especially at night.

>genetic, prenatal development, postnatal development, childhood experiences, adolescent experiences, hormones, chemical imbalances, stress, etc.

I feel like all these things have caused the illness to trigger in my brain and cause a mental disorder.

>"shut it down" before it happens

I get very agitated when certain things happen and it is okay for me to accept it sometimes, but other times it is very hard to control myself.

Right now It has been not even two years and I've had two hospital stays for about two months in total. I've tried more than 15 different kinds of meds, but none that even closely makes my life better. On Tuesday I will probably change my meds again and see what happens. Thank you guys for these amazing thoughts.

>When I dream I have sleep paralysis and seizures and from my groggy sleep I go into the world and the delusions and hallucinations are still there, from the time I wake up until the time I go to sleep, then through the night when I'm sleeping. I have phychotic episodes, because of these hallucinations and delusions.

What sorts of things do you hallucinate about? What sorts of delusions do you have? Do you experience visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory, and tactile hallucinations all at once? Do you experience these throughout the entire day, even when you're fully awake?

>I get very agitated when certain things happen and it is okay for me to accept it sometimes, but other times it is very hard to control myself.

What sorts of things trigger agitation in you? At which point would you say that you can't control yourself? How bad does it get for you? Do other people around you notice that there's something happening to you, or do only you notice it and so you voluntarily have yourself hospitalized?

I hallucinate black shadows, and fractals that appear out of thin air. It happens all the time, there is a thing that when I relax I start seeing different colors and shapes will form(I will get to this later). I have small delusions about everyday things and they turn into grandiose delusions about the entire world and having it all do to with me. One example of my delusions is that when something happens at the same time I feel like someone is out to get me. A second example of a delusion that I have is that when I experience the world I feel like people are trying to convey a message to me in everything that they do, like I hear one thing and I immediately think in my head that it is something completely different and this happens 24/7. I visually hallucinate 24/7, I only hear voices at night and when I'm alone. And those other ones I rarely have them.

>What sorts of things trigger agitation in you?

When things happen in a coincidence and this happens with everything in the world. I can't even take a piss without cars bothering me. Sometimes when I'm with people I will throw things or misplace things just so that I can confirm that some delusion is not real. There have been really bad experiences in the past, which has led to people calling the police and me going to a hospital for 3 weeks.

>Do other people around you notice that there's something happening to you

It's either I'm completely lost in my own world or I'm completely engaged in someone else's, like sometimes I go days without having a normal conversation, but then It's like a light switch and I'm back to reality(somewhat). My second hospitalization was completely on me, since I couldn't take the real world or my false reality world(either one) anymore, so I spent some time in a room staring at walls.

With the whole colors thing when I relax, I'll tell you a story: In Fall of 2014 I stared into lights(like the sun or a lightbulb) for a very long time. Like I'm talking more than a couple hours. There were things that I experienced, that can't be explained by science or medicine. It was very physical at first, then I went to sleep one night, then I see tracers in my vision for the rest of my life, then I have sleep paralysis and seizures for a long time. If someone could give me some information about staring at lights for a long period of time and the effects that would have on someone, then I would be very grateful, since everyone who I've explained this to think it is just the mental illness.

I think that staring at lights could have triggered a psychotic episode and also taking Prozac could have put me over the edge, If you know what I mean.

>staring at lights for hours on end
>literally burning your retinas
>wondering why your retinas are burnt

welp, this ones cooked, someone pull this cunt out of the oven

>With the whole colors thing when I relax, I'll tell you a story: In Fall of 2014 I stared into lights(like the sun or a lightbulb) for a very long time. Like I'm talking more than a couple hours. There were things that I experienced, that can't be explained by science or medicine. It was very physical at first, then I went to sleep one night, then I see tracers in my vision for the rest of my life, then I have sleep paralysis and seizures for a long time. If someone could give me some information about staring at lights for a long period of time and the effects that would have on someone, then I would be very grateful, since everyone who I've explained this to think it is just the mental illness.

Read the following Wikipedia articles and tell me if any of this sounds familiar to you:

>en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissociation_(psychology)
>en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derealization
>en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depersonalization
>en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ego_death
>en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thousand-yard_stare
>en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetris_effect
>en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entoptic_phenomenon

Do any of your delusions and/or hallucinations involve anything "bizarre", like: supernatural, paranormal, and/or conspiracy theory -type of stuff?

Do you (or a part of you) believe in ghosts, spirits, demons, aliens, gods, and/or other stuff like that? Do you find yourself constantly arguing against yourself what is or isn't a rational belief?

Does your paranoia include people that you communicate with over the internet, like on Veeky Forums, like on this thread right now? Do you sometimes feel like everyone is working together (even people on the internet, on Veeky Forums, in this thread, right now), plotting against you? And, if this is case, how does your mind rationalize this?

For the first week 40 - 60mg of adderall (75% dextroamphetamine, 25% levo). After that 80mg vyvanse, which metabolizes to dextroamphetamine.

I'd been taking it prior, but that's when it really picked up. It put me in a surreal apathetic state, I was cold and nauseous a lot, motor functions were sloppy, etc. Then it began.

Also, I chewed the Adderall beads to bypass the time release. They curiously tasted sweet and vaguely like... a light caramel.

>I hallucinate black shadows, and fractals that appear out of thin air. It happens all the time, there is a thing that when I relax I start seeing different colors and shapes will form(I will get to this later).
This happens to me occasionally, usually potentiated by sleep deprivation or GABA-A/B agonists, in a certain frame of mind.

Always attributed it to some transient facet of visual snow.

>I'd been taking it prior, but that's when it really picked up. It put me in a surreal apathetic state, I was cold and nauseous a lot, motor functions were sloppy, etc. Then it began.

That's fucked up. I'm taking 60 mg of Adderall right now and that's sort of how I'm feeling. I've experienced some very unusual things that are contradicted by what people are telling me. I find myself questioning my perception of reality.

Weird. When I feel pain in my dreams it's like I'm on a fuckload of painkillers. Like last night someone bit me in my dream and I felt the teeth marks but it didn't really hurt at all.

>Weird. When I feel pain in my dreams it's like I'm on a fuckload of painkillers. Like last night someone bit me in my dream and I felt the teeth marks but it didn't really hurt at all.

Actually, that does closely describe how pain feels in my dreams too.

On the one hand, I could feel the bullet in my chest, the blood gushing out. I could feel panic setting in as I realized that I was about to die. I can remember my thought processes during those moments, "oh holy shit! He fucking shot me! He actually fucking shot me! I'm really fucking dying right now! What the fuck! This isn't fucking right!"

Within those sorts of dreams I guess I just sort of assume that the endorphins are kicking in and are masking the full extent of the pain that I should be feeling.

Question: How can what is applied to schizophrenia be applied to Type 1 Bipolar disorder? I see there is a difference and I'm wondering what that difference actually is.

Funny but how is that related to the thread?

>I thought I discovered a means for short range mind control as well. Still actually think that might not have been hallucinated.
The fact that you don't think it's a delusion makes it more of a delusion even more.

>Do you (or a part of you) believe in ghosts, spirits, demons, aliens, gods, and/or other stuff like that?
>gods
>delusion
In this moment, I am euphoric. Not because of any phony god's blessing, but because I am enlightened by my intelligence.

>In this moment, I am euphoric. Not because of any phony god's blessing, but because I am enlightened by my intelligence.

Oh boy here we go.

I think you misunderstood what he said. He described delusions that he once had.

As stated earlier in this thread, a delusion is a belief that a person has that they are 100% certain about, disregarding evidence to the contrary.

The person that you're replying to is saying that he isn't entirely certain of whether or not what he experienced was truly "hallucinated". He's not 100% certain of it either way.

It is Tuesday and I just got prescribed pic related.