Is everyone Schizophrenic

Discussion of the nature of Ultimate Reality and the path to Enlightenment.
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maestro
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Is everyone Schizophrenic

Post by maestro »

We reside in an imaginary world of thoughts, ideas and images that keep going on. Half asleep, never focused on the now. Forever carrying out a dialogue a thought process, creating images of the past or projections of the future. Slipping in and out of the present, living in a world of hazy concepts.

The whole of humanity lives under the curse of Schizophrenia. Doomed to phantom worlds of its own creation. Making merely fleeting contact now and then with reality (the now) the physical/sensory world.
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Carl G
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Re: Is everyone Schizophrenic

Post by Carl G »

How do you figure being half asleep and never focused is schizophrenic?
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skipair
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Re: Is everyone Schizophrenic

Post by skipair »

maestro wrote:We reside in an imaginary world of thoughts, ideas and images that keep going on. Half asleep, never focused on the now. Forever carrying out a dialogue a thought process, creating images of the past or projections of the future. Slipping in and out of the present, living in a world of hazy concepts.

The whole of humanity lives under the curse of Schizophrenia. Doomed to phantom worlds of its own creation. Making merely fleeting contact now and then with reality (the now) the physical/sensory world.
But maybe knowing that is the case, everytime the imagination temps you to think otherwise, it can be corrected and we can become less and less ruled by meaningless phantoms of our own creation.

The "now" is not just the physical/sensory world, though. It is the imagination too. I think the trick is to not be tricked by it - no small task in my experience (because sometimes we like to be tricked), but that is what I consider work for my future benefit.
Ignius
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Re: Is everyone Schizophrenic

Post by Ignius »

"The now" is boring and overrated. Every animal lives in a constant present time. We would not understand anything about our experiences if we constantly lived in the now. Thoughts wouldn't exist. Etc etc etc.

I suppose that it may become a problem if someone doesn't visit the present once in a while.

Sunsets are awesome and I have yet to get tired of them, but if I lived somewhere where there's a perpetual sunset, it would get boring. The now is sorta like that.

Perhaps I'm mistaken.
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maestro
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Re: Is everyone Schizophrenic

Post by maestro »

Carl G wrote:How do you figure being half asleep and never focused is schizophrenic?
It is more than that, if you observe carefully you will find yourself slipping in an imaginary world all the time.
skipair wrote: But maybe knowing that is the case, everytime the imagination temps you to think otherwise, it can be corrected and we can become less and less ruled by meaningless phantoms of our own creation.

The "now" is not just the physical/sensory world, though. It is the imagination too. I think the trick is to not be tricked by it - no small task in my experience (because sometimes we like to be tricked), but that is what I consider work for my future benefit.
Imaginations and concepts loop onto themselves to create more and more dreams, it is not a trivial task to even briefly slip out.
Ignius wrote:"The now" is boring and overrated. Every animal lives in a constant present time. We would not understand anything about our experiences if we constantly lived in the now. Thoughts wouldn't exist. Etc etc etc.
It is not an either or situation, now is anyhow where everything occurs, even the imaginings and the concepts, as Skipair notes. Can you recognize the phantoms and release their stronghold, or do you fall headlong into the hazy dreamworld everytime, is the question?
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Re: Is everyone Schizophrenic

Post by bert »

there is too much loose talk of suppression and uninhibition. how much is anyone mad normal or otherwise? not much because early conditioning makes enactment unlikely. these things come and go with us all. taking the exception, their idiocracy apart, madmen are often normal 'average' and conventional. in extreme cases of schizophrenia there is a transference of certain ideas and values to serve a dominant obsession and, often, great satisfaction is found by 'as if'. the lives of schizophrenics are often as full as the lives of 'normal' people. strong emotionalism must exhaust itself in fulfillment and where there is frustration or failure then the only vent is in violence and antisocial acts. this to a degree aplies to most people. religion, the arts, collecting, shopping, hobbies, mass hysteria etc outsideour work are usual alternative intrests which act as a catharsis and keep us sane by a form of schizogenesis of normality. what else is love and friendship but extreme, refrangible schizophrenia? close the door on reality and the 'as if' door opens. oversuppressed or uncontrolled, our damned 'Ids' will have the final word! but they are rectifiable , as in the initial stages of all things, and re-direction and control are often simple and always possible - outside congenital idiocy.
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Re: Is everyone Schizophrenic

Post by Ignius »

Ultimate reality; the now. That's what I meant.

Yeah, it's fucked.
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Re: Is everyone Schizophrenic

Post by bert »

maestro wrote:We reside in an imaginary world of thoughts, ideas and images that keep going on. Half asleep, never focused on the now. Forever carrying out a dialogue a thought process, creating images of the past or projections of the future. Slipping in and out of the present, living in a world of hazy concepts.

The whole of humanity lives under the curse of Schizophrenia. Doomed to phantom worlds of its own creation. Making merely fleeting contact now and then with reality (the now) the physical/sensory world.
schizophrenia is often considered as psychopatic but is nevertheless one key to psycho-physics. It is an essential part to general normality. indeed, all we inhibit and reject splits our mind as does, probably, the primal acceptance of good and evil. schism being constant, the uncommited and rejects of mind form a spooky being,which seeks substance by the 'as if'(consciously false; see hans vaihinger). It causes a soft casuistry, a slurred, blurred seeing and thinking - a vogue in many artforms since approx. the 40ties. the old accomplishment of completion is almost lost. the conflict creates the necessity of self-socializing usually by over-insisten,ce on 'I am I' based on this shaky medium! yet all of this is only normal and evidence of the extensiveness of the 'as if' impication and other forms of make-belief. more corrupt are disbeliefs,half-beliefs or aimless 'walk around' believing.
the substantiality of things is realized more by negatives,i.e. their shadow, separating them from otherness; colour, tones - an aftertought. so we gauge all things by their extremes and are inclined to jump all in between. the essential seperateness of ourselves from other things - 'I am this - I am not that' - is a major duality and the more intense the greater the reality. abstractly and actually the snag is: that all opposites are not the entire abscence of each other, they are relative quasi-absolutes (as all else), and are a quantitative degree of each other, radiating from some unseen middleness. all recognition of reality depends on this and other pseudo-dualities.
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Re: Is everyone Schizophrenic

Post by Ignius »

So it walks and talks?
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Diebert van Rhijn
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Re: Is everyone Schizophrenic

Post by Diebert van Rhijn »

maestro wrote:Making merely fleeting contact now and then with reality (the now) the physical/sensory world.
A late response but it needs to be said. This conception of the 'now' as a physical or sensory world is flawed. For the majority, as default, it's just where our degree of consciousness is highest, when a sensual world is being mapped for evolutionary purposes, increasing efficiency when dealing with a current context.

Because of this there are two major problems with the usual concept of now:

1. There's still a map being created. The cognitive process might appear to be more 'direct' and vivid but it's still being modeled and shaped. It just happens faster and has more impact on us, imprinting us deeper than other sensations like complex thoughts or distant ideas and various feelings. At least when being mere animal or child.

2. There's no reason to assume this 'now' is less warped than a fantasy or day dream just because of its intensity or consistency. Many experiences are possible, often drug-induced but also with lucid dreaming or meditative states that can present themselves with intense clarity. Even some alien looking vision or a complex idea or insight can become as real and vivid, as immediate as daylight, as solid as that wall or as undeniable as the wind in your face. No poetry intended. It's not something I ask anyone to believe but only ask to be considered as possibility although for me personally it's been verified many times in many ways. And it's documented in the scientific world as well. But most importantly: it's logical sound too.

This leads me to the conclusion that the immediacy of the 'now' is nothing but a build-in priority in our mind-body as to be more conscious of all the things that could have an impact on our immediate survival or prosperity. Many of the things important to our physical survival we've mapped into a 'physical world' but its reality, its 'directness' is not a given. Our mind-body by default just decreases the priority and as such degrades consciousness when it comes to thought or the state of our feelings deep down. It all remains 'murky' or 'henid' this way.

For example, what can happen with a mathematical savant is that certain abstracts will become so vivid in the light of consciousness, that he sees as very real and immediate that which remains to us a way more abstract notion. All just because it's wired as more important and having more weight and dimension than the 'flat' world of the usual here and now. This creates the ability for the savant to work with the concepts like not many others can.

One could say it's the same with the whole issue of enlightenment. A reality which first seems remote, dusty, hypothetical and dry becomes alive, vivid and real. This is only after one has become fully conscious of it. The "here and now" is where the heart is, after all.
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Re: Is everyone Schizophrenic

Post by Malik »

Do you see, do you hear? What are you searching for?
dysfunctionalgenius

Re: Is everyone Schizophrenic

Post by dysfunctionalgenius »

Please think about such questions before posting cause the diagnosed version for anybody might be painful!
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Re: Is everyone Schizophrenic

Post by almost_fiction »

PPPFFFFFT!!!! schizophrenia. and mental disorders in general....some of the biggest self-inhibiting talk ive ever heard. im classified as schizoaffective, but i think those things are more dramaticized than they really are. if you have an epiphany and things that never make sense to you suddenly become so clear, and you feel like anything is possible, and all doors are opened to you for the first time, that you can start a revolution just by planting random seeds into people that never could think clearly before..... they lock you up in a f*ing psych ward hundreds of miles away from your home, put drugs in your food and drink, and watch your every movement. anything that seems out of the ordinary, anything that they've never heard of, anything they are oblivious to, and if you so much as have a single emotional reaction, they up the ante on the meds. the key is to appear as what they want you to be, not yourself, because they dont know you, and anything uncommon will just get you labeled CRAZY. and it will only get you stuck for longer. the goal is to be emotionally impervious, but not to the point of detachment, because then they will just call you something else....


~so in the end they end up zombifying you into a walking coma, and sending you home "good as new".. lol what a CROCK.
~mental disorders were made to discredit those with brilliant ideas that provoke any threat to people that know the truth, and want to keep order in society. . . . ."they wont believe you, your just a F*ing SCHIZO!!!"
dysfunctionalgenius

Re: Is everyone Schizophrenic

Post by dysfunctionalgenius »

I fully hear u!

But having grown up with a fwe friends with Schizophrenia (Full blown)

their epiphanies were more like delusions, so there are degrees. I am not suggesting you havn't had any legit epyphanies.

I also realize that people with schizoprenia always tend to look at their episodes as meaningfull and deep and while they might seem like it, im feel its also its also a way of shaking off the stima.

I have a pretty good understanding of disorders having OCD my self but if i were listening 2 voices and hallucinating i hope i would rather learn 2 manage then then assert 2 people i was opening windows of enlightenment!

I wish u well!
syzygy
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Re: Is everyone Schizophrenic

Post by syzygy »

dysfunctionalgenius wrote:I fully hear u!

But having grown up with a fwe friends with Schizophrenia (Full blown)

their epiphanies were more like delusions, so there are degrees. I am not suggesting you havn't had any legit epyphanies.

I also realize that people with schizoprenia always tend to look at their episodes as meaningfull and deep and while they might seem like it, im feel its also its also a way of shaking off the stima.

I have a pretty good understanding of disorders having OCD my self but if i were listening 2 voices and hallucinating i hope i would rather learn 2 manage then then assert 2 people i was opening windows of enlightenment!

I wish u well!
"it is no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society" ~Krishnamurti

Children, who exist naturally in hypnotic states, are taught to take their familial delusions as reality. Given the mass state of delusion in societies worldwide, it puts the delusions of the "mentally ill" into perspective, for sure.

see: Plato's Allegory of the Cave.

when one breaks out of the dark cave of the general conditioning of humanity, the bright light of day can be disorienting. And yet this bright light is no less real than the shadows on the wall of the cave are to the masses. And contrarily, the light of truth can be quite realistic, if one has the tools to get past the disorientation. (the very tools that are not generally imagined, understood or implemented in our society)

Stigma is based on the delusional/ignorant/uninformed views of society, and is rightfully sloughed off.
arek4321
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Re: Is everyone Schizophrenic

Post by arek4321 »

Correct me if im wrong, but isn't schizophrenia a mental disorder where people believe and/or live their lives in delusion, but think they are correct. They have trouble distinguishing their delusions from reality and begin to live in a preferred world of their own, protected by the harsh truths of reality that just seems easier to not look at rather than confront. But non-schizophrenics tend to do this also; the human race would rather believe a comforting lie than the truth, as the saying goes ignorance is bliss. But therein lies another question, what can one deem as "reality"? isn't reality in actuality just a bunch of electrical charges in the brain wired into the senses? Back to the question, i guess technically everyone is partly schizophrenic the way you are looking at it, but this is normal; one is considered schizophrenic when these delusions (whatever they may be) are either rooted in complete falsity or that the person's delusions are so severe that they interfere with "normal life".
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Is.
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Re: Is everyone Schizophrenic

Post by Is. »

I wouldn't say schizophrenia, but perhaps something more like this?

Ignorant Schmuck Disorder (ISD) is a mental disorder in which the sufferer is affected by suffering, and experiences the world as if he were a locally fixed center - or “person” - completely separate from it. The world is further divided up into objects which absurdly appears to the sufferer of ISD to have solid boundaries separating them from other objects. It develops out of ignorance of reality, and is perpetuated by the inability to analyze phenomena rationally. The symptoms include a sense of rock-solid identity, unusual levels of instability in mood, disorientation regarding the meaning of life, harmful behaviour, mild to strong retardation, disturbances in impulse control, incessantly seeking imaginary objects, and dying.
syzygy
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Re: Is everyone Schizophrenic

Post by syzygy »

Is. wrote:I wouldn't say schizophrenia, but perhaps something more like this?

Ignorant Schmuck Disorder (ISD) is a mental disorder in which the sufferer is affected by suffering, and experiences the world as if he were a locally fixed center - or “person” - completely separate from it. The world is further divided up into objects which absurdly appears to the sufferer of ISD to have solid boundaries separating them from other objects. It develops out of ignorance of reality, and is perpetuated by the inability to analyze phenomena rationally. The symptoms include a sense of rock-solid identity, unusual levels of instability in mood, disorientation regarding the meaning of life, harmful behaviour, mild to strong retardation, disturbances in impulse control, incessantly seeking imaginary objects, and dying.
I love it...
paco
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Re: Is everyone Schizophrenic

Post by paco »

maestro wrote:We reside in an imaginary world of thoughts, ideas and images that keep going on. Half asleep, never focused on the now. Forever carrying out a dialogue a thought process, creating images of the past or projections of the future. Slipping in and out of the present, living in a world of hazy concepts.

The whole of humanity lives under the curse of Schizophrenia. Doomed to phantom worlds of its own creation. Making merely fleeting contact now and then with reality (the now) the physical/sensory world.
You know, if you pray enough, God does answer.
I am illiterate
mholman
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Re: Is everyone Schizophrenic

Post by mholman »

Okay, first, hello everyone nice to meet you all. After reading this I felt compelled to sign up to the forums and respond to this topic.

Second, for a genius form there are certainly a lot of delusional people here, with rather ill conceived and very innocent, almost pure beliefs on this. Whoever is thinking we are all schizophrenic is wrong. Maybe we are all delusional in a way (in fact we almost certainly are), but schizophrenia is much more extreme than just the biased world view that everyone has.

I have a relatively poor self esteem as it is, whenever I leave a room I can here people talking about me, but when I get closer - close enough to here what people are actually changes it will have nothing to do with me. This is what I believe the extreme limit on normal people is. This is my poor self esteem making up what I imagine people must be talking about when I am out of range to make out actual words. Thinking now, having people talk in an adjacent room could be a good psychological indicator and see what stories people make up from little bits they can hear.

I think I can correctly assume that most people have a higher self esteem than I do. I'm sure there are many people at the opposite end of the spectrum as me, with overinflated egos, probably think everyone is always praising them. This also falls in the normal realm though.

One night though, my poor self esteem must have hit a critical mass of some sort. I started hearing these two people talking about me as I was walking back to my dorm, they were mocking me mercilessly.I'd rather not go into what I heard, it hurts very badly just thinking about it as it is. Anyway, so as I'm walking back to my dorm as fast as I can thinking how unbelievable it is that any two people could have such a conversation so obviously loud about me. As I was walking though it became apparent was happening, as you have all doubtlessly realized too. I wasn't hearing people outside, the sound wasn't from next to me. It was above me, it felt as if these two people were sitting above me ruthlessly ripping into me like I couldn't here them, mocking my every movement in quite literally, the most mocking voice I could imagine. These two people went back and forth, agreeing with each other in utter contempt, as though I were the most worthless person they had ever laid eyes on. I was nothing. Each of their snide remarks cutting into me like a knife. This was hands down the worst night of my life.

Of course, I am on the paranoid schizophrenic side. There are also people that have delusions of grandeur, this is of course the other end of the spectrum.

I think it's worth taking a break and defending my pride a little bit. The things I think are entirely unfounded, I am not disliked or anything, many people really like me, I have a good amount of friends but there is that side of me that has this fear, constant fear of rejection. Very poor self esteem is all, its not that people are really talking about me ever (but how would I know really, with all of the put downs I give myself). Also, since that night (almost a year ago) I have not had another breakdown - thank god! I also wouldn't consider myself normally crazy, quirky might be a kind word for describing me, definitely not normally batshit insane though.

Personally, having gone through that I believe that schizophrenia is the conscious manifestation of the id, or something similar. Depending on your nature, this can manifest in different ways. As a paranoid with poor self esteem this manifested as what it was. Someone with a great outlook would have the opposite. Why it happened is hard to say. My opinion is that it occurs when there is an overload of the id in some way. It needs a release, and what better way than through telling you exactly what it thinks without a rational filter, maybe even because the ego can't handle any more craziness from the id, all speculation. Again, this is my opinion only, and is resultant from no scientific research, but from personal experience and knowledge of my attitude at the time.

In conclusion, I'd say no, most people aren't schizophrenic, a very zen idea, and sorry I'm coming here and taking this post too literally. I realize the context it was meant in, I don't want to ruin your lighthearted debate with my post, but I've gotten this far typing it, would be a waste to quit now.
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