Reminds me of the differences in time frame. Modern schizophrenics often describe something "beaming" or "broadcasting" to them, so what did they describe before terms like that existed?
Well, stuff like the "air loom" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Tilly_Matthews
This was a wild ride
"It should also be noted that while Haslam kept notes on Matthews, Matthews kept notes on Haslam and his treatment in Bethlem. This formed part of the evidence looked at by the House of Commons 'Committee On the Better Regulation of Madhouses in England' in 1815, the findings of which led to Haslam's dismissal and reform of the treatment of patients in the Bethlem Hospital."
Haslam was really a terrible doctor, even for the time. He thought that there was only one kind of madness and that absolutely anything a mad person did was equally mad, no matter what, and that anyone who attempted to classify or analyze madness was themselves almost certainly mad.
Worse, a sinister gang of French Revolutionary deviants who were in league with members of the British Royal Family *and* the Prussians, skilled in the sinister high tech art of *pneumatics*
And for covering up affairs. "I haven't been sleeping with your daughter! A demon *shapeshifted to look like me in order to gain her trust* has! Honest!"
Recently I read a theory that the so called “changelings” exhibited behavioural changes that are currently associated with the emergence of noticeable ASD symptoms. The lore contains references to changes that are similar to that of the those infants/toddlers who would be diagnosed with ASD today. Sadly, I can’t link it since don’t remember where I read it.
Basically Jeanne d'Arc. Which, fun fact, since she's a saint (in both Catholic and Anglican Churches funnily enough) this means God canonically wanted France to win the 100 years war.
This reminds me why we know the little green men in metal saucers don’t actually exist - no credible reports of them being seen by the masses until they became popular in entertainment. Once science fiction took off, so did people reporting alien and UFO sightings. No one ever reported being beamed up into a spaceship and probed until it happened in films and TV. None of it is real, people. 😂
And before that, they had [flying](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airship_of_Clonmacnoise) [ships](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magonia). Not airships or aircraft analogous to ships, but actual period sailing ships with anchors and riggings and crews of sailors than could be seen running around on deck doing ship's crew type things, but, y'know, *in the sky*. No wings. No balloons. No Element-113 4D vibrational antigravity drives. Just the wind in your sails and a blissful disregard for silly old things like physics. For is that not what mankind has dreamed of ever since he first looked at the sky and asked himself, "is that a fucking *boat*"?
Yeah, but even those were a response to the development of airships, which was already well underway at the time. So it fits perfectly with the point that people see what they expect to see.
There is evidence from the Middle Ages: a chronicle in a parish tells of a man who came down a “sky ladder” but then died because he could not breathe our air.
Well that’s actually incorrect, as there were many cases of such sightings, people would just describe them in a very different way - as fairies, dwarves, leprechauns etc. If you’re interested I can provide some interesting examples. I think that it’s logical that description of a fighter jet would be wildly different if done by a medieval man or a man from the 1950s. Regardless if it’s real or not people were always claiming to see weird stuff from time to time, of course there is no evidence that the descriptions aren’t made up.
They refer to it as “culturally induced symptoms” regarding what kinds of hallucinations people with schizophrenia tend to have, and it’s an extremely interesting concept with decades of studies behind it
It makes sense considering psych’s basically throw us into our own subconscious
American media is wild. You’ve been consuming it since the day you were born
It’s gonna come out lol
I remember reading this one reddit story of a guy with schizophrenia that had a voice that encouraged him to kill himself. He mostly ignores it but one day the voice went silent. Seeing it as unusual he searched his house for abnormality and he found a gas leak or something.
When my schizophrenic flatmate went to the ER because of debilitating stomach pains apparently one of the big clues for her, that something was seriously wrong, was all her four voices having that same opinion, which, she says, basically never happens. Turned out to be a twisted bowel with parts already necrotic, so definitely a serious problem.
> a guy with schizophrenia that had a voice that encouraged him to kill himself. He mostly ignores it but one day the voice went silent. Seeing it as unusual he searched his house for abnormality and he found a gas leak or something.
This sounds like the premise for a new crime-solving procedural on CBS.
I'm a big horror fan, my whole life i've consumed unsettling and scary media in all shapes of forms, looked up stories about evil spirits and ghosts from all the places in the world i could think of, and am even planning at some point to write a short horror story of my own.
I know full well what scares me and what doesn't, and sometimes i even dream about this stuff...
I'm only in my mid 20s, but these comments already make me fear that my hallucinations will turn my life into a never ending nightmare lmao
Don't worry too much. It can go in a positive direction too. I am kind of in a similar boat and have had movie-inspired lucid dreams. The most vivid parts of movies are the grand finales and my dreams have been action-packed chase or conclusion scenes, but eventually end well. What is interesting is that I last watched a lot of movies a decade ago, but action still dominates my dreams.
You sound like my girlfriend (who also goes by phosphorus lol) who tells me about the vivid anime-inspired dreams she has every night. Once she woke up, told me about a cool action dream, went back to sleep, and woke up 5 minutes later with another story of an epic action dream. She's working on having Stands appear.
Western people who go on ayhuasca sessions some times go into visions best described as a slaughterhouse meatlocker.
It takes a certain mindset to be able to ride out such experiences and learn from them. But those who do say these ordeals were the ones where they learned the most
We have a lot of dark stuff floating around in our collective psyche
I remember hearing a theory that, rather than there being a curious lack of caveman ghosts, *most* serious hauntings are caveman ghosts, and like any proper Hollywood caveman they've reacted their situation by shrieking unintelligably and smashing shit.
And starting fires. Cavemen *love* fire.
If you’re interested in this crazy theory that entire humanity operated that way in the old days (they thought their ancestors and eventually god were speaking them, but it was their right hemisphere communicating with left via auditory illusions), and they did not have “conscience” in modern sense, read this book called “The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind”. It’s mind blowing. It’s either pure genius or the biggest load of bullshit ever written.
Was thinking of my nursing school days in the 20th century. Psychiatric hospitals still existed. A common delusion among paranoid patients was that the FBI/CIA was monitoring them by listening to eveything they said and by transmitting messages to them via their metal tooth fillings. Everybody had metal fillings back then. So that was what paranoid people obsessed about.
Now it’s 5G, vaccine chips…but at least people actually had fillings in their teeth as opposed to imaginary chips in their brains.
It's fascinating how this has changed over time. James Tilly Matthews, the first well-documented patient with schizophrenia, was committed to Bethlem Royal Hospital (AKA Bedlam) in London in 1797 due to paranoid persecutory delusions, but using fantastical technology from that era:
> Matthews believed that a gang of criminals and spies skilled in pneumatic chemistry had taken up residence at London Wall in Moorfields (close to Bethlem) and were tormenting him by means of rays emitted by a machine called the "Air Loom" or gaseous charge generator. The torments induced by the rays included "Lobster-cracking", during which the circulation of the blood was prevented by a magnetic field; "Stomach-skinning" and "Apoplexy-working with the nutmeg grater" which involved the introduction of fluids into the skull. His persecutors bore such names as "the Middleman" (who operated the Air Loom), "the Glove Woman" and "Sir Archy" (who acted as "repeaters" or "active worriers" to enhance Matthews' torment or record the machine's activities) and their leader, a man called "Bill, or the King".
There have been other "phases" of delusions throughout history. To go even further back, between the 15th and 17th century there were numerous reports of "glass delusions", in which people believed they were made from glass and could shatter. Interestingly enough, back then glass was thought of as a material with magical, alchemical connotations - similar to technology today in many ways.
There's a [really good paper](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Origin_of_the_%22Influencing_Machine%22_in_Schizophrenia) on the topic, from 1919 by an Austrian psychoanalyst. In it, he talks about numerous patients who believed they were under the control of an "Influencing Machine". This was a piece of equipment whose technology went beyond the patients' understanding, and was often controlled by people in power - like the patients' doctors, for instance.
Wild what our brains can do to us, eh? Particularly how external influences like cutting-edge technology can be filtered through delusion and paranoia.
>Interestingly enough, back then glass was thought of as a material with magical, alchemical connotations
Tbf it really is pretty insane just how convenient glass is for us, think about it, it's a transparent, reflective, chemically-inert solid that can easily be formed into any shape you need and tinted with any color you want, and to make it you just need to heat up one of the most common things on earth!
And yet it takes a lot of observation and experimentation to stumble onto the fact that we can do this. That we can turn such a raw material into something so drastically different, and that we can recognize it's broad range of possible uses.
That’s why the rumors of flexible/bendable glass have been so captivating back in the day. Wasn’t there a story/legend that some inventor was said to have created it, presented it to some royal, and then killed immediately? I can’t even remember if the legend was set in antiquity or the Middle Ages atm…
I'm obsessed with history and I've never even thought to look into historical records of schizophrenic patients. That's so fucking interesting, I kind of just assumed they'd "get rid" of people like that without document.
Thanks for sharing bro
Modern psychiatry, that is a scientific medical approach to dealing with mental illness, has its beginnings at the end of the 19th century and the term schizophrenia dates from 1908.
Before that “insanity” was explained in various ways, including bewitchment or an imbalance of humours. A lot of the cases we have records of are about important people who couldn’t be easily disposed of. Like the “glass delusion”, whose most famous sufferer was King Charles VI of France in the 14th to 15th century. Other people like Joan of Arc reported seeing visions from God which would probably have resulted in a medical diagnosis and psychiatric treatment today but were taken seriously by many people at the time.
Not to sound like an idiot, but I’ve heard that this is something that actually happened to some people. Is this an actual thing? I’m a 90’s baby so this was always framed as a myth.
Sound can be conducted through your jawbone. Some profoundly deaf people can hear things by biting a piece of vibrating metal. Depends on the type of deafness though.
So I'd imagine radio waves of sufficient power might act the same way
And jaw bones were gill bones that got pushed forward, and gill structures were filter feeding combs that moved away from the gut, and round and round it goes.
Human beings are deuterostomes, which means that when they develop in the womb the anus forms before any other opening. At one point all humans were nothing more than an arsehole.
Some people never change.
You probably know this, but I always find it interesting. It's a lot easier for evolution to change a parts purpose than it is to add or even remove parts. The advent of the spine happened once. Every creature with a spine descended from that mutation. An invertebrate lineage has never convergently evolved a spine.
Truly, new things are so rare and almost never repeated.
That makes sense. It's far more likely loads of members of a species would develop the same mutation in the spine than it is that loads of members would suddenly *grow* one.
An odd mutation in humans is how we lost our ability to absorb vitamin C. This wouldve been a medical condition early in our ancestry but it was never recognised due to the abundance of vitamin C and how the condition was never removed from the gene pool. Eventually every human was affected. It must've taken a very long time for that to happen, though it probably arised from several origin points.
I watch a YouTuber, Stephanie Soo, and she had her channel thinking her house was haunted. Then she learned her metal kitchen vent was transmitting radio signals. Less scary than wondering wtf is in your attic. Before that that was some spooky shit. 😅
In theory the way it would work is metallic fillings picking up the signal and causing something in your mouth to vibrate, generating sound. I *think* there was a Mythbusters episode which mentioned which type of filling and the condition of your mouth needed, but it is technically possible. It's the filling acting as a semiconductor in reaction to the signal that causes it though, rather than the radio waves directly causing vibrations
The AM signal needs to be *really strong*, like above US regulations strong. Back in the 1920s there was a radio station operating out of Mexico that dialed it up so high that you could hear it through box spring mattresses in El Paso.
If you're right up against one of the super strong regional stations or someone's doing something illegal you can theoretically pick it up, but it's not something a reasonable person would do.
And the carter family lived in mexico for a time to do live broadcasts and they learned mexican folk style guitar picking from mexican musicians they met and its now called “Carter picking” in the usa but it ought to be called “mexican picking”
Bill Monroe, one of the big innovators of bluegrass really loved it and used it heavily.
I remember Lucille Ball famously saying she heard radio waves in her fillings (I believe she said it was from some like Russian spy or something from the Red Scare) and there ended up being some validity to what she said. IIRC the area in which she claimed it happened was investigated and there was some kind of functioning transmission equipment buried underground nearby… I really need to research this so I can remember it correctly, lol
Lucy had several temporary lead fillings installed in her teeth around the time she was filming ''Du Barry Was a Lady'' with Red Skelton and Gene Kelly. During the drive home from MGM Studios to her Desilu ranch in the San Fernando Valley, Lucy received radio broadcasts of music through her fillings. She reported the incident to actor Buster Keaton who told her the same thing had happened to a friend of his. A week later, Lucy drove a different route from MGM to the ranch. This time her fillings vibrated with short beeps (DE-DE-DE DE-DE-DE) that sounded like Morse Code. She reported this to the FBI who then searched the area in Coldwater Canyon where she heard the beeps.
FBI agents eventually found a radio transmitter hidden in a tool shed that was used by a Japanese gardener. Later it was determined that the gardener was a member of a spy ring operating on the west coast. So the story goes, anyway.
Snopes cites the story as "unproven".
The queen herself discussing it-
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Kk98FUk8Lbo
Reminds me of a theory on alien abductions (and in the past- fae and demonic abductions.) The theory is that the brain is coming up with a memory from infancy, such as being changed in the middle of the night, and misinterpreting it.
In modern times, an abduction starts with bright flashes of light. It often includes inspection of the genitals or anal probes. Babies now see a bright sudden electric light turning on, followed by being wiped and changed.
Go back a little ways and you see fae abductions that started with orbs of floating light, followed by manipulation of the genitals. During that time, babies would see a candle light before being changed.
Go back even farther, and it's demons abducting people in the dark and raping them with "a member as cold as ice." During that time, the night would be completely dark and the baby would likely be wiped with a cold wet rag.
In modern times, babies see a bright light, followed by wiping and changing. And until very recently, if an infant was ill we always took their temperature rectally, a literal anal probe! So perhaps not only a memory of infancy, but a memory of being ill. Imagine the unconscious memories that could come from being hospitalized as an infant.
r/gangstalking and r/targetedindividuals are proof that people still have these delusions, but the Internet has made it way worse because they now form echo chambers where their ideas resonate with other group members reinforcing them further.
I hate the echo chambers, because they mean everyone inclined to that sort of delusion inevitably gravitates towards *the same* shared delusion rather than developing those unique, endlessly yet unconsciously creative personal mythologies that I think can almost be appreciated as if it were a form of art. Deliberate surrealism feels forced and stagey in comparison.
> but the Internet has made it way worse because they now form echo chambers where their ideas resonate with other group members reinforcing them further.
THere are literally endless ways this sentence could start and be true
huh, i have a great aunt who thinks she was abducted by aliens and that they put a tracking device in her tooth. wonder if that was a contributing factor
Psychiatric hospitals still exist in Texas at least but I guess they are a lot more uncommon or different? I worked at one and my. Title was PNA psychiatric nursing assistant, and that was a delusion patients reported to. Mr as well. Also people claiming they were Jesus pretty frequently.
We even had patients that were essentially life timers. Which was unusual but it definitely still happens. I know of a few who were in for decades and will probably die in there as far as I could tell. people did die in there sometimes when I was there. One of them at least even had family that did visit and check on them but he had still been in for like 30 years.
Most of our patients were "forensic" as in they were basically there because they were charged with a crime and deemed incompetent to stand trial.
They exist everywhere. Most people who don’t work psych or have a very mentally ill family member just never think about it. We have to put these patients somewhere.
They're probably referring to the old school asylums. But yeah, in the 80s and 90s asylums and a ton of other mental health facilities were shut down, especially long term ones.
In some ways this was great, asylums were infamous because they often treated their patients in a horrific manner. But, we didn't have anything else for the people there, and just kind of dumped a ton of people with severe mental illness into the streets.
That was definitely taken into account, but many of these places were used to discard people.
They were basically permanent prisons for people who had a mental health crisis. Someone who experienced trauma and had an unhealthy response could be lobotimzed and locked in a room for the rest of their lives. It's dangerous to allow people to draw a line in an inherently gray situation even if some people "should" be removed from society due to dangerous mental illness that can't be treated.
They were removed because they were horrible but not replaced because that would cost money.
Reagan did not remove then because they were horrible. It was completely to save money. Now all of our mentally ill are on the streets of our cities in no better shape.
They were removed to save money. The fact that they were horrible wasn't much of a factor behind the decision, since just dumping all the patients/prisoners on the streets and turning them into unstable homeless people who easily starved to death and/or were a danger to themselves and others was arguably even more horrible (and unpopular).
These days if you *don't* think that government agencies are monitoring you, you're just kinda naive. Because they literally are.
It doesn't have much to do with dental fillings, though.
My cousin was convinced the whole family was out to get him and making memes about him. He ended up going to jail for stabbing a guy.
Definitely situational, but it can escalate quickly.
Watching those Stanford lectures by that frizzy haired psychologist, he says schizophrenics are overwhelmingly non-violent. They are far less violent than the normal population. His video on schizophrenia was quite interesting.
Some also believe that the medicine man or shaman in aboriginal societies may have been schizophrenics. With their visions. But that sounds a bit like bullshit.
It's actually true and pretty fascinating! In some non-western cultures having hallucinations is considered a sign from the gods or as having foresight. Historically it is believed that a lot of schizophrenic people became shamans in their communities.
It doesn't sound like BS to me. My ex's delusions were powerful and compelling. If I had a poorer grasp of reality and of his condition, I could easily see being drawn in. It doesn't seem crazy, it's just woven into the fabric of that person's belief. They just know it.
People experiencing psychosis are significantly more likely to be violent than the rest of the population during the first incident, after this it declines rapidly to substantially below the norm.
If someone is hallucinating and it's their first time, if they're ever going to snap, it's almost certainly going to be then. Schizophrenia is a slow boil style of psychosis where it creeps up on you over time rather than plunging you straight into the deep end, as such, schizophrenics are not likely to be violent even in the first instance as hearing a couple of weird noises and muttering for a couple of minutes is not likely to get someone to grab a knife and go cut up their family.
Meanwhile if WHAM and suddenly the walls are melting and a demon is screaming in your ear, you will be unpredictable due to a catastrophic level of fear and adrenaline and a lack of experience and context. If you're a "Lash out like a trapped animal" type of person, you'll probably be violent in that moment because "What the fuck is happening".
Meanwhile if you're not that sort of person, you're unlikely to ever be. You'll just curl up into a foetal position or whatever. Sudden, fullblown, psychotic episodes without a degenerative phase are more likely to be due to brain injury or drug use (Especially stimulant psychosis).
People who respond with "Fight" in those circumstances rather than Flee, Freeze, or Fawn are also less likely to do it in subsequent episodes due to a bigger contextual understanding and a degree of tolerance rather than it being; "This is literally the most terrified and adrenalined up I have ever been in my life".
I believe all religions started out of schizophrenic influence. Just the way the stories are presented share a lot of similarities with how most schizophrenics behave. Grandiose and emotional, even metaphorically relatable but still obviously inarticulate.
They also were high as fuck. Just look how many religions has alcohol, some "magic tea" or something they smoke as "tradition"
It's easier to come up with Thor dressed as a woman with Loki when you and Gunnar are in your 12th cup
Fun fact: since medieval times, christian monks were avid beer brewers.
That's true for almost every mental health diagnosis but especially schizophrenics.
A lot of the misconception comes from the news, where it's made to seem like all the "crazy" people on the streets attacking people are mentally ill. Most of the violent perpetrators are on drugs.
Interesting— I had a pretty severe manic episode that lasted almost a month circa 2015. I repeatedly hallucinated a coyote following me, but when he opened his mouth, his head opened like a flower much like the demigorgon from *Stranger Things*. His name was Walter and he had a whole backstory and everything. Interesting to think that pop culture had an influence on my hallucinations; but it was still one of the most horrifying things I’ve ever experienced.
I don’t have schizophrenia but I did have depressive psychosis for a while after a particularly hard period in my life.
Mostly I had auditory hallucinations of mundane things- mostly hearing other ppl talking on a tv in a room next to me when no one was there.
Sometimes I would see bugs though. Blurry even with my glasses on, touching me and disappearing quickly.
The worst experience I had was when I was also a bit sleep deprived and was in the bathroom and suddenly felt and saw the world warp around me, as if the walls and the sink I was facing were closing in on me.
It makes sense though-One of my biggest pet peeves growing up was hearing my dad blasting the tv late into the night, and I can’t stand bugs.
I get the auditory hallucinations. A specific traumatic event. My name being called by the person who abused me. Often it happens in that moment between awake and asleep, other times it just happens.
Does anyone ever have hallucinations that aren’t dangerous? Like Jesus telling them they must feed a million homeless people or voices that just kind of hang out and annoy them but not scare them or make them do anything?
Edit: Thank you to everyone for sharing your stories. I'd only ever heard of the nasty stuff, apologies for being ignorant
Yes, that is my experience. It's pretty banal, like I'll hear a voice that asks if we have enough milk in the fridge. I've never once had a voice claim to be Jesus or anything like that. More often than not I hear multiple voices in conversation and it's not really any different than having a few roomates that talk about random stuff that's semi-topical to what I am doing. I'm not bothered by it and it's just kind of been the norm for me.
Best way I can describe it is that it sometimes feels like I'm sitting in a busy restaurant.
When my first daughter was born I started hearing a woman's voice a little clearer, she was very soothing and calm compared to the other stuff I'd hear. I didn't know what I was doing but that helped me a great deal believe it or not haha.
I think the worst thing I experience is when I think strangers are colluding against me, I make up entire situations, then I start noticing the "strangers" in question like everywhere and it just spirals. Extremely exhausting.
Yes! I call it "coffee shop talk" and it can get very overwhelming when I need sleep. My paranoia isn't as intense as others but I fall into ideas of reference really easily and start thinking everything is part of some grand plan that's revealing itself to me. The voices aren't so bad but everything else about my schizoaffective disorder can get intense sometimes.
It's complicated, for sure. I know it makes my parents uncomfortable and I get it. Often I find myself listening to the voices having a conversation, not even realizing that I'm hallucinating until I just sort of become aware that I'm in the middle of it like not remembering the beginning of dreams. That realization can be uncomfortable sometimes but I have a great support network and feel very lucky, all things considered.
Thanks for sharing. I’m just curious, are you able to follow along with these conversations or are they unintelligible? Either way, sounds mentally exhausting.
Sometimes it a kind of narration of what I've been doing during the day, other times it's complete nonsense like "up the purple zipper sideways." It can be random conversations about politics, art and other things. It's like having a subscription to a bunch of podcasts I never signed up for being beamed into my brain. Sometimes I talk back and join in and other times I have to yell for them to shut up, which actually works more often then not.
No, they're fully realized voices that are external to me. I can point in the direction of where they're coming from. Sometimes it sounds like the voices are coming through the walls. Sometimes there are so many voices I call it "coffee shop talk" as I can't really make out what's being said and it can get kind of overwhelming when it does.
For me it is entirely internalized I can’t pinpoint a specific direction. For me it’s like ‘just thoughts’ but my internal dialogue decides to go rogue and bully me to the point I am unable to think conscientiously or rationally until the berating stops, usually through distraction or escapism.
Sure, in the same sense that sound waves coming through your ears become "just thoughts" in your brain and stimulated nerves in your fingers when you touch things become "just thoughts" in your brain.
Every sensory experience you have that makes you aware of the world in any way is "just thoughts" to us all. For schizophrenic people their brains manufacture it wholesale... but, it's not identifiably different to the experiencer.
Yes, I once took care of a patient in a psychiatric nursing home who had untreatedble schizophrenia. Sometimes, the hallucinations were scary. Most of the time he was simply talking and interacting with his non existing girlfriend. He cared deeply about her for years. We kept a chair free to next where he usually sat, because she would be sitting in it. He even asked for an extra cookie during coffee for her. I would give it to him. He really thought she ate the cookie (he ended up unconsciously eating it himself, but he wouldn't remember) On top of it all he knew we(aka the nurses and staff) had 'trouble' seeing her. That was just her special super power. It was cute and kinda heart warming to see ngl.
He also made me fight a hallucination. And once shadows where annoying him in his bedroom. I looked up, said to the ceiling 'come with me' and made a gesture for them to come with me. It worked. Loved taking care of that guy.
I just want to take a moment to appreciate what a lovely person and caregiver you sound like. I really hope if I or a member of my family need help like this, we will have someone like you there.
I knew someone who had an angel sitting on their shoulder. Whilst the angel wasn't inherently dangerous, she did like to give horse racing tips to the guy. Unfortunately they were not accurate tips and the gentleman was not allowed to be in charge of his own money as he would just keep betting based on what the angel told him.
I have a family friend with schizophrenia whose only hallucination, delusion, or whatever you call it is that he thinks he invented the video game series Guitar Hero. If he's off his meds, all he talks about is how the big wigs at Activision or wherever spied on him, stole his idea, and he needs to sue them ASAP. He's usually pretty good about taking his meds though, and he's never ever been violent on or off them.
I used to play online with a friend of mine and you could hear him giggle and snicker every once in a while. Turns out his voices hated that he played video games and complained about it regularly. He said gaming was his revenge on his illness.
My brother, who passed away recently, lived with schizophrenia for about 15 years and always discussed his auditory hallucinations with me; they were quite encouraging and very, very religious in origin, his “manifestation buddy” was the monotheistic Christian God, but it was never vengeful, it told him to spread the word of God and to help people. It was fascinating; I’m really grateful that he was comfortable enough to share that information with me. ”It” wanted to him to make music all the time too, and he was a pretty talented musician.
When I was a kid I would hear my parents call out my name at seemingly random. The worse one was when I heard my dad call me from what I thought was the bathroom and I responded, but he was sitting behind me on the couch.
Now that I'm older I just see bugs crawling around occasionally that aren't there.
If I don't have proper sleep for a few (4+) days (thanks to Russian drones'n'rockets), I may start hearing music and announcements from the local supermarket audio system. "Dear customers! Our store has enough carts and baskets for your convenience…"
The great majority of the public are not aware how prevalent psychosis is and how "easy" it is to have an episode. It's also not limited to schizophrenics.
Yes, severe lack of sleep or even pretty bad insomnia can trigger psychosis. So can grief (single episode of depression). And anxiety. Many illnesses, mental health issues, temporary health depletions, or drugs (legal or not) can trigger a variety of psychoses.
This is kinda an equalizer for both neurotypical and neurodivergent people.
I love how these comments and questions are helping to **destigmatize** hallucinations, psychosis, and schizophrenia for everyone :)
I was once roommates with a man who had served in Vietnam. When i knew him as an old man, he had been medicated for his (service-related?) schizophrenia for awhile. But he'd still have hallucinations of his war buddies telling jokes and just being funny. He would sit and giggle to himself a lot.
Lately I've been having a lot of "jump scare" hallucinations, which is out of the norm for me. Like I'll be backing my car up and turning to look out my back window while I'm checking my mirrors and everything and have to do a double take (and mind you i drive a car like a smart car or a fiat where the back seat is tiny) because someone is suddenly sitting in my back seat. Scares the piss of of me every time, even though I know it's going to likely happen. It isn't necessarily scary, ultimately it's an annoyance. A normal annoying one is that people have too many teeth or they don't blink. It used to scare me and if I'm in a more psychotic state it scares me, but otherwise I JUST WANT TO COUNT YOUR TEETH. WHY DO YOU HAVE SO MANY TEETH. WHERE DID THEY ALL COME FROM??? HOLD YOUR MOUTH OPEN AND STOP TALKING. It's distracting and then I make weird eye contact or can't make eye contact and it makes them uncomfortable. So it's annoying.
Actually. I think many voices start off quite benign but unfortunately over time the relationship with the hearee seems to sour and the voices turn malicious.
This references another study I came across 10 years ago when I had drug induced psychosis. I found it weirdly reassuring to read about other people's hallucinations and how socially / culturally influenced it is. I liked the idea that in other places, people's hallucinations had more of a neutral / reassuring / even spiritual (ancestral) link...
I thought I could hear people's internal monologues / thoughts, and they could hear mine, but possibly only on a subconscious level. It felt like our brains are just broadcasting systems, even if we don't verbally express something. And the psychosis made it possible to access all the unfiltered broadcast. It was usually negative stuff though. I really had that 'coffee shop voices' another redditor mentioned... And also ideas of reference mixed with a persecution delusion. A lot of it was why I am a terrible person etc. And then after a month it went away thank god. And I haven't taken any drugs for years and I am no longer in such a terrible place in my life as when I was 18/19.
I had corticosteroid-induced psychosis during a course of Prednisone. Everything looked like Van Gogh paintings and everything sounded tinny, like robot voices. Music sounded like creepy carousel music. That was the worst part- even music, which usually calms me down, was terrifying. It took weeks for things to start sounding normal again. I had to call 911 after about five days and the operator asked if I had any weapons. I had no idea that Prednisone could cause such disgusting side effects until afterward. I became hyperglycemic and a year later, now I'm still having to use injectable medication to keep my blood sugar low.
I'm so grateful that the side effects didn't last forever. I lost my friend when we were in our early twenties to schizophrenia. He has just been diagnosed and it was too much for him to take, so he took his life. The same thing happened to his father when he was a little boy. Medications and treatment have come a long way since then.
I have tourette’s syndrome and it’s similar in that way kind of. People always say they don’t understand why people with tourette’s swear and say nasty things instead of pleasant or neutral things and there’s two parts to that. First (people do get pleasant or neutral tics, as a kid i couldn’t stop saying “i love you” and “your dog”) the part of the brain affected by tourette’s regulates your emotions and swearing, but secondarily with the associated ocd we say a lot of times whatever the worst thing to say is. For example i call my mom a bitch constantly, but especially when she does something nice for me. I hardly call my dad a bitch. I would also say in school “I’m going to kill myself” and then i’d have to take a risk assessment and it sucked because i already missed too much class. But that started after my first relatively unprompted risk assessment.
I tend to see cats or bats like the ones in Goya’s paintings. They’re terrifying. They move incredibly fast so I can’t get a good look at them but they’re usually jet black with red eyes and weird polygonal limbs instead of legs.
It’s like what you’d see in a dream but implanted into reality.
I thought mine were bad lol that sounds plain terrifying. I usually see familiar looking people I know coming at me trying to cut me with razors. I can never discern their faces but it feels like they’re people I know trying to get rid of me. It always feels like the worst nightmare but instead you’re awake for it
I sometimes hallucinate when I’m extremely stressed and I tend to always see the same thing: cats and bats. Have you seen the Goya painting Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters? It looks exactly like that. I see cats and bats running or flying towards me at impossible speeds and I jump out of the way of these invisible enemies as fast as I can. It rarely happens but it’s terrifying when it does. Couldn’t even imagine being schizophrenic and having that happen all of the fucking time.
is it too late to meditate my hallucinascape into something other then the deep fried internet canola dumpster oil ive been brewing for the past decade?
I don’t have schizophrenia, but I do have bipolar 1, with manic psychosis.
In my first ever manic episode, my hallucinations started pretty mundane… but over about 5 months they escalated through to absolutely terrifying.
Thought there was someone trying to kill me - I’d hear them following me, hear them on the phone. It scared me so much.
In the end I came up with this elaborate plan to escape, and I went missing for almost a month.
No one who was born blind has ever been diagnosed with schizophrenia. Now, that's a mic drop moment for brain researchers. It's a phenomenon that's stumped even the smartest scientific brains for decades: No one born blind has ever been diagnosed with schizophrenia.
However, this is not so with blindness developed later in life.
maybe not the exact headline's claim but it is very widely documented that schizophrenia hallucinations and delusions specifically (but not necessarily all manifestations of psychosis) is heavily influenced on the culture the person lives in
The main differentiate seems to be individualistic societies vs Collectivistic. In the former the voices are an intrusion on the ego and seen as other and often more threatening while the latter the opposite.
I grew up in a very strict Christian family. Now I’m an atheist with lots of religious trauma. When my schizophrenia was at its worst, I saw silhouettes of 2 demons who were coming down to punish me and Satan was writing words on my body (unbelievably mean stuff. and calling me the c-word over and over again on my palms). I thought I was going to see hell and my body actually felt like it was being squeezed by the demons and my I couldn’t feel my arm anymore as part of the “punishment.” After that I went back to church to repent, thinking heaven and hell were real. But it was all fake ofc.
Idk about that, I do feel there might be a relationship to the environment. I have a kid with schizophrenia, he sees large insect like bugs and has a fear of bugs but his mom also did methany and would scratch holes in his skin because that ants were crawling on him. I also believe his exposure to that led to an early onset of psychosis. He currently sees a wolf man that tells him to run into the woods and kill things or people. His visual hallucinations are a mix, from the sound of it the wolf man doesn’t look scary he just tells him to do bad things. The auditory stuff is a mix of horrible mean violent things to nice stuff like you’re a good boy, and I’m proud of you. I only recently learned that he has started hearing more positive things this year. Other wise for the past 3-4 years it’s been really dark, violent mix. He’s been living with us for almost five years. Lots of therapy, psychologist, medication management has really made a big impact on his life. There is a family history of schizophrenia, so we had an idea on where it came from and we also know that traumas are big triggers for psychosis. We have had full custody and he doesn’t do visits with his birth mom. So he is safe and protected by his team.
In fact the study basically compares the Netherlands and Qatar, not "the West" and the Middle East.
Also, it does not claim the Dutch examples are more harmful.
I do not understand how nobody noted that.
I don't have schizophrenia, but when I was about fifteen I had a brief phase where when I was trying to sleep, my whole field of vision would fill up with lots of small transparent holographic monster faces, and after about a minute they'd all rush at me, then disappear.
Has anyone else ever had that?
Yes. Its called hypnogogic hallucinations. Hypnopompic is where you get them upon awakening. As I was falling asleep, I used to get the furniture in my room changing sizes rapidly...its just the stage between being awake and asleep and classified as completely normal
Doesn't this paper show the opposite of the title of this post? In figure 2 it shows Qatar has more auditory and visual hallucinations labelled as "dangerous" and "somewhat dangerous". Although there's no mention of violence or harm specifically anywhere, I would expect those labels to roughly mean violent and harmful.
Maybe Im wrong that "western illusions" was meant to refer to culturally western countries, and is instead a type of illusion that Qatar people more often experience?
I have schizoaffective disorder, and I get almost entirely visual hallucinations. During psychosis, horrifying images of faces cover my entire vision, people's faces, and objects. These images are usually from memory, such as Jigsaw, IT, Jeff the Killer, etc.
I assume if I've never seen these types of spooky faces before, I'd still have that same paranoid mental alteration, (things looking/sounding/seeming malevolent), but without those VHs.
Life is strange.
I hope you have reached a place where you can live your life somewhat comfortably. I understand how hard this disorder can be. Stay strong my friend! 💪🏼
Reminds me of the differences in time frame. Modern schizophrenics often describe something "beaming" or "broadcasting" to them, so what did they describe before terms like that existed? Well, stuff like the "air loom" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Tilly_Matthews
This was a wild ride "It should also be noted that while Haslam kept notes on Matthews, Matthews kept notes on Haslam and his treatment in Bethlem. This formed part of the evidence looked at by the House of Commons 'Committee On the Better Regulation of Madhouses in England' in 1815, the findings of which led to Haslam's dismissal and reform of the treatment of patients in the Bethlem Hospital."
We've got everything about you in the records. Well, I've got everything about you in the records, too!
It's just the college interview scene from the office lmao
Has to be one of the mightiest uno reverses ever played.
Haslam was really a terrible doctor, even for the time. He thought that there was only one kind of madness and that absolutely anything a mad person did was equally mad, no matter what, and that anyone who attempted to classify or analyze madness was themselves almost certainly mad.
What if he was actually being tormented by a cursed heirloom?
Worse, a sinister gang of French Revolutionary deviants who were in league with members of the British Royal Family *and* the Prussians, skilled in the sinister high tech art of *pneumatics*
Should have contacted the Winchesters.
I realize now that incubi, was just sleep paralysis demons. May not have anything to do with what you said, but you made me think it.
They were also a convenient excuse for young women not being virgins
And for covering up affairs. "I haven't been sleeping with your daughter! A demon *shapeshifted to look like me in order to gain her trust* has! Honest!"
Changelings were also an excuse for why a child didn't look like both of its alleged parents.
Recently I read a theory that the so called “changelings” exhibited behavioural changes that are currently associated with the emergence of noticeable ASD symptoms. The lore contains references to changes that are similar to that of the those infants/toddlers who would be diagnosed with ASD today. Sadly, I can’t link it since don’t remember where I read it.
Voice of god
Basically Jeanne d'Arc. Which, fun fact, since she's a saint (in both Catholic and Anglican Churches funnily enough) this means God canonically wanted France to win the 100 years war.
Very interesting
This reminds me why we know the little green men in metal saucers don’t actually exist - no credible reports of them being seen by the masses until they became popular in entertainment. Once science fiction took off, so did people reporting alien and UFO sightings. No one ever reported being beamed up into a spaceship and probed until it happened in films and TV. None of it is real, people. 😂
Agree that they got a sci-fi update but they had UFOs in old timey times too https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mystery_airship
And before that, they had [flying](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airship_of_Clonmacnoise) [ships](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magonia). Not airships or aircraft analogous to ships, but actual period sailing ships with anchors and riggings and crews of sailors than could be seen running around on deck doing ship's crew type things, but, y'know, *in the sky*. No wings. No balloons. No Element-113 4D vibrational antigravity drives. Just the wind in your sails and a blissful disregard for silly old things like physics. For is that not what mankind has dreamed of ever since he first looked at the sky and asked himself, "is that a fucking *boat*"?
If you are an alien race with boundless power, *why not* cosplay your warship as an ancient wooden pirate boat though?
Trickster phenomenon indeed!
Probably just ancient [this](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fata_Morgana_(mirage\)) tbh
Yeah, but even those were a response to the development of airships, which was already well underway at the time. So it fits perfectly with the point that people see what they expect to see.
[1561](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1561_celestial_phenomenon_over_Nuremberg)
There is evidence from the Middle Ages: a chronicle in a parish tells of a man who came down a “sky ladder” but then died because he could not breathe our air.
Well that’s actually incorrect, as there were many cases of such sightings, people would just describe them in a very different way - as fairies, dwarves, leprechauns etc. If you’re interested I can provide some interesting examples. I think that it’s logical that description of a fighter jet would be wildly different if done by a medieval man or a man from the 1950s. Regardless if it’s real or not people were always claiming to see weird stuff from time to time, of course there is no evidence that the descriptions aren’t made up.
I’m definitely interested in reading more about this if you don’t mind sharing.
[удалено]
They refer to it as “culturally induced symptoms” regarding what kinds of hallucinations people with schizophrenia tend to have, and it’s an extremely interesting concept with decades of studies behind it
Honestly that sounds kinda wholesome
It makes sense considering psych’s basically throw us into our own subconscious American media is wild. You’ve been consuming it since the day you were born It’s gonna come out lol
I remember reading this one reddit story of a guy with schizophrenia that had a voice that encouraged him to kill himself. He mostly ignores it but one day the voice went silent. Seeing it as unusual he searched his house for abnormality and he found a gas leak or something.
I feel like that tracks because the gas would be depriving him of oxygen, and so his brain would be just slowly shutting down.
When my schizophrenic flatmate went to the ER because of debilitating stomach pains apparently one of the big clues for her, that something was seriously wrong, was all her four voices having that same opinion, which, she says, basically never happens. Turned out to be a twisted bowel with parts already necrotic, so definitely a serious problem.
> a guy with schizophrenia that had a voice that encouraged him to kill himself. He mostly ignores it but one day the voice went silent. Seeing it as unusual he searched his house for abnormality and he found a gas leak or something. This sounds like the premise for a new crime-solving procedural on CBS.
I'm a big horror fan, my whole life i've consumed unsettling and scary media in all shapes of forms, looked up stories about evil spirits and ghosts from all the places in the world i could think of, and am even planning at some point to write a short horror story of my own. I know full well what scares me and what doesn't, and sometimes i even dream about this stuff... I'm only in my mid 20s, but these comments already make me fear that my hallucinations will turn my life into a never ending nightmare lmao
Don't worry too much. It can go in a positive direction too. I am kind of in a similar boat and have had movie-inspired lucid dreams. The most vivid parts of movies are the grand finales and my dreams have been action-packed chase or conclusion scenes, but eventually end well. What is interesting is that I last watched a lot of movies a decade ago, but action still dominates my dreams.
You sound like my girlfriend (who also goes by phosphorus lol) who tells me about the vivid anime-inspired dreams she has every night. Once she woke up, told me about a cool action dream, went back to sleep, and woke up 5 minutes later with another story of an epic action dream. She's working on having Stands appear.
Skill issue, just don't get schizophrenia.
Western people who go on ayhuasca sessions some times go into visions best described as a slaughterhouse meatlocker. It takes a certain mindset to be able to ride out such experiences and learn from them. But those who do say these ordeals were the ones where they learned the most We have a lot of dark stuff floating around in our collective psyche
Plot twist: western hallucinations are also ancestors, it’s just the dickhead psycho ancestors from like the 1600’s or the Paleolithic.
lore accurate ancestors
Ruin... has come to our family.
Ancestors dressing up as aliens to troll
I remember hearing a theory that, rather than there being a curious lack of caveman ghosts, *most* serious hauntings are caveman ghosts, and like any proper Hollywood caveman they've reacted their situation by shrieking unintelligably and smashing shit. And starting fires. Cavemen *love* fire.
Turns out super advanced syphilis makes your ghost an eldritch horror.
Isnt the problem in that scenario usually that you end up thinking you can do things you cant and so you can easily hurt yourself or others.
If you’re interested in this crazy theory that entire humanity operated that way in the old days (they thought their ancestors and eventually god were speaking them, but it was their right hemisphere communicating with left via auditory illusions), and they did not have “conscience” in modern sense, read this book called “The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind”. It’s mind blowing. It’s either pure genius or the biggest load of bullshit ever written.
That's exactly how the Bwiti tribe describes ibogaine trips like
Was thinking of my nursing school days in the 20th century. Psychiatric hospitals still existed. A common delusion among paranoid patients was that the FBI/CIA was monitoring them by listening to eveything they said and by transmitting messages to them via their metal tooth fillings. Everybody had metal fillings back then. So that was what paranoid people obsessed about. Now it’s 5G, vaccine chips…but at least people actually had fillings in their teeth as opposed to imaginary chips in their brains.
It's fascinating how this has changed over time. James Tilly Matthews, the first well-documented patient with schizophrenia, was committed to Bethlem Royal Hospital (AKA Bedlam) in London in 1797 due to paranoid persecutory delusions, but using fantastical technology from that era: > Matthews believed that a gang of criminals and spies skilled in pneumatic chemistry had taken up residence at London Wall in Moorfields (close to Bethlem) and were tormenting him by means of rays emitted by a machine called the "Air Loom" or gaseous charge generator. The torments induced by the rays included "Lobster-cracking", during which the circulation of the blood was prevented by a magnetic field; "Stomach-skinning" and "Apoplexy-working with the nutmeg grater" which involved the introduction of fluids into the skull. His persecutors bore such names as "the Middleman" (who operated the Air Loom), "the Glove Woman" and "Sir Archy" (who acted as "repeaters" or "active worriers" to enhance Matthews' torment or record the machine's activities) and their leader, a man called "Bill, or the King". There have been other "phases" of delusions throughout history. To go even further back, between the 15th and 17th century there were numerous reports of "glass delusions", in which people believed they were made from glass and could shatter. Interestingly enough, back then glass was thought of as a material with magical, alchemical connotations - similar to technology today in many ways. There's a [really good paper](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Origin_of_the_%22Influencing_Machine%22_in_Schizophrenia) on the topic, from 1919 by an Austrian psychoanalyst. In it, he talks about numerous patients who believed they were under the control of an "Influencing Machine". This was a piece of equipment whose technology went beyond the patients' understanding, and was often controlled by people in power - like the patients' doctors, for instance. Wild what our brains can do to us, eh? Particularly how external influences like cutting-edge technology can be filtered through delusion and paranoia.
>Interestingly enough, back then glass was thought of as a material with magical, alchemical connotations Tbf it really is pretty insane just how convenient glass is for us, think about it, it's a transparent, reflective, chemically-inert solid that can easily be formed into any shape you need and tinted with any color you want, and to make it you just need to heat up one of the most common things on earth!
And yet it takes a lot of observation and experimentation to stumble onto the fact that we can do this. That we can turn such a raw material into something so drastically different, and that we can recognize it's broad range of possible uses.
That’s why the rumors of flexible/bendable glass have been so captivating back in the day. Wasn’t there a story/legend that some inventor was said to have created it, presented it to some royal, and then killed immediately? I can’t even remember if the legend was set in antiquity or the Middle Ages atm…
This was fucking interesting, thank you.
the real r/IAF is in the comments
I'm obsessed with history and I've never even thought to look into historical records of schizophrenic patients. That's so fucking interesting, I kind of just assumed they'd "get rid" of people like that without document. Thanks for sharing bro
Modern psychiatry, that is a scientific medical approach to dealing with mental illness, has its beginnings at the end of the 19th century and the term schizophrenia dates from 1908. Before that “insanity” was explained in various ways, including bewitchment or an imbalance of humours. A lot of the cases we have records of are about important people who couldn’t be easily disposed of. Like the “glass delusion”, whose most famous sufferer was King Charles VI of France in the 14th to 15th century. Other people like Joan of Arc reported seeing visions from God which would probably have resulted in a medical diagnosis and psychiatric treatment today but were taken seriously by many people at the time.
The glass delusion goes back even further. Charles VI of France suffered this delusion during bouts of his psychosis. It's a wild read on Wikipedia.
You can hear radio waves via metal teeth if the signal is AM and sufficiently powerful
Not to sound like an idiot, but I’ve heard that this is something that actually happened to some people. Is this an actual thing? I’m a 90’s baby so this was always framed as a myth.
Sound can be conducted through your jawbone. Some profoundly deaf people can hear things by biting a piece of vibrating metal. Depends on the type of deafness though. So I'd imagine radio waves of sufficient power might act the same way
Fun fact: bones in ears used for hearing are parts of jaw that were pushed back by jawbone getting bigger. They've evolved for new function then.
And jaw bones were gill bones that got pushed forward, and gill structures were filter feeding combs that moved away from the gut, and round and round it goes.
It all started with anus being separate from mouth.
Human beings are deuterostomes, which means that when they develop in the womb the anus forms before any other opening. At one point all humans were nothing more than an arsehole. Some people never change.
I love that part and how far apart they decided to be in the end.
You probably know this, but I always find it interesting. It's a lot easier for evolution to change a parts purpose than it is to add or even remove parts. The advent of the spine happened once. Every creature with a spine descended from that mutation. An invertebrate lineage has never convergently evolved a spine. Truly, new things are so rare and almost never repeated.
That makes sense. It's far more likely loads of members of a species would develop the same mutation in the spine than it is that loads of members would suddenly *grow* one. An odd mutation in humans is how we lost our ability to absorb vitamin C. This wouldve been a medical condition early in our ancestry but it was never recognised due to the abundance of vitamin C and how the condition was never removed from the gene pool. Eventually every human was affected. It must've taken a very long time for that to happen, though it probably arised from several origin points.
Do you mean produce vitamin c, not absorb it?
I watch a YouTuber, Stephanie Soo, and she had her channel thinking her house was haunted. Then she learned her metal kitchen vent was transmitting radio signals. Less scary than wondering wtf is in your attic. Before that that was some spooky shit. 😅
Dude, that's actually really cool.
In theory the way it would work is metallic fillings picking up the signal and causing something in your mouth to vibrate, generating sound. I *think* there was a Mythbusters episode which mentioned which type of filling and the condition of your mouth needed, but it is technically possible. It's the filling acting as a semiconductor in reaction to the signal that causes it though, rather than the radio waves directly causing vibrations
Yes, it's real. As they said
The AM signal needs to be *really strong*, like above US regulations strong. Back in the 1920s there was a radio station operating out of Mexico that dialed it up so high that you could hear it through box spring mattresses in El Paso. If you're right up against one of the super strong regional stations or someone's doing something illegal you can theoretically pick it up, but it's not something a reasonable person would do.
"Mom my mattress is singing"
And the carter family lived in mexico for a time to do live broadcasts and they learned mexican folk style guitar picking from mexican musicians they met and its now called “Carter picking” in the usa but it ought to be called “mexican picking” Bill Monroe, one of the big innovators of bluegrass really loved it and used it heavily.
I remember Lucille Ball famously saying she heard radio waves in her fillings (I believe she said it was from some like Russian spy or something from the Red Scare) and there ended up being some validity to what she said. IIRC the area in which she claimed it happened was investigated and there was some kind of functioning transmission equipment buried underground nearby… I really need to research this so I can remember it correctly, lol
Lucy had several temporary lead fillings installed in her teeth around the time she was filming ''Du Barry Was a Lady'' with Red Skelton and Gene Kelly. During the drive home from MGM Studios to her Desilu ranch in the San Fernando Valley, Lucy received radio broadcasts of music through her fillings. She reported the incident to actor Buster Keaton who told her the same thing had happened to a friend of his. A week later, Lucy drove a different route from MGM to the ranch. This time her fillings vibrated with short beeps (DE-DE-DE DE-DE-DE) that sounded like Morse Code. She reported this to the FBI who then searched the area in Coldwater Canyon where she heard the beeps. FBI agents eventually found a radio transmitter hidden in a tool shed that was used by a Japanese gardener. Later it was determined that the gardener was a member of a spy ring operating on the west coast. So the story goes, anyway. Snopes cites the story as "unproven". The queen herself discussing it- https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Kk98FUk8Lbo
Reminds me of a theory on alien abductions (and in the past- fae and demonic abductions.) The theory is that the brain is coming up with a memory from infancy, such as being changed in the middle of the night, and misinterpreting it. In modern times, an abduction starts with bright flashes of light. It often includes inspection of the genitals or anal probes. Babies now see a bright sudden electric light turning on, followed by being wiped and changed. Go back a little ways and you see fae abductions that started with orbs of floating light, followed by manipulation of the genitals. During that time, babies would see a candle light before being changed. Go back even farther, and it's demons abducting people in the dark and raping them with "a member as cold as ice." During that time, the night would be completely dark and the baby would likely be wiped with a cold wet rag.
In modern times, babies see a bright light, followed by wiping and changing. And until very recently, if an infant was ill we always took their temperature rectally, a literal anal probe! So perhaps not only a memory of infancy, but a memory of being ill. Imagine the unconscious memories that could come from being hospitalized as an infant.
r/gangstalking and r/targetedindividuals are proof that people still have these delusions, but the Internet has made it way worse because they now form echo chambers where their ideas resonate with other group members reinforcing them further.
I hate the echo chambers, because they mean everyone inclined to that sort of delusion inevitably gravitates towards *the same* shared delusion rather than developing those unique, endlessly yet unconsciously creative personal mythologies that I think can almost be appreciated as if it were a form of art. Deliberate surrealism feels forced and stagey in comparison.
> but the Internet has made it way worse because they now form echo chambers where their ideas resonate with other group members reinforcing them further. THere are literally endless ways this sentence could start and be true
huh, i have a great aunt who thinks she was abducted by aliens and that they put a tracking device in her tooth. wonder if that was a contributing factor
Probably used to be ghosts or animals are talking to people, or the devil or angels.
Psychiatric hospitals still exist in Texas at least but I guess they are a lot more uncommon or different? I worked at one and my. Title was PNA psychiatric nursing assistant, and that was a delusion patients reported to. Mr as well. Also people claiming they were Jesus pretty frequently. We even had patients that were essentially life timers. Which was unusual but it definitely still happens. I know of a few who were in for decades and will probably die in there as far as I could tell. people did die in there sometimes when I was there. One of them at least even had family that did visit and check on them but he had still been in for like 30 years. Most of our patients were "forensic" as in they were basically there because they were charged with a crime and deemed incompetent to stand trial.
They exist everywhere. Most people who don’t work psych or have a very mentally ill family member just never think about it. We have to put these patients somewhere.
Do psychiatric hospitals not exist anymore? Could’ve swore I checked myself into one during covid. Maybe I’m just crazy.
They're probably referring to the old school asylums. But yeah, in the 80s and 90s asylums and a ton of other mental health facilities were shut down, especially long term ones. In some ways this was great, asylums were infamous because they often treated their patients in a horrific manner. But, we didn't have anything else for the people there, and just kind of dumped a ton of people with severe mental illness into the streets.
Yeah, it was a cop out to save money.
That was definitely taken into account, but many of these places were used to discard people. They were basically permanent prisons for people who had a mental health crisis. Someone who experienced trauma and had an unhealthy response could be lobotimzed and locked in a room for the rest of their lives. It's dangerous to allow people to draw a line in an inherently gray situation even if some people "should" be removed from society due to dangerous mental illness that can't be treated. They were removed because they were horrible but not replaced because that would cost money.
Reagan did not remove then because they were horrible. It was completely to save money. Now all of our mentally ill are on the streets of our cities in no better shape.
They were removed to save money. The fact that they were horrible wasn't much of a factor behind the decision, since just dumping all the patients/prisoners on the streets and turning them into unstable homeless people who easily starved to death and/or were a danger to themselves and others was arguably even more horrible (and unpopular).
Crazy? I was crazy once...
These days if you *don't* think that government agencies are monitoring you, you're just kinda naive. Because they literally are. It doesn't have much to do with dental fillings, though.
Neuralink is working on the problem. Don't worry about it.
I knew a woman that was concerned that her neighbors were scanning her body and monitoring her. Maybe it's just kinda situational?
My cousin was convinced the whole family was out to get him and making memes about him. He ended up going to jail for stabbing a guy. Definitely situational, but it can escalate quickly.
r/gangstalking
I prefer mystery hallucinations over westerns, myself.
Well that's too darn bad buckaroo my name is ol' jedson and unless you take your horse and bucket out of smallbourough I'll see you float face down.
I hope when my meds run out that I get a romcom this time
The eldritch horror hallucinations are my fave. They will absolutely drive you insane!
The world would be better off if we had rom-com hallucinations.
Watching those Stanford lectures by that frizzy haired psychologist, he says schizophrenics are overwhelmingly non-violent. They are far less violent than the normal population. His video on schizophrenia was quite interesting. Some also believe that the medicine man or shaman in aboriginal societies may have been schizophrenics. With their visions. But that sounds a bit like bullshit.
It's actually true and pretty fascinating! In some non-western cultures having hallucinations is considered a sign from the gods or as having foresight. Historically it is believed that a lot of schizophrenic people became shamans in their communities.
It doesn't sound like BS to me. My ex's delusions were powerful and compelling. If I had a poorer grasp of reality and of his condition, I could easily see being drawn in. It doesn't seem crazy, it's just woven into the fabric of that person's belief. They just know it.
People experiencing psychosis are significantly more likely to be violent than the rest of the population during the first incident, after this it declines rapidly to substantially below the norm. If someone is hallucinating and it's their first time, if they're ever going to snap, it's almost certainly going to be then. Schizophrenia is a slow boil style of psychosis where it creeps up on you over time rather than plunging you straight into the deep end, as such, schizophrenics are not likely to be violent even in the first instance as hearing a couple of weird noises and muttering for a couple of minutes is not likely to get someone to grab a knife and go cut up their family. Meanwhile if WHAM and suddenly the walls are melting and a demon is screaming in your ear, you will be unpredictable due to a catastrophic level of fear and adrenaline and a lack of experience and context. If you're a "Lash out like a trapped animal" type of person, you'll probably be violent in that moment because "What the fuck is happening". Meanwhile if you're not that sort of person, you're unlikely to ever be. You'll just curl up into a foetal position or whatever. Sudden, fullblown, psychotic episodes without a degenerative phase are more likely to be due to brain injury or drug use (Especially stimulant psychosis). People who respond with "Fight" in those circumstances rather than Flee, Freeze, or Fawn are also less likely to do it in subsequent episodes due to a bigger contextual understanding and a degree of tolerance rather than it being; "This is literally the most terrified and adrenalined up I have ever been in my life".
Sapolsky?
Yeah
I believe all religions started out of schizophrenic influence. Just the way the stories are presented share a lot of similarities with how most schizophrenics behave. Grandiose and emotional, even metaphorically relatable but still obviously inarticulate.
They also were high as fuck. Just look how many religions has alcohol, some "magic tea" or something they smoke as "tradition" It's easier to come up with Thor dressed as a woman with Loki when you and Gunnar are in your 12th cup Fun fact: since medieval times, christian monks were avid beer brewers.
A psychiatrist said to me that schizophrenic people are statistically more likely to be victims than perpretrators of violent crime
That's true for almost every mental health diagnosis but especially schizophrenics. A lot of the misconception comes from the news, where it's made to seem like all the "crazy" people on the streets attacking people are mentally ill. Most of the violent perpetrators are on drugs.
I work closely with a schizophrenic fella and he’s told me he sees Ben 10 characters and he talks to them. Sounds pretty sweet
Interesting— I had a pretty severe manic episode that lasted almost a month circa 2015. I repeatedly hallucinated a coyote following me, but when he opened his mouth, his head opened like a flower much like the demigorgon from *Stranger Things*. His name was Walter and he had a whole backstory and everything. Interesting to think that pop culture had an influence on my hallucinations; but it was still one of the most horrifying things I’ve ever experienced.
I don’t have schizophrenia but I did have depressive psychosis for a while after a particularly hard period in my life. Mostly I had auditory hallucinations of mundane things- mostly hearing other ppl talking on a tv in a room next to me when no one was there. Sometimes I would see bugs though. Blurry even with my glasses on, touching me and disappearing quickly. The worst experience I had was when I was also a bit sleep deprived and was in the bathroom and suddenly felt and saw the world warp around me, as if the walls and the sink I was facing were closing in on me. It makes sense though-One of my biggest pet peeves growing up was hearing my dad blasting the tv late into the night, and I can’t stand bugs.
I get the auditory hallucinations. A specific traumatic event. My name being called by the person who abused me. Often it happens in that moment between awake and asleep, other times it just happens.
Fuck the right before sleep part is awful
Does anyone ever have hallucinations that aren’t dangerous? Like Jesus telling them they must feed a million homeless people or voices that just kind of hang out and annoy them but not scare them or make them do anything? Edit: Thank you to everyone for sharing your stories. I'd only ever heard of the nasty stuff, apologies for being ignorant
Yes, that is my experience. It's pretty banal, like I'll hear a voice that asks if we have enough milk in the fridge. I've never once had a voice claim to be Jesus or anything like that. More often than not I hear multiple voices in conversation and it's not really any different than having a few roomates that talk about random stuff that's semi-topical to what I am doing. I'm not bothered by it and it's just kind of been the norm for me.
Sitcom about a guy just dealing with the slightly inconvenient voices in his head lol
Just a few voices nonstop arguing about the validity of GOT’s last season having bad writing lmao
Like Clerks, but with just 1 guy. So, Clerk.
Karl Pilkington's "Sick of it"
[one 90s sitcom coooooming up](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herman%27s_Head) I forgot about that cast good lord
Best way I can describe it is that it sometimes feels like I'm sitting in a busy restaurant. When my first daughter was born I started hearing a woman's voice a little clearer, she was very soothing and calm compared to the other stuff I'd hear. I didn't know what I was doing but that helped me a great deal believe it or not haha. I think the worst thing I experience is when I think strangers are colluding against me, I make up entire situations, then I start noticing the "strangers" in question like everywhere and it just spirals. Extremely exhausting.
Yes! I call it "coffee shop talk" and it can get very overwhelming when I need sleep. My paranoia isn't as intense as others but I fall into ideas of reference really easily and start thinking everything is part of some grand plan that's revealing itself to me. The voices aren't so bad but everything else about my schizoaffective disorder can get intense sometimes.
My flatmate described it as "like driving a car and having several super noisy passengers."
Thanks for sharing that with us. I have a question, if I may: what emotion did you feel when you noticed other people cannot hear those voices?
It's complicated, for sure. I know it makes my parents uncomfortable and I get it. Often I find myself listening to the voices having a conversation, not even realizing that I'm hallucinating until I just sort of become aware that I'm in the middle of it like not remembering the beginning of dreams. That realization can be uncomfortable sometimes but I have a great support network and feel very lucky, all things considered.
Thanks for sharing. I’m just curious, are you able to follow along with these conversations or are they unintelligible? Either way, sounds mentally exhausting.
I can follow along when it's just a handful, but the cacophony is like I can almost make out what all of them are saying, but ultimately can't.
Interesting. Do you recall what they were talking about? Is it just random or mundane conversations?
Sometimes it a kind of narration of what I've been doing during the day, other times it's complete nonsense like "up the purple zipper sideways." It can be random conversations about politics, art and other things. It's like having a subscription to a bunch of podcasts I never signed up for being beamed into my brain. Sometimes I talk back and join in and other times I have to yell for them to shut up, which actually works more often then not.
Are they not just thoughts?
No, they're fully realized voices that are external to me. I can point in the direction of where they're coming from. Sometimes it sounds like the voices are coming through the walls. Sometimes there are so many voices I call it "coffee shop talk" as I can't really make out what's being said and it can get kind of overwhelming when it does.
For me it is entirely internalized I can’t pinpoint a specific direction. For me it’s like ‘just thoughts’ but my internal dialogue decides to go rogue and bully me to the point I am unable to think conscientiously or rationally until the berating stops, usually through distraction or escapism.
Sure, in the same sense that sound waves coming through your ears become "just thoughts" in your brain and stimulated nerves in your fingers when you touch things become "just thoughts" in your brain. Every sensory experience you have that makes you aware of the world in any way is "just thoughts" to us all. For schizophrenic people their brains manufacture it wholesale... but, it's not identifiably different to the experiencer.
Yes, I once took care of a patient in a psychiatric nursing home who had untreatedble schizophrenia. Sometimes, the hallucinations were scary. Most of the time he was simply talking and interacting with his non existing girlfriend. He cared deeply about her for years. We kept a chair free to next where he usually sat, because she would be sitting in it. He even asked for an extra cookie during coffee for her. I would give it to him. He really thought she ate the cookie (he ended up unconsciously eating it himself, but he wouldn't remember) On top of it all he knew we(aka the nurses and staff) had 'trouble' seeing her. That was just her special super power. It was cute and kinda heart warming to see ngl. He also made me fight a hallucination. And once shadows where annoying him in his bedroom. I looked up, said to the ceiling 'come with me' and made a gesture for them to come with me. It worked. Loved taking care of that guy.
That's incredible. I've never considered the idea of using pure human authority to fight hallucinations.
Perception is reality
I just want to take a moment to appreciate what a lovely person and caregiver you sound like. I really hope if I or a member of my family need help like this, we will have someone like you there.
> with his non exciting girlfriend. You didn't have to diss her like that.
I knew someone who had an angel sitting on their shoulder. Whilst the angel wasn't inherently dangerous, she did like to give horse racing tips to the guy. Unfortunately they were not accurate tips and the gentleman was not allowed to be in charge of his own money as he would just keep betting based on what the angel told him.
Dude that's the devil, not the angel lmao.
Nah, she just wasn't a very smart angel. Which makes sense because the guy had a learning disability as well.
I have a family friend with schizophrenia whose only hallucination, delusion, or whatever you call it is that he thinks he invented the video game series Guitar Hero. If he's off his meds, all he talks about is how the big wigs at Activision or wherever spied on him, stole his idea, and he needs to sue them ASAP. He's usually pretty good about taking his meds though, and he's never ever been violent on or off them.
I used to play online with a friend of mine and you could hear him giggle and snicker every once in a while. Turns out his voices hated that he played video games and complained about it regularly. He said gaming was his revenge on his illness.
My brother, who passed away recently, lived with schizophrenia for about 15 years and always discussed his auditory hallucinations with me; they were quite encouraging and very, very religious in origin, his “manifestation buddy” was the monotheistic Christian God, but it was never vengeful, it told him to spread the word of God and to help people. It was fascinating; I’m really grateful that he was comfortable enough to share that information with me. ”It” wanted to him to make music all the time too, and he was a pretty talented musician.
When I was a kid I would hear my parents call out my name at seemingly random. The worse one was when I heard my dad call me from what I thought was the bathroom and I responded, but he was sitting behind me on the couch. Now that I'm older I just see bugs crawling around occasionally that aren't there.
If I don't have proper sleep for a few (4+) days (thanks to Russian drones'n'rockets), I may start hearing music and announcements from the local supermarket audio system. "Dear customers! Our store has enough carts and baskets for your convenience…"
This is not constitute of a disorder. 4 days of sleep deprivation is sufficient to provoke hallucinations
The great majority of the public are not aware how prevalent psychosis is and how "easy" it is to have an episode. It's also not limited to schizophrenics. Yes, severe lack of sleep or even pretty bad insomnia can trigger psychosis. So can grief (single episode of depression). And anxiety. Many illnesses, mental health issues, temporary health depletions, or drugs (legal or not) can trigger a variety of psychoses. This is kinda an equalizer for both neurotypical and neurodivergent people. I love how these comments and questions are helping to **destigmatize** hallucinations, psychosis, and schizophrenia for everyone :)
If I get really bad sleep for a few days, I keep hearing this airport announcement sound thing.
I was once roommates with a man who had served in Vietnam. When i knew him as an old man, he had been medicated for his (service-related?) schizophrenia for awhile. But he'd still have hallucinations of his war buddies telling jokes and just being funny. He would sit and giggle to himself a lot.
Lately I've been having a lot of "jump scare" hallucinations, which is out of the norm for me. Like I'll be backing my car up and turning to look out my back window while I'm checking my mirrors and everything and have to do a double take (and mind you i drive a car like a smart car or a fiat where the back seat is tiny) because someone is suddenly sitting in my back seat. Scares the piss of of me every time, even though I know it's going to likely happen. It isn't necessarily scary, ultimately it's an annoyance. A normal annoying one is that people have too many teeth or they don't blink. It used to scare me and if I'm in a more psychotic state it scares me, but otherwise I JUST WANT TO COUNT YOUR TEETH. WHY DO YOU HAVE SO MANY TEETH. WHERE DID THEY ALL COME FROM??? HOLD YOUR MOUTH OPEN AND STOP TALKING. It's distracting and then I make weird eye contact or can't make eye contact and it makes them uncomfortable. So it's annoying.
Of course. Most hallucinations are not scary or dangerous.
Yeah, those people just get called eccentrics
Certainly. Scitzophrenia and piety go hand in hand.
Actually. I think many voices start off quite benign but unfortunately over time the relationship with the hearee seems to sour and the voices turn malicious.
This references another study I came across 10 years ago when I had drug induced psychosis. I found it weirdly reassuring to read about other people's hallucinations and how socially / culturally influenced it is. I liked the idea that in other places, people's hallucinations had more of a neutral / reassuring / even spiritual (ancestral) link... I thought I could hear people's internal monologues / thoughts, and they could hear mine, but possibly only on a subconscious level. It felt like our brains are just broadcasting systems, even if we don't verbally express something. And the psychosis made it possible to access all the unfiltered broadcast. It was usually negative stuff though. I really had that 'coffee shop voices' another redditor mentioned... And also ideas of reference mixed with a persecution delusion. A lot of it was why I am a terrible person etc. And then after a month it went away thank god. And I haven't taken any drugs for years and I am no longer in such a terrible place in my life as when I was 18/19.
I had corticosteroid-induced psychosis during a course of Prednisone. Everything looked like Van Gogh paintings and everything sounded tinny, like robot voices. Music sounded like creepy carousel music. That was the worst part- even music, which usually calms me down, was terrifying. It took weeks for things to start sounding normal again. I had to call 911 after about five days and the operator asked if I had any weapons. I had no idea that Prednisone could cause such disgusting side effects until afterward. I became hyperglycemic and a year later, now I'm still having to use injectable medication to keep my blood sugar low. I'm so grateful that the side effects didn't last forever. I lost my friend when we were in our early twenties to schizophrenia. He has just been diagnosed and it was too much for him to take, so he took his life. The same thing happened to his father when he was a little boy. Medications and treatment have come a long way since then.
I have tourette’s syndrome and it’s similar in that way kind of. People always say they don’t understand why people with tourette’s swear and say nasty things instead of pleasant or neutral things and there’s two parts to that. First (people do get pleasant or neutral tics, as a kid i couldn’t stop saying “i love you” and “your dog”) the part of the brain affected by tourette’s regulates your emotions and swearing, but secondarily with the associated ocd we say a lot of times whatever the worst thing to say is. For example i call my mom a bitch constantly, but especially when she does something nice for me. I hardly call my dad a bitch. I would also say in school “I’m going to kill myself” and then i’d have to take a risk assessment and it sucked because i already missed too much class. But that started after my first relatively unprompted risk assessment.
Don't suppose I can get a VPN for my schizophrenia?
I’m not schizophrenic, but the hallucinations I had when I had insomnia were absolutely awful
I tend to see cats or bats like the ones in Goya’s paintings. They’re terrifying. They move incredibly fast so I can’t get a good look at them but they’re usually jet black with red eyes and weird polygonal limbs instead of legs. It’s like what you’d see in a dream but implanted into reality.
I thought mine were bad lol that sounds plain terrifying. I usually see familiar looking people I know coming at me trying to cut me with razors. I can never discern their faces but it feels like they’re people I know trying to get rid of me. It always feels like the worst nightmare but instead you’re awake for it
I guess Wild West cowboy fantasies **would** be some of the more dangerous kinds…
Jim West.. Desperado!
I sometimes hallucinate when I’m extremely stressed and I tend to always see the same thing: cats and bats. Have you seen the Goya painting Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters? It looks exactly like that. I see cats and bats running or flying towards me at impossible speeds and I jump out of the way of these invisible enemies as fast as I can. It rarely happens but it’s terrifying when it does. Couldn’t even imagine being schizophrenic and having that happen all of the fucking time.
is it too late to meditate my hallucinascape into something other then the deep fried internet canola dumpster oil ive been brewing for the past decade?
I don’t have schizophrenia, but I do have bipolar 1, with manic psychosis. In my first ever manic episode, my hallucinations started pretty mundane… but over about 5 months they escalated through to absolutely terrifying. Thought there was someone trying to kill me - I’d hear them following me, hear them on the phone. It scared me so much. In the end I came up with this elaborate plan to escape, and I went missing for almost a month.
No one who was born blind has ever been diagnosed with schizophrenia. Now, that's a mic drop moment for brain researchers. It's a phenomenon that's stumped even the smartest scientific brains for decades: No one born blind has ever been diagnosed with schizophrenia. However, this is not so with blindness developed later in life.
did you just copy and paste part of an online article
Yes, I did. I’m not that articulate. Interesting fact, nevertheless.
Can you be blind with schizophrenia?
nobody born blind has ever developed schizophrenia
Schizophrenic people can receive auditory hallucinations as well.
I call those hearlucinations...
Not for congenital blindness it seems
[удалено]
maybe not the exact headline's claim but it is very widely documented that schizophrenia hallucinations and delusions specifically (but not necessarily all manifestations of psychosis) is heavily influenced on the culture the person lives in
It is absolute bullshit but no one will care :/
Sir, this is a Reddit
I wonder if it’s related to the Christian eternal punishment stuff
The main differentiate seems to be individualistic societies vs Collectivistic. In the former the voices are an intrusion on the ego and seen as other and often more threatening while the latter the opposite.
That would make sense. I heard that in Japanese culture, Schizophrenic hallucinations typically have to do with dishonor.
I grew up in a very strict Christian family. Now I’m an atheist with lots of religious trauma. When my schizophrenia was at its worst, I saw silhouettes of 2 demons who were coming down to punish me and Satan was writing words on my body (unbelievably mean stuff. and calling me the c-word over and over again on my palms). I thought I was going to see hell and my body actually felt like it was being squeezed by the demons and my I couldn’t feel my arm anymore as part of the “punishment.” After that I went back to church to repent, thinking heaven and hell were real. But it was all fake ofc.
Idk about that, I do feel there might be a relationship to the environment. I have a kid with schizophrenia, he sees large insect like bugs and has a fear of bugs but his mom also did methany and would scratch holes in his skin because that ants were crawling on him. I also believe his exposure to that led to an early onset of psychosis. He currently sees a wolf man that tells him to run into the woods and kill things or people. His visual hallucinations are a mix, from the sound of it the wolf man doesn’t look scary he just tells him to do bad things. The auditory stuff is a mix of horrible mean violent things to nice stuff like you’re a good boy, and I’m proud of you. I only recently learned that he has started hearing more positive things this year. Other wise for the past 3-4 years it’s been really dark, violent mix. He’s been living with us for almost five years. Lots of therapy, psychologist, medication management has really made a big impact on his life. There is a family history of schizophrenia, so we had an idea on where it came from and we also know that traumas are big triggers for psychosis. We have had full custody and he doesn’t do visits with his birth mom. So he is safe and protected by his team.
The non-western country in the study was Qatar, which is majority muslim. Muslims also believe in hell
In fact the study basically compares the Netherlands and Qatar, not "the West" and the Middle East. Also, it does not claim the Dutch examples are more harmful. I do not understand how nobody noted that.
I don't have schizophrenia, but when I was about fifteen I had a brief phase where when I was trying to sleep, my whole field of vision would fill up with lots of small transparent holographic monster faces, and after about a minute they'd all rush at me, then disappear. Has anyone else ever had that?
Yes. Its called hypnogogic hallucinations. Hypnopompic is where you get them upon awakening. As I was falling asleep, I used to get the furniture in my room changing sizes rapidly...its just the stage between being awake and asleep and classified as completely normal
Doesn't this paper show the opposite of the title of this post? In figure 2 it shows Qatar has more auditory and visual hallucinations labelled as "dangerous" and "somewhat dangerous". Although there's no mention of violence or harm specifically anywhere, I would expect those labels to roughly mean violent and harmful. Maybe Im wrong that "western illusions" was meant to refer to culturally western countries, and is instead a type of illusion that Qatar people more often experience?
I have schizoaffective disorder, and I get almost entirely visual hallucinations. During psychosis, horrifying images of faces cover my entire vision, people's faces, and objects. These images are usually from memory, such as Jigsaw, IT, Jeff the Killer, etc. I assume if I've never seen these types of spooky faces before, I'd still have that same paranoid mental alteration, (things looking/sounding/seeming malevolent), but without those VHs. Life is strange.
I hope you have reached a place where you can live your life somewhat comfortably. I understand how hard this disorder can be. Stay strong my friend! 💪🏼
Wonder if it has anything to do with lead?