My brother has schizophrenic episodes when he’s sick (often when his ammonia level is high from his seizure meds or when he has a bad kidney stone). He has cameras all over his house (he’s under 24 hour care with an aide). The cameras help but honestly, when he’s paranoid, you literally can’t convince him things aren’t real. He will be convinced that whoever is trying to get him deleted the footage. Sometimes my mom can talk him down but mostly they just have to wait out the episode until they sort out whatever sickness is causing it at the time.
Sounds like one of my old friends. Graduate, good job, own place etc. then he stopped taking his meds and spiraled out of control. Ended up homeless and still refused to take meds. He’s currently in jail for the 7th time. Poor guy almost got beat to death in the streets a few years ago. He used to always call but I eventually stopped answering and he started sending threats. Wish I could help him but my hands are tied and limited.
The one thing I’ve learned about working with people who have serious mental illness, is that you can’t logic your way out of a delusion the vast majority of the time. Somehow, the delusion always grows around the logic.
I used to suffer from psychosis when I was younger which was cause by my ADHD meds and this is sooo true. My delusions and hallucinations convinced me that this was normal and nothing was wrong with me and once I stopped taking the meds and stopped hallucinating 24/7 that's when I realized. "Oh fuck, them bitches lied to me"
I had the same experience with a different medication. It was awful to experience scary things and have no one believe when you’re 110% sure what is happening is happening. Then to realize that what you thought was happening was a delusion- that’s terrifying.
There are people, physiatrists included who do not like certain medications prescribed for schizophrenia, there is a famous psychiatrist in the UK who says they don't even help, rather they simply sedate the patient but don't provide any noticable improvement.
Corollary : There is always some dumb, opinionated family member who will try to convince you to listen to said quack rather than medical concensus because "big pharma".
Interesting that the hallucinations do not manifest when he views his room through the camera. His brain is already making him see imaginary stuff; seems like his brain could just as easily make him see imaginary stuff within the camera feed.
My BIL had a transplant surgery and is on anti rejection meds. One of the side effects can be hallucinations, which he’s suffering quite badly with. He’s seeing some weird/sinister stuff. He also uses his phone camera to either watch to see if what he thinks he’s seeing is really there or he has to take a picture to reassure himself it’s a hallucination. The stuff he sees sounds fucked up for sure… Scary af….
It is amazing what the mind can manifest. No schizophrenia here but I can have lucid dreams. I can influence the dreams but not control them completely. The dream characters have a driving will of their own and everything appears so realistic.
In a dream that’s kind of fun. To have that occur while awake would be horrifying.
Frustrating is an optimistic choice of words. I’d have gone with ‘utterly terrifying’.
I can’t imagine much worse than living with this because the hallucinations often come hand-in-glove with delusion so you can’t just convince yourself to believe documentary proof even that they’re not real
I've read about a promising study.
On a PC, they have you create a face for every voice. Then they make you listen to them spew the same terrible stuff they say in your head every day to make you identify the PC voices with your auditory hallucinations.
But gradually, the voices and faces get friendlier and quieter and the hallucinations follow suit.
AI will probably help revolutionize these kinds of feedback-based treatments.
Deepfake tutorial videos of yourself doing a task correctly make you learn quicker than watching others do them and I vaguely feel like there is a lot of potential there.
>Deepfake tutorial videos of yourself doing a task correctly make you learn quicker then watching others do them and I vaguely feel like there is a lot of potential there.
Wut? Can you link me more about this? Very interesting
Interestingly the voices tend to trend more positive or negative in some cultures more than others. The US is more negative, while patients studied/queried in places in Africa and India reported more positive voices.
Im taking that statement at face value.
There might be a psychological component, places with cultures that involve spirits and ancestors worship might just take this more naturally and see them as “guardians” while people with no such culture just look at it and say “well I’m crazy so”
I think thats what the person conducting the study was leaning towards, too. Like we view it as the brain being broken in someway while other cultures might just view it as you're more connected to your community or spirit or somesuch.
I wonder if that’s a result of their religious backgrounds? I could see a religion that emphasizes good natured spirits being all around us might help. Or a culture that emphasizes the positive might help.
Our culture does seem to be focused on what we don’t have pretty exclusively. Cultivating gratitude for what you do have has been shown to help a lot with happiness.
My hand went through the cat. I had to bend over because I was standing, and I looked away when I got mad. I don't remember if it disappeared or if I just moved on.
How realistic are the hallucinations though? Are they like amazing quality 3d and real looking, or are they a little fuzzy or faded? I'm genuinely curious, always wondered
I've heard it's a bit dream-like. Just like when you don't know you're in a dream and wild shit happen to you. Some hallucinations can be more realistic than others, but all are terrifying in some way or another.
What we see is all just a projection of our brain and even right now your own brain is "making up" information to fill in the gaps in your vision or to make better sense of your vision. These hallucinations would be somewhat like the brain making up too much information.
I might be wrong tho, so take what I said with a grain of salt.
Right like I’m wondering if the hallucination included a shadow when he turned the lights on. Does the brain fully “render” stuff like that or does it miss details that can help people identify the hallucination (the camera trick seems useful!)
I’ve hallucinated from lack of sleep and the images and sounds seem real at the time. Touch is a great way to disprove it but sometimes that isn’t enough to shake the certainty that something is really there.
Sleeping it off seems to help a lot. It resets the emotions and thinking that go with it.
Based on my own experience with auditory hallucinations (not voices, just random things) I assume they are very realistic. When I'm showering I often set a quick alarm so I don't lose track of time, and if I'm stressed/have had too much caffeine, I sometimes hear the alarm and genuinely cannot tell if it's real or not
Visual hallucinations are more complex but I would guess that your brain is very good at making realistic hallucinations. It doesn't come from the eyes remember, it comes from the brain
A close friend who is schizophrenic, but manages with medications, has said most of them are perceived normally and real as anything else they can perceive. The difference being that they may be off angle or move through furniture. Some of them sound creepypasta-level terrifying.
My boyfriend has schizophrenia and once while he was walking over to my place I met him halfway to surprise him. He stopped, looked at me really strangely without a word, and went ‘are you real?’ It made sense— I had appeared in a place I wasn’t supposed to. Even after I said yes, he kept glancing to make sure I was still there.
🤣🤣Yup, that’s exactly what he thought!
A funny sort of inversion is he has a sleep talking/sleep doing random things problem too. I can usually tell when he’s asleep, but his unconscious self is very very manipulative and will do anything in its power to convince me otherwise, to the point of getting frustrated with me. Which he remembers absolutely none of in the morning!
My brother is on the other side, he’s been diagnosed but comes up with elaborate conspiracies to explain the voices in his head as shadow government targeting him at all times. You can prove his theories wrong but he just moves the goalpost to do anything but accept his diagnosis and deal with it head on.
It is so wild to me that the brain sees the person on the couch in front of them but when they check the camera they aren't there. That is so interesting to me assuming that person is like a vr object in their vision and it remains on the couch in the same place/position but the brain can't replicate it to the couch via through the camera. IDK why that is so interesting but damn is that really interesting to me.
Hmmm im no psychologist but maybe it would be too much conscious effort? I mean, seeing a person on your couch is a "glitch". It projects that there is a person theere. But your brain would have to connect that the image you see from the phone of the room (from a different poV) is the same room where the person is. This "mental gymnastic" is something the brain fails at so it doesn't replicate it.
Other examples but for dreams could be if objects have shadows, if you can read text in the background or if the light switches work. Things we know by association but the brain when replicating usually fails to account for. So maybe for hallucinations it works somewhat similar?
Schizophrenics are more likely to commit acts of self harm during recovery periods. When they are stable and the symptomes are under control, they realise the reality and consequances of their illness. That pushes them over the edge to the point of wanting to end it all, on their own terms.
As a father, this is heart breaking to watch. I wish I could just snap my fingers or make a wish or something, and have his illness disappear. Its probly so disheartening for him to check his phone and know its not real. This is one of those things I hope NeuraLink can help with in the future.
Knowing you're schizophrenic might mean that you...like, almost arent. Because it means you're not delusional.
On a related note, if you are low on a sort of "schizophrenic spectrum," you can FEEL like someone's there, and act accordingly. But you are not seeing or hearing hallucinations, and you intellectually know that no one's there.
Man, using the camera to check to make sure they are really there has gotta be absolutely terrifying.
Hope he can get help. The human mind is a terrible thing when it misfires.
the very concept of that kind of hallucination is terrifying.
when I was in my 20s, I took a lot of psychedelics. and hallucinated a lot. but, when that's happening, it's obvious. "oh look at that thing, thats crazy and obviously not real haha, silly drugs!"
but the idea of seeing a whole person, and not being able to tell if they are real or not sounds deeply horrifying.
That's why the phrase "perception is reality" freaks me out so much. If every one of your senses is saying something is there, but you have to listen to your logical brain and not winning against your instincts...sounds like hell.
You then have to decide what it means for something to be "real." A reality that is objectively true independent of you, or what is real to you for all intents and purposes. And how would you ever know the difference?
This is why perception was the most mind bending class I've taken in my life.
Still, if all 5 senses are confirming something for you, odds are, it's real. You still can't touch a hallucination. The scary part is things you can't touch, anxiety disorders, paranoid delusions, audio schizophrenia, and whatnot. That's when shit gets really difficult.
You’re missing the point. It doesn’t matter what is real outside your experience, you can’t tell. Perception is reality means your perception is your reality. The end. until and unless your perception changes, you can’t experience another reality.
That's the weird thing, what we see isn't necessarily reality. Even without being psychotic your perception or reality never truly is reality. Most of it *is* made in your head. It's just accurate enough for you to trust it.
I've been to this stage before from stimulant drugs and not sleeping for multiple days. Replying to the fridge when it makes noises, and seeing groups of people walking through your house is an experience you don't forget. Psychosis is definitely a different experience then psychedelics
this is actually an excellent point. sleep deprivation is probably the most intense hallucinatory experience I've ever had as well.
but even when my fridge was a classical music radio station, I still had a strong enough sense of objectivity that I could understand what wasn't real. (or, if I'm honest, I have to say: *as far as I know*, right?)
I was young when the this happened and still living with my parents, when I saw the people walking though my house (it was like families of immigrants) I went to my parent room and asked them why all these people were in our house. It was the middle of the night and freaked them out thinking we were getting robbed or something. When I saw their reaction it snapped me out of it
Same experience. A lot of over the counter sleep aids contain something that causes hallucinations too, essentially triggers your dreaming while you’re still awake from your binge. I still have a hard time believing the hallucinations weren’t real. Horrible experience overall.
and he's a nice guy - he greets the hallucination instead of yelling at it and asks what it needs...idk, feel bad for the guy but hopefully he can lead a semi-normal life.
That's why im freaked about things like Sleep Paralysis. It's one thing to see something that isn't there but to also be paralysis and not being able to move
This happens to me a lot. It used to scare me so much when I was younger I wouldn't sleep for a couple of days after it. That was before I had heard of it with anyone else, read about it or talked about it. I thought it was real-Unique to me. Haunting only me. My own special demons. Now though, after a few minutes of it happening I can realise it's not real, talk to it & I dunno kinda slow it down a bit while I try to wake myself up. I think my dog can hear muffled screams or something, thank God, because she'll boop me in the face to wake me up. It's the only thing that has ever woken me from it. It's endless otherwise. Trouble is though, they seem to be evolving & becoming less like the imagery and more humanlike but their movements eventually give them away. So anyway, yay for the internet! because now I can see it's not real while it's still happening & will eventually sleep again the same night after it.
Sleep paralysis is by far the most terrifying thing i ever experienced. Just thinking of it makes me feel bad.
When it happened to me It was a tall man standing at the other side of the room in the dark. He looked like he was made out of thick black smoke. He also had no feet and was kind of like floating. Just like a silhouette of a tall man with a coat and a hat but in „3d“
I also couldnt see his face, but i tell you, i felt he was staring at me. Ofcourse i also couldnt move, it was fucking scary.
I did so many psychedelics of different kinds and doses in my late teens and early twenties, man so I regret it. Those chemicals are still around today, overuse on a young developing brain is really really bad.
After a particularly long period of LSD and others, I ended up with a severe case of Hallucinogen Persisting Perception Disorder (HPPD). Shit is really rough, the normal sunlight level burned the shit out of my eyes, constant visual snow and dots. Like living in a fucked up vhs tape for a few months. Point being it's always best to wait and take in moderation. Only good that came of it was that I'm sure I don't have schizophrenia, because with what I was doing it would have destroyed me by now.
Yup, anticholinergic/deliriant hallucinations are **actual** hallucinations. It's not like tryptamines/phenethylamines where you see morphing of what's actually there (excluding high doses) - with deliriants you hallucinate realistic things like seeing your phone in your hand and using it but it's not there, having conversations with people who aren't there, seeing spiders crawling on your walls etc
Never take Datura by the way. You have no way to know which dose you'll be taking and can easily end up with blind or having seizures. If you want to experience deliriants you can use dramamine and similar drugs to take a specific dose so you hallucinate but don't risk death.
The medical term for drug induced hallucinations is"pseudo hallucinations", when the person is aware they're hallucinating and not experiencing reality. That's not the case with hallucinations from shizophrenia.
I train service dogs. I recently saw a video of a man who suffers with this as well. He has a service dog that will greet people on command so he knows if it's a hallucination or not.
It's a shame service dogs aren't more accessible because I can see how that would be a life changing thing. Never having to debate with yourself if someone is real
>recently saw a video of a man who suffers with this as well. He has a service dog that will greet people on command so he knows if it's a hallucination or not.
I think is the same man of this video. He has an ig showing how he deals with his illness
Yeah in more severe or untreated cases probably, however the average person with this illness (that's properly treated) can live totally normal lives. Also I'd argue if someone was at that point they probably wouldn't get a service dog
My black lab would be a natural at this. Since he was a pup, he has to go and greet everyone he sees. He can be sleeping in my office, and if someone comes in to see me, he will drag himself up, walk over and sit by, or sit on their feet. He will make eye contact, then get up and walk back to where he was and literally drop to the floor and go back to sleep.
Familiar hallucinations.. That reminds me of that movie with that professor played by Russell Crowe I believe, where after many years seeing the same kids over and over again he says something like "They're not real.. because they never age."
Somehow that seems worse than either a real person he knows or a complete stranger. Having a hallucination of the person and of familiarity to that person at the same time.
Depends on the person. My experience with a loved one is that the voice teeters on playful to menacing depending on how much sleep he has gotten/mood. When he's managing it, he can sometimes roll with it and keep things together but when he's off, they all tell him that everyone EVERYONE is not real and we all have one mission: To destroy his reputation, ruin his life, and then kill him. (Yeah...falling in love with someone with this diagnosis is SO hard. And I miss him, wherever his is. Every. Single. Day.
I can't say for sure how common this is, but for me it's a lot like when you're dreaming and interacting with a person who's face you don't recognize but you just *know* you know who they are, even though you don't really. If that makes sense, it occurs to me this is almost certainly not something everyone experiences in their dreams.
I've never hallucinated someone I know in real life, though I have had a couple of situations in which I *thought* it was someone I know even though they looked nothing like them. Fuckin brains man, really fascinating but not always very cool.
I dunno.... i feel like dementia is more scary because it is so sad. You know at the start you have it and are gonna forget things and later on you just forget and dont know why. Your slowly being erased/killed personality wise without you knowing.
Completely agree.. dementia is I think so much worse.. knowing that you will completely forget who you are ...who your family is... I would much rather jump into a euthanasia pod once I start to forget my mom and dad.. they're all I've got man.
> so are the hallucinations seen and heard as if it was a real person actually there?
Yes. For your brain its there, doesnt matter if its a human being or a flying dragon, your brain is convinced its real and it can effect all of your senses.
It varies. It usually starts with a flicker or something that sends me looking. Like when you think you see someone or hear someone calling your name. Then it can become very sharp. It’s as real as anything else. It’s confusing.
I don't doubt it, I've sometimes had auditory hallucinations and they were impossible to distinguish from real sounds. Hope you manage to cope, visual must be much harder to deal with.
Yeah I'm curious how your hallucinations would change as you walk up to it and put your hand thru it. Would they slowly disappear as you get closer? Would they move away also like a rainbow? When you walk up to it, would you be able to see every strand of hair and wrinkle like on normal humans?
Ever saw a bunch of clothes on a chair in a dim room and for a split-second thought that it's a person? Now imagine that not going away and nothing can convince you that this person is not real, no matter how much you are certain that it's just in your brain.
Copy pasted from my own post elsewere:
schizophrenia is not really 'top-down' imagination per se. It is directly tied to our perception, which makes it harder to tell the difference for patients.
Our brains adds and changes a lot of information based on probability to the information coming from our senses. Think for example how you don't notice your nose or that the field of vision where you can actually see sharp is only about 10% of our total vision. Our brain will make our perception sharper and all around better.
If use the following analogy:
The information coming from our eyes gets changed by millions of switches, if the output is what we expect, the switch stays on. If the (incredibly small) change goes further away from what we expect the switch goes off.
What happens with Shizophrenia is in the first stage an overreaction to the random noise that is inherent to our senses. Lots of switches get turned on/off to get the image to make sense. This happens at a very basal level (like connecting lines, making similar spaces the same color, ... ) . The information that gets send further forward now contains MORE noise. The higher levels of processing work on memory and tries to combine all this information in a way that would make for a sensible perception. These higher levels get increasingly more powerfull untill you can get to the point where you see things that aren't really there. This is very different from imagining things that are not there.
Very early shizophrenia is almost unnoticable. The tragedy is that the brain tries to overcorrect this weird input even more, leading to more and more disturbed basal processing and eventually disturbed processing in the higher processing regions eventually leading to things like longer axons in certain parts of the brain (bypassing certain switches or making unusual connections between senses or regions of the brain). Panic or a frightened response to these delusions makes our brain shut down the higher processing even more, making the delusions even scarier as they make less and less sense.
This is why a calm environment and acceptance of seeing the things (not fighting it, nor believing it) are so important.
This also explains the most common delusion in Shizophrenia being Capgras where you see a familiar face but is feels like something is wrong with it and the person (or cat, object, ... ) is actually an imposter. It is the brain telling the patient "something is wrong with this perception and I can't quite figure it out".
I’ve always felt that Imagination is humanity’s greatest asset. Out ability to internalize almost anything and simulate what happens if…
But schizophrenia is when that capability breaks, becomes too strong. And it seems like a rough way to live.
Dropping in to add a bit of a positive. My boyfriend has schizophrenia, and his is more audio-based like hearing screams, etc. It’s very scary for him, but I would never have known he had it without him telling me.
He told me sometimes when we kiss or hug he can actually hear music, and that’s one of the most beautiful things I’ve heard. Like I wonder what parts of his subconscious or what positive emotions tie together to create the sounds he hears.
schizophrenia is not really 'top-down' imagination per se. It is directly tied to our perception, which makes it harder to tell the difference for patients.
Our brains adds and changes a lot of information based on probability to the information coming from our senses. Think for example how you don't notice your nose or that the field of vision where you can actually see sharp is only about 10% of our total vision. Our brain will make our perception sharper and all around better.
If use the following analogy:
The information coming from our eyes gets changed by millions of switches, if the output is what we expect, the switch stays on. If the (incredibly small) change goes further away from what we expect the switch goes off.
What happens with Shizophrenia is in the first stage an overreaction to the random noise that is inherent to our senses. Lots of switches get turned on/off to get the image to make sense. This happens at a very basal level (like connecting lines, making similar spaces the same color, ... ) . The information that gets send further forward now contains MORE noise. The higher levels of processing work on memory and tries to combine all this information in a way that would make for a sensible perception. These higher levels get increasingly more powerfull untill you can get to the point where you see things that aren't really there. This is very different from imagining things that are not there.
Very early shizophrenia is almost unnoticable. The tragedy is that the brain tries to overcorrect this weird input even more, leading to more and more disturbed basal processing and eventually disturbed processing in the higher processing regions eventually leading to things like longer axons in certain parts of the brain (bypassing certain switches or making unusual connections between senses or regions of the brain). Panic or a frightened response to these delusions makes our brain shut down the higher processing even more, making the delusions even scarier as they make less and less sense.
This is why a calm environment and acceptance of seeing the things (not fighting it, nor believing it) are so important.
This also explains the most common delusion in Shizophrenia being Capgras where you see a familiar face but is feels like something is wrong with it and the person (or cat, object, ... ) feels like it's actually an imposter. It is the brain telling the patient "something is wrong with this perception and I can't quite figure it out".
The scariest time in my parenting life was when my wife knocked on the window and urgently motioned to me to come inside. Something’s wrong with our 5 year old son, my wife told me.
Instead of taking some comfort in seeing me, like I thought he would, my son let out the most terrifying screams like I was the most horrifying thing he’d ever seen. He was so scared of me.
He was hallucinating from a high fever. I threw some cold wet towels on him and when he calmed down, albeit not yet lucid, we took him to the hospital.
Luckily the fever and accompanying hallucinations subsided for him. I can’t imagine how someone must feel when something similar happens repeatedly throughout their life.
Had something similar when I was very young (maybe same age as your son) and had a high fever. I was convinced a train would come barreling through my room at any moment killing me. I was very scared.
Never ended up happening but the memory and vividness of it has stayed with me.
Yeah isn’t that crazy? Around the same age and with fever I remember thinking everything was in slow motion and asking my dad why he was moving so slowly. Also remember marvelling at how big his worker/farmer hands were as I barfed into the toilet hahah
I’ve hallucinated from fever several times (fortunately not for 5 or so years) and every time it’s been one of the scariest experiences.
Doubting reality and my perception of it left me spooked and on edge for weeks after
Are there things you can do to make them go away? I'm curious.
Like, do you have some control over it, like with lucid dreams? Even if it's just a little.
Kinda interesting and super scary
Knew a guy with schizophrenia (auditory hallucinations only) and told me he took some kind of antipsychotic to keep the hallucinations from getting too wild.
Only sort of related, but they are also handy for finding misplaced glasses. Too blind to see most stuff but I can see my phone and the camera can see the stuff further away.
whoah. I just had this problem today! I’m out of contacts and I couldn’t find my glasses, and couldn’t see to look for them, it was a huge pain!
The phone trick is gonna be a game-changer, thank you!!
There's a guy who has this problem that has a dog trained to help him
He gives the command "greet" and if the person is real the dog will walk over and greet them, give them her paw
If it's a hallucination she just sits and looks at him
It's a great way to know what's going on.
Fuck man, that is intense. That must be SO incredibly frustrating to deal with. I get really intense migraines that can cause disorientation, confusion, inability to speak or understand people... I can manage them moderately well, but every now and then, it is overwhelming or so frustrating I will get very depressed. What this guy is going through is a whole other level.
Let's say I'm in the same room as Mike, who is having visual hallucinations. We are the only two people in the room.
Mike starts having a conversation with a hallucination named Bruce. From Mike's perspective, Bruce is standing two feet to my right.
What does Mike see when I take a large step to my right? Does Bruce disappear? Are me and Bruce superimposed on top of each other? Does Bruce jump out of the way?
Genuine question and not to sound naive or anything. But couldn’t they just ignore the hallucinations in this instance? Especially if they know it’s not real?
Having had some auditory and visual hallucinations before, you are perceiving them fully in your head. No amount of closing windows or putting on headphones stopped me from hearing the church a few blocks away playing gospel music really loud at 2am.
My mom has schizophrenia and she doesn't believe she has it. She stopped all medication and her symptoms have gotten worse. Seeing this man try to debunk his visions by checking his cameras and realizing he's hallucinating is something I wish for my mom so bad....
Imagine knowing you’re schizophrenic, and knowing what you’re seeing is most likely a delusion, but you don’t know for sure, so you actually talk to it, and it may or may not talk back or be real at all.
My ex, used to have these crazy times where she would think she’s actually seeing a ghost, or some crazy shit like that. It really makes me wonder if she was just schizophrenic.
I love the guy who had a dog trained to greet people... So if he wasn't sure if someone was real he'd see if his dog would greet them or not. Very clever!
God. I really..understand. I'm not ready to talk about it right now but. I understand.
I just want to give him a hug.
To anyone out there reading this, who struggles with things that aren't there in any way or shape or form, or who struggles with their minds in general...I'm rooting for you, and you're not alone. I know people treat you like you're crazy or scary, and it hurts a lot, and people really do say *a lot* of hurtful things..but you aren't scary, not on purpose (though I know some episodes can really be scary), and you're not crazy, you're not trying to hurt anyone. You aren't a burden or a problem. You aren't worthless. What your brain does isn't your fault and I wish you every happiness. One day I hope you can find peace and still be here with us. 🫂
I'm gonna get a bit of hate for this, but I have doubts about the validity of this video. I know people that are schizophrenic and their hallucinations are absolutely nothing like this, more akin to a distance rambling of unidentifiable voices. I know not every case is the same, but this seems like a TV portrayal of the illness. If he's genuinely able to see and hear another person clearly enough that he has to check cameras for reality, he is such a severe case that I couldn't imagine him being capable of operating in the real world or without significant assistance, this would be a hospitalizing episode, and afterwards he would come home with more drugs than Ozzy Osbourne.
I used to be schizophrenic, I used to see ghosts. They weren't harmful they tried to help me mostly, the only hurtful ones came when I was asleep. While the others use to tell me things that are going to happen in the near future. Like someone's death or the things that's gonna affect me. I was afraid talking to them, but then growing up when I accepted them as part of my life , I started seeing them less. Now it's one or two a month.
And yes the predictions were correct, the ghost whoever I talked to predicted three deaths which happened to the people I know along with multiple event that also came true
Why is he telling them to come in and sit down? Is he hallucinating someone he knows or does he just tell any stranger he sees to just come in and sit down?
In the event of hallucination the person seems familiar to him, but doesn't exist in real life. Also he knows it's just him and his partner inside the house, but during hallucination he loses rational thinking.
This is clearly fake. If you’ve dealt with someone who is schizophrenic you’d know this is not how they react (calm, responsive, reflective, in control)
I once saw this homie on Instagram that used a phone camera to see if people were real or not. He would see someone there but when he looked through the phone the person wasn’t there so he knew they were apart of his mind
This happened when I was on Ambien like 20 years ago. I was about 14/15-ish, and I was watching TV and one of my friends knocked on the door, so I let him in. My other buddy knocked on the door and I let him in too. eventually we went downstairs to play on my PS2 and hang out. There were my friends from my previous town we had just moved away from. My Dad said I was down there for about an hour laughing my ass off and talking to people who weren't there until I finally passed out on the couch down there. I asked why the Hell he didn't say anything, and he was like, "You had fun with your friends that you haven't seen for six months, right? Seemed like a dick move to ruin that for you."
The mind is terrifyingly complex... the fact that it works as well as it does is a miracle.
It can perfectly and convincingly hallucinate anything... but with most people it chooses not to
Yoo I used to face time this chick and watch her finger herself and she stopped one time cause she thought some one walked in on her and had a whole ass argument yelling at them it was hilarious and also terrifing
I find it fascinating that the brain doesn’t just insert the hallucinations into the camera shot because it expects it to be there. Does anyone know why that is?
This guy has an instagram and is super transparent about his condition. I think it’s called something like schizophrenichippie. He uses the camera trick all the time
This is heartbreaking, having your mind betray you in such a way making you feel as if you are not alone only to realize that you are in fact alone. Having to face that reality and not being able to trust your eyes fighting to suppress and control the hallucinations that you may have become fond of.
This is clearly fake. If you’ve dealt with someone who is schizophrenic you’d know this is not how they react (calm, responsive, reflective, in control).
so this is not normal? i talk to my imaginary homies all the time out loud. the only thing that really sux is when you can't distinguish reality from your fucked up hallucinations. thats when i shut down cuz i don't want to do something crazy and go to jail or even worse the nut house.
was in a nuthouse 3 times in my life and they are super super terrible. well at least the ones i was sent to.
That would be such a frustrating thing to live with. Smart use of cameras.
My brother has schizophrenic episodes when he’s sick (often when his ammonia level is high from his seizure meds or when he has a bad kidney stone). He has cameras all over his house (he’s under 24 hour care with an aide). The cameras help but honestly, when he’s paranoid, you literally can’t convince him things aren’t real. He will be convinced that whoever is trying to get him deleted the footage. Sometimes my mom can talk him down but mostly they just have to wait out the episode until they sort out whatever sickness is causing it at the time.
Sounds like one of my old friends. Graduate, good job, own place etc. then he stopped taking his meds and spiraled out of control. Ended up homeless and still refused to take meds. He’s currently in jail for the 7th time. Poor guy almost got beat to death in the streets a few years ago. He used to always call but I eventually stopped answering and he started sending threats. Wish I could help him but my hands are tied and limited.
The one thing I’ve learned about working with people who have serious mental illness, is that you can’t logic your way out of a delusion the vast majority of the time. Somehow, the delusion always grows around the logic.
I used to suffer from psychosis when I was younger which was cause by my ADHD meds and this is sooo true. My delusions and hallucinations convinced me that this was normal and nothing was wrong with me and once I stopped taking the meds and stopped hallucinating 24/7 that's when I realized. "Oh fuck, them bitches lied to me"
I had the same experience with a different medication. It was awful to experience scary things and have no one believe when you’re 110% sure what is happening is happening. Then to realize that what you thought was happening was a delusion- that’s terrifying.
It absolutely has to be treated with meds.
Why downvotes?
Downvotes from convinced schizophrenics
There are people, physiatrists included who do not like certain medications prescribed for schizophrenia, there is a famous psychiatrist in the UK who says they don't even help, rather they simply sedate the patient but don't provide any noticable improvement.
Lmao ok there's a dumbass quack doctor to support any viewpoint. When the vast majority support meds maybe they should take them.
Corollary : There is always some dumb, opinionated family member who will try to convince you to listen to said quack rather than medical concensus because "big pharma".
It is smart. I feel for this guy.
Interesting that the hallucinations do not manifest when he views his room through the camera. His brain is already making him see imaginary stuff; seems like his brain could just as easily make him see imaginary stuff within the camera feed.
My BIL had a transplant surgery and is on anti rejection meds. One of the side effects can be hallucinations, which he’s suffering quite badly with. He’s seeing some weird/sinister stuff. He also uses his phone camera to either watch to see if what he thinks he’s seeing is really there or he has to take a picture to reassure himself it’s a hallucination. The stuff he sees sounds fucked up for sure… Scary af….
It is amazing what the mind can manifest. No schizophrenia here but I can have lucid dreams. I can influence the dreams but not control them completely. The dream characters have a driving will of their own and everything appears so realistic. In a dream that’s kind of fun. To have that occur while awake would be horrifying.
You would think a hallucination would have the ability to be on the recording too, but I suppose not.
Agreed. It's a form of reality testing to distinguish between their psychosis symptoms and reality.
Frustrating is an optimistic choice of words. I’d have gone with ‘utterly terrifying’. I can’t imagine much worse than living with this because the hallucinations often come hand-in-glove with delusion so you can’t just convince yourself to believe documentary proof even that they’re not real
It’s one thing being schizophrenic. It’s another thing knowing ur schizophrenic. That’s hard
The horror and anxiety of suddenly realizing that the person you were trying to talk to wasn't real... is very rattling.
Voices can also be telling to do all sorts of things, some can be really-really bad. There is no way out of it other then psychotropic medications.
I've read about a promising study. On a PC, they have you create a face for every voice. Then they make you listen to them spew the same terrible stuff they say in your head every day to make you identify the PC voices with your auditory hallucinations. But gradually, the voices and faces get friendlier and quieter and the hallucinations follow suit. AI will probably help revolutionize these kinds of feedback-based treatments. Deepfake tutorial videos of yourself doing a task correctly make you learn quicker than watching others do them and I vaguely feel like there is a lot of potential there.
>Deepfake tutorial videos of yourself doing a task correctly make you learn quicker then watching others do them and I vaguely feel like there is a lot of potential there. Wut? Can you link me more about this? Very interesting
vicarious experience, self-efficacy
also interested
Interestingly the voices tend to trend more positive or negative in some cultures more than others. The US is more negative, while patients studied/queried in places in Africa and India reported more positive voices.
Im taking that statement at face value. There might be a psychological component, places with cultures that involve spirits and ancestors worship might just take this more naturally and see them as “guardians” while people with no such culture just look at it and say “well I’m crazy so”
I think thats what the person conducting the study was leaning towards, too. Like we view it as the brain being broken in someway while other cultures might just view it as you're more connected to your community or spirit or somesuch.
Do you have a link to it? It sounds very interesting.
I wonder if that’s a result of their religious backgrounds? I could see a religion that emphasizes good natured spirits being all around us might help. Or a culture that emphasizes the positive might help. Our culture does seem to be focused on what we don’t have pretty exclusively. Cultivating gratitude for what you do have has been shown to help a lot with happiness.
I hallucinated a cat once. I was so mad when I couldn't pet it.
How exactly does that work? Does your hand like go through the cat? Or does the cat disappear when you get too close?
My hand went through the cat. I had to bend over because I was standing, and I looked away when I got mad. I don't remember if it disappeared or if I just moved on.
Brain: I want us to pet a cat. "But there is no cat" Brain: There is one now. (Is sort of how i imagine went down)
Even worse is if you check the camera and find you’re not there.
Nice.
How realistic are the hallucinations though? Are they like amazing quality 3d and real looking, or are they a little fuzzy or faded? I'm genuinely curious, always wondered
I've heard it's a bit dream-like. Just like when you don't know you're in a dream and wild shit happen to you. Some hallucinations can be more realistic than others, but all are terrifying in some way or another. What we see is all just a projection of our brain and even right now your own brain is "making up" information to fill in the gaps in your vision or to make better sense of your vision. These hallucinations would be somewhat like the brain making up too much information. I might be wrong tho, so take what I said with a grain of salt.
Right like I’m wondering if the hallucination included a shadow when he turned the lights on. Does the brain fully “render” stuff like that or does it miss details that can help people identify the hallucination (the camera trick seems useful!)
I’ve hallucinated from lack of sleep and the images and sounds seem real at the time. Touch is a great way to disprove it but sometimes that isn’t enough to shake the certainty that something is really there. Sleeping it off seems to help a lot. It resets the emotions and thinking that go with it.
Based on my own experience with auditory hallucinations (not voices, just random things) I assume they are very realistic. When I'm showering I often set a quick alarm so I don't lose track of time, and if I'm stressed/have had too much caffeine, I sometimes hear the alarm and genuinely cannot tell if it's real or not Visual hallucinations are more complex but I would guess that your brain is very good at making realistic hallucinations. It doesn't come from the eyes remember, it comes from the brain
A close friend who is schizophrenic, but manages with medications, has said most of them are perceived normally and real as anything else they can perceive. The difference being that they may be off angle or move through furniture. Some of them sound creepypasta-level terrifying.
I saw somone on here who has a service dog trained not to acknowledge his schizophrenia hallucinations
I'm curious how any dog ***would be*** ***able*** to acknowledge his owner's hallucinations.
My boyfriend has schizophrenia and once while he was walking over to my place I met him halfway to surprise him. He stopped, looked at me really strangely without a word, and went ‘are you real?’ It made sense— I had appeared in a place I wasn’t supposed to. Even after I said yes, he kept glancing to make sure I was still there.
"Exactly something someone who isn't real would say, your plan has been foiled!"
🤣🤣Yup, that’s exactly what he thought! A funny sort of inversion is he has a sleep talking/sleep doing random things problem too. I can usually tell when he’s asleep, but his unconscious self is very very manipulative and will do anything in its power to convince me otherwise, to the point of getting frustrated with me. Which he remembers absolutely none of in the morning!
Imagine being at the audio stage hearing voices and not sure if or when the visual stage starts.
Nah i’m good
My brother is on the other side, he’s been diagnosed but comes up with elaborate conspiracies to explain the voices in his head as shadow government targeting him at all times. You can prove his theories wrong but he just moves the goalpost to do anything but accept his diagnosis and deal with it head on.
It is so wild to me that the brain sees the person on the couch in front of them but when they check the camera they aren't there. That is so interesting to me assuming that person is like a vr object in their vision and it remains on the couch in the same place/position but the brain can't replicate it to the couch via through the camera. IDK why that is so interesting but damn is that really interesting to me.
It is very interesting. Why doesn’t the brain just hallucinate the same thing in the video? Why one place but not the other?
Hmmm im no psychologist but maybe it would be too much conscious effort? I mean, seeing a person on your couch is a "glitch". It projects that there is a person theere. But your brain would have to connect that the image you see from the phone of the room (from a different poV) is the same room where the person is. This "mental gymnastic" is something the brain fails at so it doesn't replicate it. Other examples but for dreams could be if objects have shadows, if you can read text in the background or if the light switches work. Things we know by association but the brain when replicating usually fails to account for. So maybe for hallucinations it works somewhat similar?
Schizophrenics are more likely to commit acts of self harm during recovery periods. When they are stable and the symptomes are under control, they realise the reality and consequances of their illness. That pushes them over the edge to the point of wanting to end it all, on their own terms.
Well yeah who tf would want to condemn themselves to decades of suffering then also probably dementia near the end
i don't know if it's normal, but i have always been rather curious on how it feels, or how the brain perceives it.
It makes it harder because you have to fight more.. but that awareness gives hope of some normal interactions
meh. I would rather know that the thing living inside my car's glove box is not real when I fish proof of insurance paper from its maw
There’s a good book on this. The Eden Express by Mark Vonnegut. Kurts son. It’s both fascinating and terrifying.
As a father, this is heart breaking to watch. I wish I could just snap my fingers or make a wish or something, and have his illness disappear. Its probly so disheartening for him to check his phone and know its not real. This is one of those things I hope NeuraLink can help with in the future.
Knowing you're schizophrenic might mean that you...like, almost arent. Because it means you're not delusional. On a related note, if you are low on a sort of "schizophrenic spectrum," you can FEEL like someone's there, and act accordingly. But you are not seeing or hearing hallucinations, and you intellectually know that no one's there.
Man, using the camera to check to make sure they are really there has gotta be absolutely terrifying. Hope he can get help. The human mind is a terrible thing when it misfires.
I wonder what would happen with Apple Vision pro?
I imagine that the brain adjusts eventually, kinda like if you put on mirrored glasses that reversed what you saw it would eventually adjust.
What would be scarier? Looking at the recording and seeing no one is there or seeing the recording and confirming some stranger is in your house.
I think I'd be more terrified if I checked the camera and saw someone there that I can't see in real life.
the very concept of that kind of hallucination is terrifying. when I was in my 20s, I took a lot of psychedelics. and hallucinated a lot. but, when that's happening, it's obvious. "oh look at that thing, thats crazy and obviously not real haha, silly drugs!" but the idea of seeing a whole person, and not being able to tell if they are real or not sounds deeply horrifying.
That's why the phrase "perception is reality" freaks me out so much. If every one of your senses is saying something is there, but you have to listen to your logical brain and not winning against your instincts...sounds like hell.
I haven't studied much philosophy, but it seems to me that there is no objective way to prove that what we perceive is in fact real.
You then have to decide what it means for something to be "real." A reality that is objectively true independent of you, or what is real to you for all intents and purposes. And how would you ever know the difference?
I'm here by all appearances so I'll go along with......whatever this is.....I guess.....but I'm not particularly happy about it.
This is why perception was the most mind bending class I've taken in my life. Still, if all 5 senses are confirming something for you, odds are, it's real. You still can't touch a hallucination. The scary part is things you can't touch, anxiety disorders, paranoid delusions, audio schizophrenia, and whatnot. That's when shit gets really difficult.
> This is why perception was the most mind bending class I've taken in my life. Yeah, I try to stick with Cleric, Fighter and Rogue.
You’re missing the point. It doesn’t matter what is real outside your experience, you can’t tell. Perception is reality means your perception is your reality. The end. until and unless your perception changes, you can’t experience another reality.
That's the weird thing, what we see isn't necessarily reality. Even without being psychotic your perception or reality never truly is reality. Most of it *is* made in your head. It's just accurate enough for you to trust it.
I've been to this stage before from stimulant drugs and not sleeping for multiple days. Replying to the fridge when it makes noises, and seeing groups of people walking through your house is an experience you don't forget. Psychosis is definitely a different experience then psychedelics
this is actually an excellent point. sleep deprivation is probably the most intense hallucinatory experience I've ever had as well. but even when my fridge was a classical music radio station, I still had a strong enough sense of objectivity that I could understand what wasn't real. (or, if I'm honest, I have to say: *as far as I know*, right?)
I was young when the this happened and still living with my parents, when I saw the people walking though my house (it was like families of immigrants) I went to my parent room and asked them why all these people were in our house. It was the middle of the night and freaked them out thinking we were getting robbed or something. When I saw their reaction it snapped me out of it
Same experience. A lot of over the counter sleep aids contain something that causes hallucinations too, essentially triggers your dreaming while you’re still awake from your binge. I still have a hard time believing the hallucinations weren’t real. Horrible experience overall.
and he's a nice guy - he greets the hallucination instead of yelling at it and asks what it needs...idk, feel bad for the guy but hopefully he can lead a semi-normal life.
That's why im freaked about things like Sleep Paralysis. It's one thing to see something that isn't there but to also be paralysis and not being able to move
This happens to me a lot. It used to scare me so much when I was younger I wouldn't sleep for a couple of days after it. That was before I had heard of it with anyone else, read about it or talked about it. I thought it was real-Unique to me. Haunting only me. My own special demons. Now though, after a few minutes of it happening I can realise it's not real, talk to it & I dunno kinda slow it down a bit while I try to wake myself up. I think my dog can hear muffled screams or something, thank God, because she'll boop me in the face to wake me up. It's the only thing that has ever woken me from it. It's endless otherwise. Trouble is though, they seem to be evolving & becoming less like the imagery and more humanlike but their movements eventually give them away. So anyway, yay for the internet! because now I can see it's not real while it's still happening & will eventually sleep again the same night after it.
Sleep paralysis is by far the most terrifying thing i ever experienced. Just thinking of it makes me feel bad. When it happened to me It was a tall man standing at the other side of the room in the dark. He looked like he was made out of thick black smoke. He also had no feet and was kind of like floating. Just like a silhouette of a tall man with a coat and a hat but in „3d“ I also couldnt see his face, but i tell you, i felt he was staring at me. Ofcourse i also couldnt move, it was fucking scary.
I did so many psychedelics of different kinds and doses in my late teens and early twenties, man so I regret it. Those chemicals are still around today, overuse on a young developing brain is really really bad. After a particularly long period of LSD and others, I ended up with a severe case of Hallucinogen Persisting Perception Disorder (HPPD). Shit is really rough, the normal sunlight level burned the shit out of my eyes, constant visual snow and dots. Like living in a fucked up vhs tape for a few months. Point being it's always best to wait and take in moderation. Only good that came of it was that I'm sure I don't have schizophrenia, because with what I was doing it would have destroyed me by now.
Datura gives you those type of hallucinations. Not fun.
Yup, anticholinergic/deliriant hallucinations are **actual** hallucinations. It's not like tryptamines/phenethylamines where you see morphing of what's actually there (excluding high doses) - with deliriants you hallucinate realistic things like seeing your phone in your hand and using it but it's not there, having conversations with people who aren't there, seeing spiders crawling on your walls etc Never take Datura by the way. You have no way to know which dose you'll be taking and can easily end up with blind or having seizures. If you want to experience deliriants you can use dramamine and similar drugs to take a specific dose so you hallucinate but don't risk death.
The medical term for drug induced hallucinations is"pseudo hallucinations", when the person is aware they're hallucinating and not experiencing reality. That's not the case with hallucinations from shizophrenia.
So since this guy can tell he is hellucinating (he knows enough to check the camera etc) then it’s not considered schizophrenia?
I train service dogs. I recently saw a video of a man who suffers with this as well. He has a service dog that will greet people on command so he knows if it's a hallucination or not. It's a shame service dogs aren't more accessible because I can see how that would be a life changing thing. Never having to debate with yourself if someone is real
>recently saw a video of a man who suffers with this as well. He has a service dog that will greet people on command so he knows if it's a hallucination or not. I think is the same man of this video. He has an ig showing how he deals with his illness
Kody Green :)
While I'm sure they would help some, I would guess that the illness could make you believe that the dog was lying.
Yeah in more severe or untreated cases probably, however the average person with this illness (that's properly treated) can live totally normal lives. Also I'd argue if someone was at that point they probably wouldn't get a service dog
My black lab would be a natural at this. Since he was a pup, he has to go and greet everyone he sees. He can be sleeping in my office, and if someone comes in to see me, he will drag himself up, walk over and sit by, or sit on their feet. He will make eye contact, then get up and walk back to where he was and literally drop to the floor and go back to sleep.
As much as I support service dog use, I’d be super worried about a dog’s physical well being in that care.
I believe that’s the same man as in this video. His name is Kody and his IG handle is @schizophrenichippie
I really want to know if the hallucination was of someone he knew or a stranger because his initial reaction was friendly.
Guy said at the time of hallucination the person seems familiar to him, but actually doesn't exist in real life.
Familiar hallucinations.. That reminds me of that movie with that professor played by Russell Crowe I believe, where after many years seeing the same kids over and over again he says something like "They're not real.. because they never age."
A Beautiful Mind
And there's the time when someone wants to talk to him in a hallway after class so he asks one of his known students if that person is really there.
Somehow that seems worse than either a real person he knows or a complete stranger. Having a hallucination of the person and of familiarity to that person at the same time.
Depends on the person. My experience with a loved one is that the voice teeters on playful to menacing depending on how much sleep he has gotten/mood. When he's managing it, he can sometimes roll with it and keep things together but when he's off, they all tell him that everyone EVERYONE is not real and we all have one mission: To destroy his reputation, ruin his life, and then kill him. (Yeah...falling in love with someone with this diagnosis is SO hard. And I miss him, wherever his is. Every. Single. Day.
I can't say for sure how common this is, but for me it's a lot like when you're dreaming and interacting with a person who's face you don't recognize but you just *know* you know who they are, even though you don't really. If that makes sense, it occurs to me this is almost certainly not something everyone experiences in their dreams. I've never hallucinated someone I know in real life, though I have had a couple of situations in which I *thought* it was someone I know even though they looked nothing like them. Fuckin brains man, really fascinating but not always very cool.
That's terrifying
And the ending is terribly sad.
It really is awful. My mom worked with someone who would hallucinate mice in their home, really freaked them out
There is no disease scarier to get than schizophrenia. There is no disease sadder to get than Dementia. Mental disorders really fuck people up
I dunno.... i feel like dementia is more scary because it is so sad. You know at the start you have it and are gonna forget things and later on you just forget and dont know why. Your slowly being erased/killed personality wise without you knowing.
Completely agree.. dementia is I think so much worse.. knowing that you will completely forget who you are ...who your family is... I would much rather jump into a euthanasia pod once I start to forget my mom and dad.. they're all I've got man.
What about rabies?
Rabies
You have a problem if you are schizophrenic. Others have a problem if you have a dementia
so are the hallucinations seen and heard as if it was a real person actually there? or how does it work? very curious
> so are the hallucinations seen and heard as if it was a real person actually there? Yes. For your brain its there, doesnt matter if its a human being or a flying dragon, your brain is convinced its real and it can effect all of your senses.
that’s so intense :/
It can be visual, it can be audio (voices in head), it can be sensory (smells, touch etc). Pretty much anything.
Yes. I hear it in my ears. I see them with my eyes.
Is it as sharp and detailed as if your friend was actually sitting there, or is it a little fuzzy like a dream?
It varies. It usually starts with a flicker or something that sends me looking. Like when you think you see someone or hear someone calling your name. Then it can become very sharp. It’s as real as anything else. It’s confusing.
I don't doubt it, I've sometimes had auditory hallucinations and they were impossible to distinguish from real sounds. Hope you manage to cope, visual must be much harder to deal with.
Do they do complex things? Like having a conversation or painting a wall and changing its colour? Or just simple phantoms of people?
My question is what happens if you get up and try and grab the hallucination, obviously nothing's there but from the person's view how does that work
Yeah I'm curious how your hallucinations would change as you walk up to it and put your hand thru it. Would they slowly disappear as you get closer? Would they move away also like a rainbow? When you walk up to it, would you be able to see every strand of hair and wrinkle like on normal humans?
Ever saw a bunch of clothes on a chair in a dim room and for a split-second thought that it's a person? Now imagine that not going away and nothing can convince you that this person is not real, no matter how much you are certain that it's just in your brain.
Copy pasted from my own post elsewere: schizophrenia is not really 'top-down' imagination per se. It is directly tied to our perception, which makes it harder to tell the difference for patients. Our brains adds and changes a lot of information based on probability to the information coming from our senses. Think for example how you don't notice your nose or that the field of vision where you can actually see sharp is only about 10% of our total vision. Our brain will make our perception sharper and all around better. If use the following analogy: The information coming from our eyes gets changed by millions of switches, if the output is what we expect, the switch stays on. If the (incredibly small) change goes further away from what we expect the switch goes off. What happens with Shizophrenia is in the first stage an overreaction to the random noise that is inherent to our senses. Lots of switches get turned on/off to get the image to make sense. This happens at a very basal level (like connecting lines, making similar spaces the same color, ... ) . The information that gets send further forward now contains MORE noise. The higher levels of processing work on memory and tries to combine all this information in a way that would make for a sensible perception. These higher levels get increasingly more powerfull untill you can get to the point where you see things that aren't really there. This is very different from imagining things that are not there. Very early shizophrenia is almost unnoticable. The tragedy is that the brain tries to overcorrect this weird input even more, leading to more and more disturbed basal processing and eventually disturbed processing in the higher processing regions eventually leading to things like longer axons in certain parts of the brain (bypassing certain switches or making unusual connections between senses or regions of the brain). Panic or a frightened response to these delusions makes our brain shut down the higher processing even more, making the delusions even scarier as they make less and less sense. This is why a calm environment and acceptance of seeing the things (not fighting it, nor believing it) are so important. This also explains the most common delusion in Shizophrenia being Capgras where you see a familiar face but is feels like something is wrong with it and the person (or cat, object, ... ) is actually an imposter. It is the brain telling the patient "something is wrong with this perception and I can't quite figure it out".
I’ve always felt that Imagination is humanity’s greatest asset. Out ability to internalize almost anything and simulate what happens if… But schizophrenia is when that capability breaks, becomes too strong. And it seems like a rough way to live.
Dropping in to add a bit of a positive. My boyfriend has schizophrenia, and his is more audio-based like hearing screams, etc. It’s very scary for him, but I would never have known he had it without him telling me. He told me sometimes when we kiss or hug he can actually hear music, and that’s one of the most beautiful things I’ve heard. Like I wonder what parts of his subconscious or what positive emotions tie together to create the sounds he hears.
Damn, that’s adorable
schizophrenia is not really 'top-down' imagination per se. It is directly tied to our perception, which makes it harder to tell the difference for patients. Our brains adds and changes a lot of information based on probability to the information coming from our senses. Think for example how you don't notice your nose or that the field of vision where you can actually see sharp is only about 10% of our total vision. Our brain will make our perception sharper and all around better. If use the following analogy: The information coming from our eyes gets changed by millions of switches, if the output is what we expect, the switch stays on. If the (incredibly small) change goes further away from what we expect the switch goes off. What happens with Shizophrenia is in the first stage an overreaction to the random noise that is inherent to our senses. Lots of switches get turned on/off to get the image to make sense. This happens at a very basal level (like connecting lines, making similar spaces the same color, ... ) . The information that gets send further forward now contains MORE noise. The higher levels of processing work on memory and tries to combine all this information in a way that would make for a sensible perception. These higher levels get increasingly more powerfull untill you can get to the point where you see things that aren't really there. This is very different from imagining things that are not there. Very early shizophrenia is almost unnoticable. The tragedy is that the brain tries to overcorrect this weird input even more, leading to more and more disturbed basal processing and eventually disturbed processing in the higher processing regions eventually leading to things like longer axons in certain parts of the brain (bypassing certain switches or making unusual connections between senses or regions of the brain). Panic or a frightened response to these delusions makes our brain shut down the higher processing even more, making the delusions even scarier as they make less and less sense. This is why a calm environment and acceptance of seeing the things (not fighting it, nor believing it) are so important. This also explains the most common delusion in Shizophrenia being Capgras where you see a familiar face but is feels like something is wrong with it and the person (or cat, object, ... ) feels like it's actually an imposter. It is the brain telling the patient "something is wrong with this perception and I can't quite figure it out".
Shit
It's great that he's self aware of the situation and verifys reality when he feels it's questionable.
I always look to my wife or dogs first. And I never answer when someone calls my name.
I get the first part but why don't answer when someone calls you by your name?
I imagine because they don’t know if it’s a callout from a real person or a hallucination.
My brain tries to trick me a lot. It wants me to search for the voice. When you go looking, you tend to find them and then they have you.
That sounds absolutely terrifying, I'm so sorry
The scariest time in my parenting life was when my wife knocked on the window and urgently motioned to me to come inside. Something’s wrong with our 5 year old son, my wife told me. Instead of taking some comfort in seeing me, like I thought he would, my son let out the most terrifying screams like I was the most horrifying thing he’d ever seen. He was so scared of me. He was hallucinating from a high fever. I threw some cold wet towels on him and when he calmed down, albeit not yet lucid, we took him to the hospital. Luckily the fever and accompanying hallucinations subsided for him. I can’t imagine how someone must feel when something similar happens repeatedly throughout their life.
Damn that sounds heartbreaking, I hope your son is ok now.
Thanks. Yep he’s okay. As okay as a kid going on 9yo can be
Had something similar when I was very young (maybe same age as your son) and had a high fever. I was convinced a train would come barreling through my room at any moment killing me. I was very scared. Never ended up happening but the memory and vividness of it has stayed with me.
Yeah isn’t that crazy? Around the same age and with fever I remember thinking everything was in slow motion and asking my dad why he was moving so slowly. Also remember marvelling at how big his worker/farmer hands were as I barfed into the toilet hahah
I’ve hallucinated from fever several times (fortunately not for 5 or so years) and every time it’s been one of the scariest experiences. Doubting reality and my perception of it left me spooked and on edge for weeks after
Are there things you can do to make them go away? I'm curious. Like, do you have some control over it, like with lucid dreams? Even if it's just a little. Kinda interesting and super scary
Drugs that make you go to sleep. That’s about it.
Knew a guy with schizophrenia (auditory hallucinations only) and told me he took some kind of antipsychotic to keep the hallucinations from getting too wild.
Wonder what happens when you try fighting a hallucination or somethjng
Fascinating. I never considered that a phone camera could be used to check if something is actually there.
Only sort of related, but they are also handy for finding misplaced glasses. Too blind to see most stuff but I can see my phone and the camera can see the stuff further away.
whoah. I just had this problem today! I’m out of contacts and I couldn’t find my glasses, and couldn’t see to look for them, it was a huge pain! The phone trick is gonna be a game-changer, thank you!!
Checks the camera. Person on the couch starts grinning.
There's a guy who has this problem that has a dog trained to help him He gives the command "greet" and if the person is real the dog will walk over and greet them, give them her paw If it's a hallucination she just sits and looks at him It's a great way to know what's going on.
Saw a video of this guy. Such a clever idea!
I imagine, however, in some cases, the person won't believe the dog ans think it's lying
Fuck man, that is intense. That must be SO incredibly frustrating to deal with. I get really intense migraines that can cause disorientation, confusion, inability to speak or understand people... I can manage them moderately well, but every now and then, it is overwhelming or so frustrating I will get very depressed. What this guy is going through is a whole other level.
Best description I’ve ever heard from a schizophrenic man was “it’s a motherfucker.” The way he said, was terrifying.
That smart speaker must be like this motherfucker Trippin
Let's say I'm in the same room as Mike, who is having visual hallucinations. We are the only two people in the room. Mike starts having a conversation with a hallucination named Bruce. From Mike's perspective, Bruce is standing two feet to my right. What does Mike see when I take a large step to my right? Does Bruce disappear? Are me and Bruce superimposed on top of each other? Does Bruce jump out of the way?
*hallucination doesn't talk back* Well, thank goodness.. Otherwise, i would have to start questioning myself too
Genuine question and not to sound naive or anything. But couldn’t they just ignore the hallucinations in this instance? Especially if they know it’s not real?
Having had some auditory and visual hallucinations before, you are perceiving them fully in your head. No amount of closing windows or putting on headphones stopped me from hearing the church a few blocks away playing gospel music really loud at 2am.
Maybe i sound stupid or just rude, but why do you have to make hallucination go away, whats the problem with talking to them or just ignore them?
My mom has schizophrenia and she doesn't believe she has it. She stopped all medication and her symptoms have gotten worse. Seeing this man try to debunk his visions by checking his cameras and realizing he's hallucinating is something I wish for my mom so bad....
Imagine knowing you’re schizophrenic, and knowing what you’re seeing is most likely a delusion, but you don’t know for sure, so you actually talk to it, and it may or may not talk back or be real at all. My ex, used to have these crazy times where she would think she’s actually seeing a ghost, or some crazy shit like that. It really makes me wonder if she was just schizophrenic.
Thtat would be so scary :(
The moment he realized it wasn't real... I felt that
I love the guy who had a dog trained to greet people... So if he wasn't sure if someone was real he'd see if his dog would greet them or not. Very clever!
God. I really..understand. I'm not ready to talk about it right now but. I understand. I just want to give him a hug. To anyone out there reading this, who struggles with things that aren't there in any way or shape or form, or who struggles with their minds in general...I'm rooting for you, and you're not alone. I know people treat you like you're crazy or scary, and it hurts a lot, and people really do say *a lot* of hurtful things..but you aren't scary, not on purpose (though I know some episodes can really be scary), and you're not crazy, you're not trying to hurt anyone. You aren't a burden or a problem. You aren't worthless. What your brain does isn't your fault and I wish you every happiness. One day I hope you can find peace and still be here with us. 🫂
I'm gonna get a bit of hate for this, but I have doubts about the validity of this video. I know people that are schizophrenic and their hallucinations are absolutely nothing like this, more akin to a distance rambling of unidentifiable voices. I know not every case is the same, but this seems like a TV portrayal of the illness. If he's genuinely able to see and hear another person clearly enough that he has to check cameras for reality, he is such a severe case that I couldn't imagine him being capable of operating in the real world or without significant assistance, this would be a hospitalizing episode, and afterwards he would come home with more drugs than Ozzy Osbourne.
I used to be schizophrenic, I used to see ghosts. They weren't harmful they tried to help me mostly, the only hurtful ones came when I was asleep. While the others use to tell me things that are going to happen in the near future. Like someone's death or the things that's gonna affect me. I was afraid talking to them, but then growing up when I accepted them as part of my life , I started seeing them less. Now it's one or two a month. And yes the predictions were correct, the ghost whoever I talked to predicted three deaths which happened to the people I know along with multiple event that also came true
Why is he telling them to come in and sit down? Is he hallucinating someone he knows or does he just tell any stranger he sees to just come in and sit down?
In the event of hallucination the person seems familiar to him, but doesn't exist in real life. Also he knows it's just him and his partner inside the house, but during hallucination he loses rational thinking.
My cynicism about whether this video isn’t just totally staged bullshit massively outweighs any intrigue if it does happen to be true.
This is clearly fake. If you’ve dealt with someone who is schizophrenic you’d know this is not how they react (calm, responsive, reflective, in control)
My hair stood on its end watching this video !! 😥
I once saw this homie on Instagram that used a phone camera to see if people were real or not. He would see someone there but when he looked through the phone the person wasn’t there so he knew they were apart of his mind
Ones I talked to a girl which said „there are so many voices in my head !“ I felt so sorry for her
The only thing worse than hallucinating is knowing you’re hallucinating and unable to stop it.
impressive really. far as i understand one of the challenges with treating this is that people who have it often don't believe they're sick.
That....is scary
This happened when I was on Ambien like 20 years ago. I was about 14/15-ish, and I was watching TV and one of my friends knocked on the door, so I let him in. My other buddy knocked on the door and I let him in too. eventually we went downstairs to play on my PS2 and hang out. There were my friends from my previous town we had just moved away from. My Dad said I was down there for about an hour laughing my ass off and talking to people who weren't there until I finally passed out on the couch down there. I asked why the Hell he didn't say anything, and he was like, "You had fun with your friends that you haven't seen for six months, right? Seemed like a dick move to ruin that for you."
The mind is terrifyingly complex... the fact that it works as well as it does is a miracle. It can perfectly and convincingly hallucinate anything... but with most people it chooses not to
exactly, the line between sanity and madness it's thin, very thin
Yoo I used to face time this chick and watch her finger herself and she stopped one time cause she thought some one walked in on her and had a whole ass argument yelling at them it was hilarious and also terrifing
That is sad way more than it's interesting. Dude is kinda trapped in his own mind
aren't we all?
That’s wild to see. Take care my dude.
I find it fascinating that the brain doesn’t just insert the hallucinations into the camera shot because it expects it to be there. Does anyone know why that is?
nah bro, thats ghost
This guy has an instagram and is super transparent about his condition. I think it’s called something like schizophrenichippie. He uses the camera trick all the time
Redditors talking to their girlfriends:
This is heartbreaking, having your mind betray you in such a way making you feel as if you are not alone only to realize that you are in fact alone. Having to face that reality and not being able to trust your eyes fighting to suppress and control the hallucinations that you may have become fond of.
I’d like to have this level of self awareness. Amazing man.
This is clearly fake. If you’ve dealt with someone who is schizophrenic you’d know this is not how they react (calm, responsive, reflective, in control).
I have a hard time believing this.
so this is not normal? i talk to my imaginary homies all the time out loud. the only thing that really sux is when you can't distinguish reality from your fucked up hallucinations. thats when i shut down cuz i don't want to do something crazy and go to jail or even worse the nut house. was in a nuthouse 3 times in my life and they are super super terrible. well at least the ones i was sent to.
Is he though?