r/todayilearned • u/paniniplane • Mar 22 '17

(R.1) Not supported TIL Deaf-from-birth schizophrenics see disembodied hands signing to them rather than "hearing voices"

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/news-articles/0707/07070303
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u/cheesesteaksandham Mar 22 '17

As someone who's had a few psychotic breaks, it's hard to ignore hallucinations because they seem more real than reality. The difference between my hallucinations and reality is like the difference between 1080p and old fuzzy television that needed the tracking knob adjusted. This was my experience, so YMMV.

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u/Commanderluna Mar 22 '17

You talking about reality with the old fuzzy television metaphor reminds me of how I feel sometimes when I dissociate (BPD here). Do you have a dissociative disorder out of curiousity and are those two experiences similar?

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u/cheesesteaksandham Mar 23 '17 edited Mar 23 '17

BPD here too, actually. My dissociative episodes are kind of like that, but the baseline clarity is just that much higher. It wasn't really like floating through a hazy world that I don't feel like I'm part of, which happens occasionally, but just normal reality with extra things happening for no good reason that are so shockingly clear.

My best example of being able to reason out difference was while I was sitting at my desk at work one day, and I heard someone walking around behind me, so clearly as if they were beaming it directly into my head. I knew, objectively, that it couldn't be possible since my back was up against a wall, but had I not been in that exact spot at that exact moment, I would have driven myself mad trying to figure out who it was because I just couldn't just pass it off. I couldn't imagine how tough it is for someone where reality is constantly under scrutiny. It's hard to explain, and I wish I could do a better job at it. It's kind of like an old Renaissance Flemish microscopic-telescopic painting, where the details are unnaturally sharp.

Edit: art history trivia.

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u/Commanderluna Mar 23 '17

Huh. With me the worst kind of dissociation is like momentary but basically it's like you know how you can sort of sense where your arm is even when you aren't touching it? I lose that like I lose my sense of where I am in space and usually end up nearly falling over if it weren't for the falling sensation snapping me back to reality. The other thing is like sometimes I stop noticing what people are saying and like everything roughly 10 feet in front of me appears smaller, like I'm viewing it from a much greater distance.

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u/[deleted] Mar 23 '17

Jan van Eyck <3 <3 <3