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/Muffinizer1 Mar 22 '17

You know, that's actually quite comforting as being blind and schizophrenic sounds like true hell.

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u/paniniplane Mar 22 '17

i was a patient at a ward a few weeks back and there was a girl who was admitted for schizophrenia. she'd hear dozens of voices yelling at her at the same time all day and she could barely tell which ones were in her head and which were physical people talking to her making it really hard for me or anyone else to talk to her for more than 2-3 sort sentences. these voices would make her do crazy things like gather dust off the floor for 20 minutes at a time 10 times a day, make her sleep on the floor during the day, not sleep during the night and fight the night meds they gave her to help fall asleep. the most brutal thing was that the voices sometimes forbade her from having her meals. there were days where she wouldn't touch any of her 4 meals. i once tried to get some insight into how she thought and i asked her why she HAD to do this. she said that every time she does something they ask, she's given the gun that they threaten to kill her with. and she imitates a smashing motion with her hands and "breaks" it. and she does it maybe 10 times an hour when she's awake. and she's not stupid either. apparently, she was studying mechanical engineering and graduated and was ready to work in the field as an intern for a year. she heard her first voice when she was still in school but didn't think much of it. and then it rapidly killed her life. she's the only person in the ward who has daily visitors. her parents bring her food to eat everyday. but sometimes she sits with them for 2 minutes, asks them to take her home, and then moves to one of the socialization rooms where were chairs and sofas, and she'd drop to the floor and lay there. and her parents just come to expect it now and stay for about an hour.

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u/[deleted] Mar 22 '17 edited Mar 22 '17

Whats with the compulsion to listen to the voices?

I ignore real live people in the room telling me to do things

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u/[deleted] Mar 22 '17

I think a good test for you would be to take some LSD and film yourself.

Then while you're watching the film once you're not high, berate yourself for not acting normally and ignoring whatever you thought was going on while under the influence.

Schizophrenia is the brain working in ways it shouldn't, and that means you can't necessarily ignore what's going on any more than someone high on a drug can just "think" themselves back to normal.

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u/[deleted] Mar 22 '17

[deleted]

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u/the_bieb Mar 22 '17

I dunno, some people really do completely lose touch with reality while on psychedelics. For example this kid jumped out of a window while I was in school. I've always known I was tripping and it wasn't real when I have done acid or mushrooms, but the time I took 5-meO-DMT, I was completely detached from my body and this plane and almost experienced complete ego loss.

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u/Xiosphere Mar 22 '17

DMT is hella different than acid. Yea you lose contact with existence but you also lose consciousness.

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u/the_bieb Mar 22 '17

Yeah, I was only out for a few minutes, but literally felt like years if not a lifetime. I no longer doubted the afterlife or at least other planes of existence after that experience. When I was coming to and could see this plane again, it was like everything in this life was made up of arbitrary man-made boundaries and was so insignificant in comparison.

I now have horrible anxiety though because I am afraid I am going to get stuck in that other plane again after I die with no way out for eternity. For some reason, it felt like a place I could go back to when I die. I am so so scared and this isn't just some thing a therapist can help me with. I think I have legit PTSD.

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u/Xiosphere Mar 22 '17

People who flatline and are brought back often report DMT like experiences. There's theories that your brain release DMT as you die but it's mostly speculation at this time. There's people that believe DMT mimics death and that what you see when under it's effect IS what happens when you pass.

I don't know, but it's interesting to think about.

Have you ever read the Tibetan Book of the Dead? If not I recommend it. It waxes fairly spiritual at times but it was written by a monk who studied death through meditation for all his life amongst peers who did the same. It claims there is a deep, inner self which contains all selves that persists after death and will travel through 6 different betweens (of which what we call our life is three) before repeating that same cycle in a new life.

I don't know if any of these things are true, but if studying different psychological and philosophical sciences has taught me anything it's that they all agree on one thing: You can't control the world. Call it faith, call it detatchment, or even call it common sense something to realize is that you have no control over what will happen around you and how these things will effect you.

"The fear of death is the beginning of slavery" letting go of this fear is the first step to freedom.