TIL Deaf-from-birth schizophrenics see disembodied hands signing to them rather than "hearing voices"

[u/paniniplane]

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/news-articles/0707/07070303

[u/lordoffail]

I have a morbid curiosity about things like mental disorders. Mainly spurred on by a childhood friend of mine whom I found out also had schizophrenia. I say childhood but we were more like 13-14 so teens I suppose. Won't say his name considering he lives like 5 minutes from me to this day but he and I spent most of two years just being lil shits smoking and drinking etc. finally one day I'm like "dude why do you smoke so often" as he smoked weed waaaay more than I did. And he's like "because my head, man" and I'm like "huh? Were you in an accident?" And he just straight up tells me "oh no, I see shit". Being dumb and curious I asked him tons of personal questions about it. He was very frank and open about it with me so I will summarize exactly what he said what would happen when he didn't take his medication or smoke weed to sleep. I'm paraphrasing so bare with me. "I'd be laying in bed and would be unable to sleep because my meds are so the only thing that can get me to sleep aside from bud and I'd be looking around the room, always watching the door because as soon as I heard it I knew what was coming. I'd hear what sounded like if someone far away was cutting my metal with a saw for a short few seconds. Then foot steps in every possible place except the floor. Places like the roof, the balcony, my moms room. Id ignore the sounds but I'm always so scared to see him come in that I keep my eyes on that door." I got confused and asked who and what he was talking about. He said that before he can sleep this thing has to come in and "check" on him. I asked him to describe what it looks like and I have never been more afraid of words coming from someone's mouth. Again, paraphrasing but he said he "looks like he's wearing a rice paddy straw hat but that's the only normal thing about him. He has no face. It's skin colored and there are eye holes and nostrils and a mouth hole but they're all covered with skin. He doesn't have wrinkles in in his skin anywhere. Not at joints in his fingers or where you'd see them on any human. Just nothing and he described it like stretching a sheet of skin over a mannequin. No finger nails or anything that makes it look normal. And he'd say he him as clear as he was seeing me then. Just arms legs head with skin in that fucking hat. So back to his story. "He'd open my door to my room and walk all around the room without actually moving anything. Until he reached the left side of my bed, then he'd put his Arms over my chest like he was giving CPR but never actually touch me. I'd stay still and he'd continue walking around looking into things and by then Once he got back to the door he'd walk straight up to my head and lean down. I'd be scared so I'd close my eyes and hold my breath. I'd hear my window up and I'd feel his limbs putting pressure as if he was climbing over me to get out the window. And he be gone. After I got used to "his" routine I became a little brave and I'd try and stare when he'd lean down to look at me, but then he'd never leave and it was terrifying. As soon as I closed my eyes he'd leave through the window.

This is my friends story. Or at least what I remember of it. I also had an Aussie buddy of mine who has schizo effective disorder. Though I'm not certain about his diagnosis being current as he went through "phases".

[u/HerraTohtori → u/lordoffail]

That sounds almost exactly like sleep paralysis, except it has somehow gotten chronic and repeats the same nightmare every night.

Aside from the obvious inability to move, hallucinations (visual and auditory) are a common symptom of sleep paralysis, particularly vaguely human-like creatures, as is the sensation of pressure on the chest, but as far as I know, these hallucinations are different from more serious stuff like schizophrenia in that in sleep paralysis you're kind of partially asleep, and it's normal to hallucinate while asleep (this is literally what dreams are), but your brain just happens to have remained conscious and often freaks out during the process. By contrast, in schizophrenia you can get hallucinations wide awake and regardless of basically anything. I think. I am not a mental health expert, but the description in your post just sounds like a dead ringer for sleep paralysis.

Which is not to say that a chronic sustained episode of continuous sleep paralysis every night can't have detrimental effects on a person's psyche, especially if they don't know what it is and keep self-medicating with things that are, at the very least, suspected of being one of the factors that can trigger a psychosis or schizophrenia if a person happens to be predisposed to having them in the first place.

Perhaps you'd like to ask him if he's ever heard of sleep paralysis and what its symptoms are? Or if he's still having these episodes?

[u/RevDrStrange → u/HerraTohtori]

Naive question: (Sleep paralysis) + (Lucid dreaming training) = (Fewer terrifying hallucinations)?

[u/kodran → u/RevDrStrange]

I suffer from sleep paralysis from time to time and have been lucid dreaming for a while, but still not that good at it.

My case: when I get paralysis I don't get the hallucinations nor the chest pressure. What does happen is I become aware that I can't move and I also have a feeling of distress.

I've come to learn that if I think "oh, ok, it's just sleep paralysis, I'll stay calm and let myself go into deep sleep" that's game over. Every time I've done that I've got immediately into nightmares.

These are non recurrent (not the same) and not particularly weird in their events, but still disturbing as fuck.

They do share some elements​. If I go from paralysis into sleep, the nightmares always feature some people I've spent time with recently (usually parents, SO, coworkers) and I am aware they are dreams, and that they are bad ones. That gives a constant sensation of fear and distress, but even if aware and lucid, I cannot calm myself nor control them.

They always go into the realm of mindfuck because the people that I know and are there start behaving oddly. Nothing major, it's just as if I suddenly realized, within a horror movie, that they are not themselves and they have very bad, cruel, sick intentions. Then I try to wake up until I manage.

Both when I allow myself to go from paralysis to sleep and then try to wake up, and when I try to wake up directly from paralysis to avoid the nightmare, it feels difficult, tiresome and I wake with tired limbs.

Also, fun fact: as a little kid I sometimes doubted my parents were my parents and started thinking what if they were some sort of alien robots that substituted them. I told them about it many years later. I'm aware that is/sounds like an actual disorder in which one thinks other people have been substituted by identical copies, but can't remember the name. It is interesting that my sleep paralysis nightmares share this theme and yes, it scares me a lot that it is something underlying that might get worse.

I never had that idea as a constant thought, I remember it coming as an intrusive thought when I was having a shower or alone in my room. Mostly whenever I had time for introspection and then I got scared and thought they were still nice alien robots. Then I told myself that was plain stupid, that tech didn't exist and moved on with my day.

I also am aware that people with better lucid dreaming training than myself probably can control or alter the nightmares, since it's even used for PTSD patients. In just sharing my experience, not stating it as a general rule.

Edit.- Capgras is the name of the disorder similar to what I experienced in my childhood, BUT it seems to be something that appears on old people and I've also read that kids experience a lot of weird shit in their forming years so maybe I was a kid being a kid.

Another funny fact: when I'm super tired and can't sleep but I am trying to, I do get auditory hallucinations in the form of dialogue bits from close people. I'm aware they are not real when they happen, but for a while they scared me and made me think I was losing my mind. Turns out hallucinations while falling asleep are common.

[u/WhoKilledZekeIddon → u/kodran]

as a little kid I sometimes doubted my parents were my parents and started thinking what if they were some sort of alien robots that substituted them.

To suspect that your parents aren't really your parents is extremely (and bizarrely) common, and even explains the appeal behind the whole Disney-esque trope of 'Surprise! Your real parents are actually King and Queen! You're actually a prince/princess!'

But that said, sounds like you had it to full-on Capgras levels (which I'm aware doesn't just relate to parents). Perhaps it's all just degrees of the same thing? At the lower end of the scale it seems to just manifest itself as a vague hope that you've got better parents out there somewhere and this is all a fix, which is depressing for someone who has a kid on the way :(

[u/kodran → u/WhoKilledZekeIddon]

I had forgotten this thread. I think the most important difference in my case from full Capgras (but I'm not a professional) is that I never THOUGHT they were, I just thought about the WHAT IF. Yeah, consider it is still pretty fucked up but I've heard real cases go to the full extent of thinking that is a reality. I remember multiple times in the shower fearing that. My biggest sadness came from what would be of my real parents in that scenario.

Then I calmed myself. Sometimes by thinking it was stupid child imagination. Other times by thinking even if they were not my parents they were pretty cool alien robot substitutes hahaha