[livejournal.com profile] telophase reminded me of a conversation we had a while back, and I thought I'd throw it open for discussion (especially as there are a couple of psychologists reading this.)

We were talking about the mind and how it perceives its own processes, and how, if you ever grill people about how they see their own selves and the way they imagine their minds, they will come up with metaphors and concepts that seem extraordinarily weird to anyone who is not them.

Walter Jon Williams has an excellent sf novel called Aristoi, in which some of the high tech is psychology. People have learned how to induce multiple personalities in themselves (which they call daemons) in a very controlled manner, so that rather than having any kind of disorder or deficit, they can tap into the almost unlimited potential of their own selves. He makes it sound really fun, too: call up the physically adept daemon to help you with a fight, or the aesthetically-minded daemon to add to your appreciation of a work of art.

I once mentioned to Walter that I wished I had daemons. He looked rather surprised, and said, "But you do."

"Well, sure, in a sense," I replied. "But I mean I wish I had them the way they're depicted in your book, so they really feel like other people, not just portions of myself."

"The daemons in Aristoi were my attempt to write down the inside of my own mind, the way it feels to me," replied Walter.

"...really?" I said.

Or some such; this conversation is obviously not verbatim. Unfortunately, I did not a get a chance to further quiz him on what he meant by that.

But that's something else that makes me wonder whether the line between what are generally considered to be (a few-- not all!) mental illnesses and quirky but normal thinking processes is merely whether or not the person in questions interprets "other personalities," say, or "I am not human" as metaphor or fact.

Is there really something very different about the mental state of Otherkin, or do they just interpret the very common sense of being different from everyone else, and the also quite common identification with non-human beings, as metaphysically real rather than metaphoric?

Is that also the difference between Walter and Sybil?

Thoughts? Fascinating personal disclosures? Musings on delusions/ideas which are socially normal vs. weird, when they're actually quite similar?
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From: [identity profile] clodia-risa.livejournal.com


My opinion of mental illness is that each person has their own viewpoint of the world, each sees one part of the elephant, right? But there is no elephant, no universal normal or truth or whatever. That which we call "normal" or "healthy" is the agreed upon range of viewpoints which do not disagree too strongly with each other. Mental illness is when one's viewpoint differs to an extent that it interferes with your ability to interact or even deal with the world around you. The creation of said viewpoint may be based on biology or experience, and it could be changed. heck - half of therapy is learning to think about yourself and the world in a different way, right?

This is a little tangential, but I guess my point is that everything is metaphorical and everything is literal - depending on your viewpoint.

From: [identity profile] ide-cyan.livejournal.com


ObPKDicksoundbite: "Reality is what doesn't go away when you stop believing in it."

From: [identity profile] vom-marlowe.livejournal.com


My experience is that the difference between mental illness and personal quirkiness isn't so much metaphor vs reality, but level of function. I mean, the people I know who are quirky (like myself, heh) may have batshit crazy ideas about themselves (I certainly do!) but they are able to use them for the power of good in their lives. The people I know who are mentally ill (and I don't mean in a small way, but who have been hospitalized, etc) can't use their internal viewpoints for the power of anything--their internal viewpoints instead rule them. Or, they can use them, but only in ways that make their lives much worse. Does that make any sense?

From: [identity profile] rachelmanija.livejournal.com


I think that's generally true, but what of people who are perfectly functional but very literally believe that are, for instance, aliens?

From: [identity profile] vom-marlowe.livejournal.com


I knew someone who believed they were an alien. (Or at least she said so.) I didn't think she was mentally ill; she was very happy, it seemed to work for her, she got along fairly well in life. Eventually, though, other ideas kind of took over her brain and they were much less nice and while more socially acceptable (fer instance, that she was smarter than the rest of the world so therefore more worthwhile as a person; that her own crazy cleaning rules were totally normal), wrecked her life a lot more as they ruled her. At that point, even though her ideas were more 'normal', I considered her pretty mentally ill (and still do), as her functioning went downhill like whoa. I'd have traded her in for the alien baby model, no question.
ext_7025: (Default)

From: [identity profile] buymeaclue.livejournal.com


I know of someone who has (or at least has expressed) that same belief, and seems to be very functional/capable. It's a little weird, but hey, if she's getting on fine, who am I to judge?

From: [identity profile] vee-fic.livejournal.com


Diagnostically speaking, if it doesn't interfere with ordinary functioning, you're just a weirdo.

One of the tests for delusional beliefs is whether the person holding that belief understands that his/her belief is way off from the norm. If a person believes he's an alien, but has the tact not to go shouting it in Store 24, then he's signalling that he understands that, whatever he believes, he can comprehend the fact that other people don't believe what he does.

From: [identity profile] green-knight.livejournal.com


They're 'eccentric', of course. How is believing you're an alien different from believing you have an invisible friend who mapped your life out for you, tragedies and all?

One is socially accepted, at least for certain values of 'God', the other isn't. Rationally, they are pretty similar.
ext_108: Jules from Psych saying "You guys are thinking about cupcakes, aren't you?" (comics: delirium on skates)

From: [identity profile] liviapenn.livejournal.com



This reminds me a bit of an article I read about Charles Bonnet syndrome (http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=604), which is sort of the exact opposite of what you're talking about; for some people, when their eyesight begins to fail, something (the brain, starved for visual input?) begins to make them 'see' incredibly vivid, real hallucinations. They *know*, rationally, that they aren't real, but apparently it can be pretty disconcerting. (And of course a lot of people simply think they're going senile, which is sad.)

Anyway. The most fascinating bit, to me, is the very last comment in the comments section, #79, from a woman who experienced this as a child. And she assumed-- for her whole life-- that this was what people meant when they said they were "imagining" things. Because that's what imagining things is, isn't it? It's a way of seeing things that aren't really there. But then when she got eye surgery, at the age of *thirty,* she finally figured out that her idea of imagination was unique, and other people don't actually "see" imaginary things.

So it really does make me wonder how many people have completely unique... mindsets, or beliefs, or understandings of things, and just go through their whole lives thinking "well, isn't everyone like this?"

From: [identity profile] vee-fic.livejournal.com


Oh, yeah -- I read a similar article about people who go through childhood with no depth perception, and develop it (after surgery or extensive training) in adulthood. The woman profiled was like, "And then, the steering wheel [in the car] seemed to fall away from me!!" She was totally amazed and delighted over something that is an everyday experience to you or me.

The kicker is, she got into her 30s before realizing that how she saw space did not correspond with the norm.

From: [identity profile] telophase.livejournal.com


I have a friend who took antimalarials before a trip to an archaeological dig in Belize about fifteen years ago. Visual and aural hallucinations were part of the side effects of this, and my friend reported that he quite enjoyed lying on his bed watching the fish swim above him, but that the voice that occasionally told him to kill himself was disconcerting. Since he knew it was all a side effect of the meds, it was easier to ignore, but he could see how scary and believable it would be to someone whose brain was producing that on its own.

From: [identity profile] torrilin.livejournal.com


Uh, you may not see what you imagine. Other people do.

I can see what I imagine (fortunately not all the time). I also "see" sound and (rarely) tastes or smells. Certain sorts of visuals cause me intense pain. I also have a very nice set of voices in my head that read to me. None of this is particularly useful, nor is it normal. But hell, human brains are *weird*. And it's not like any of the rest of me is particularly normal *g*.

Most people with odd brain function know they're not normal, and they make allowances for the rest of the world. The ones who forget that not everyone has multiple personalities, or that no in fact most of the world can't see sirens are the ones who have trouble.
ext_108: Jules from Psych saying "You guys are thinking about cupcakes, aren't you?" (meta: reading comics)

From: [identity profile] liviapenn.livejournal.com



I think it should be clear from my comment that I wasn't saying that no one who has ever existed EVER actually "sees" the things they imagine. Obviously the commenter I described was someone who did.

What was interesting to me was that she went nearly her whole life without realizing that she was perceiving things differently from most everyone else in the world, which means it obviously never *did* cause her any trouble. I mean, in generally, human beings tend to assume that whatever they happen to be used to is "normal," so it just makes me wonder how far this power of assumption stretches. How much about our lives really *is* unique-- but we never notice? How many of us just assume, like in Jonquil's original example, something like "well, doesn't everyone create 'multiple personalities' to accomplish tasks?" Etc.

From: [identity profile] telophase.livejournal.com


I was diagnosed and started on medication for ADD six months ago, and while it's nowhere enar as spectacular as the difference between seeing things and not seeing things, the amount of "Oh ... so *this* is what other people feel like?" has been illuminating.

The thing that felt like a wall in my brain between me and the task that I desperately needed to do? Not there anymore. The faulty impulse control that made me obsess over and eat a piece of the cake in the break room? It's fixed, so that the cake has become merely one of several options and not an inevitability. It hasn't been a miracle change, but there's enough differences now that it makes me realize I was experiencing *something* different than usual.

From: [identity profile] torrilin.livejournal.com


No, it wasn't clear. Sorry if I sounded snappish.

The thing is, she's not unique. Or at least not more unique than anyone else is. We're all weirdos here, including you. It's a near certainty that you have at least one way in which you perceive the world that most people don't experience. And well, it looks like you haven't noticed yet.

Most people are functional. They also have weird brains, and mostly they notice if their nose is rubbed into it. Not before. So the assumption of "I am normal" stretches pretty far. MOF a common response in kids to discovering that they've got a learning disability is "well *I'm* normal, everyone else is strange".

From: [identity profile] vee-fic.livejournal.com


We live with delusional people around us every day. Human cognition is geared toward several major delusions: witness the halo effect, in which sane, functional people all around the globe unconsciously assume that attractiveness is a sign of intelligence.

You remember that cognition study, where it turned out that the people who thought they were best at a job turned out to suck at it, and the people who were best at that job rated themselves as barely higher than average? People get -- and cling to -- demonstrably wrong ideas about the world all the time. This is why politics is an ongoing enterprise.

Also, I mean, how many "above-average" drivers do you know? Everybody thinks they're an above-average driver.

From: [identity profile] torrilin.livejournal.com


I'm not. I'm barely competent.

Which may mean I actually *am* above average, but I'm suspicious of that theory. I seem to make about as many boneheaded mistakes per trip as the "average" person does, and that's a helluva lot of mistakes.

From: [identity profile] vee-fic.livejournal.com


Ironically, I am one of the few who cops to being a bad driver. Then again, I have copious evidence to that effect: all of the passengers who go groping for the Jesus handles in my car, and yell at me to slow down.

So yes, sometimes, when you think you suck, it's because you really do! I think the cognitive error is much more common (and more extreme) on the positive side than on the ngative side.

From: [identity profile] torrilin.livejournal.com


Passengers rarely notice how fast I'm going (too fast usually). Nor do they grope for the grab bars. A lot of that is subtle speed changes and gentle turns and lane changes.

Speeding, mistiming and then running red lights, forgetting to use turn signals... they're all errors I make and they're bloody dangerous. A typical short walk, bike ride or drive shows me that *most* drivers make mistakes, and I'll see around 5 mistakes in a typical 15 minute period. So figure I get passed by 50-100 drivers? That is a 5-10% error rate, which is around what I hit. Thus, barely competent.

From: [identity profile] sartorias.livejournal.com


I lost all anger against my parents (mom in particular) destroying my stories when young when I realized that from the outside I looked just like my schizo (and eventually extremely violent, though the liquor didn't help) uncle. My inadvertent slipping over into story mode from the outside looked just like his slack-jawed, eye-fixed stare. No wonder my dad whapped me across the face when I did it at the dinner table. That, mean as it was, did teach me to stay 'present' in possible danger. Anyway, this was their way to get me not to end up like him. It was many years later before he was diagnosed as schizophrenic, and of course like many of the, he wouldn't stay with the pills: when he felt fine, he didn't need them, and when he went into "they are after me" mode, they were poison capsules the FNI had ordered in otder to enable the mafia to rub him out. The only time anyone could get him to take them was when he was in jail.

so, yeah.

I do remember struggling with the separation of story mode and reality when I was small, but this is already long enough.

From: [identity profile] rachelmanija.livejournal.com


I wonder what would have happened if they'd tried taking you to a psychiatrist rather than abusing you-- at that time period, perhaps nothing good...

Ironically, I had the opposite problem, starting when I was quite young but continuing through my mid-twenties: I did have mental problems, but everyone just thought that crying spells, suicide threats, jumping out of my skin at loud noises or unexpected touches, etc, were just the way I was, as part of my artistic temperament or something. It didn't really get through that those were symptoms of an illness rather than inherent parts of my existence until I ended up working with several people who had taken psychology classes in college, and they pointed it out rather forcefully.

From: [identity profile] sartorias.livejournal.com


Considering how crappy most psychology was in that day, it would have been worse, I suspect. But back then there was no health care, doctor visits were for extreme illness, and when my brother was finally sent to a psych court-ordered, he decided all my brother's problems with stealing and breaking into houses was because he was forced to do women's work at home, and therefore his chores should be piled onto my sister and I, who were good because we were doing work in our own sphere. Result: he gets rewarded for breaking the law, and we get extra craploads.

I have other similar stories from friends; it was a long time before I could take therapy seriously.

From: [identity profile] telophase.livejournal.com


I've had people excuse my general slobbiness - after I specifically complained that I hated it - as "You're an artist. It's OK for you."

And now with the meds, I'm learning that a large part of it is due to not being able to stay focused on one task long enough to complete it. (The rest seems to be patterns of behavior I've got ingrained as a result of said lack of focus.)

From: [identity profile] cija.livejournal.com

metaphor vs fact


I had a bit of the opposite of what people have mentioned. I was just recently talking about this to someone -- when I was very young, I thought I was a sociopath because I had no conscience: that is to say, I had no 'still, small voice' within me telling me things were right or wrong. Of course if I had brought this up to somebody they might have explained that no, you don't have to hear ACTUAL voices to have a conscience, but I had gathered from my reading that sociopathy was both incurable and impossibly shameful, so of course I couldn't mention it and get the whole business clarified. Anyway eventually I decided that I was not a sociopath after all, but really, if any parents are reading this and wondering whether to define a conscience for their kids as the sensible voice inside you that you should always listen to, I vote NO.

From: [identity profile] rachelmanija.livejournal.com

Re: metaphor vs fact


Hee! Oh dear.

Of course there's the whole Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind theory, which apparently claims that in ancient times, people really did perceive all their thought processes as external voices, which they interpreted as Gods talking to them.

From: [identity profile] vom-marlowe.livejournal.com

Re: metaphor vs fact


I've read the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind and also knew some scuttlebutt about the author (from people who knew him, classics is a very small world). Dude was crazy as a loon and probably taking some exciting medications himself, fwiw. Classicists mostly just try to ignore that book's existence, but it does make for fun discussions.

From: [identity profile] mistressrenet.livejournal.com

Re: metaphor vs fact


I'll make a note! I did that too with different things-- I remember being absolutely convinced that the way to get pregnant was to share a bed with someone of the opposite sex. I blame an episode of Joanie Loves Chachi.

From: [identity profile] sarge-5150.livejournal.com


I first remember using the following metaphor back in high school: my personality is a multi-faceted gem and I just rotate it until the right facet faces the current situation. It seemed as a good an explanation as any back then and I think it has held up well over the years. It's not perfect but it's not supposed to be.

I read an interview with Patrick Swayze (I still can't reconcile Road House (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098206/) with To Wong Foo... (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114682/)) in which he referred to his inner demons. There was something in the quote that read like literal inner demons. Thinking of my internal thought processes that don't do as I'd like as separate demons (or "daemons" for us geeks) can be a useful fiction. I think the separation of that metaphor can help bring clarity. But I don't actually think that I'm possessed by demonic beings from the nether worlds.

Being weird, it took me many years to be in any way comfortable with my weirdness. What made it harder for me and induced me to think I was crazy was that adults would define my eccentricities as dysfunctional. "Well, if my thinking prevents me from functioning, I must be crazy" went the reasoning. It took me decades to overcome those external definitions of functionality. I realized that, while I do have "normal" friends, most of my friends are labeled as "weird" but they are just as functional as the normals. It's possible to march to the beat of a different drummer and still be in the Sanity Parade.

From: [identity profile] telophase.livejournal.com


I wrote around the question - actually, the original question we were talking about and not the one you're asking here - a lot over here (http://telophase.livejournal.com/886402.html).

From: [identity profile] rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com


This is a placeholder comment to remind me to email you and [livejournal.com profile] telophase regarding my perspectives on the issue, which involve things I do not speak about in public.

From: [identity profile] homasse.livejournal.com


I read somewhere online about people who were multiple personalties simply because that was how their brains developed, not because of childhood traumas--they wanted it recognized as not ALWAYS being a mental illness, because they functioned just fine and they liked they way their brains worked. Personally, I have very distinct voices in my head with different opinions, different ways of thinking, and different "functions", if you will (I don't think I'd go so far as to call them multiple personalities, but I do refer t them as "personas", because they aren't quite seperate enough to be personalities, but they're pretty close) and I kinda like it...even if it DOES make those online personality quizzes a bitch, because depending on which persona is more prevalent, I react in wildly different ways to thing.

From: [identity profile] tekalynn.livejournal.com


Sadly, I have absolutely nothing to add to this fascinating discussion...but I LOVE _Aristoi_. Probably my favorite WJW novel.

From: [identity profile] marici.livejournal.com


A bit off topic, but is there anyone else besides me and Terry Pratchett who has a specific, non-exchangeable pronunciation for the deletions in ____shire or ____ing idiots? When I read I 'hear' rather than 'see' most of the story, but not as sounds in the normal sense, but as specific textures of silence.

From: [identity profile] sacred-sarcasm.livejournal.com


([livejournal.com profile] oursin linked here, hope you don't mind me butting in)

I do! Well, I'm not sure I'd call it a 'pronunciation' because I'm fairly sure I couldn't vocalise it, but there is a definite... gap? As you say 'a specific texture of silence'. Depending how I read (speed-read versus slow, drinking it in) I 'hear' the story. So much so that I can listen to audiobooks of books I've already read myself, because the other voice (whoever it is) sounds wrong.

From: [identity profile] http://users.livejournal.com/_swallow/


Yeah, me too-- it's also how I spell the underscore in my own name.
.

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