uncontrolled images.

[IJesusChrist]

Yeah - first time it happened to me I was coming off shrooms and clear as day someone was talking about me -

"Hes going to sleep. He can't though - he's restless."
"Yeah, whoa - is he... can he hear us?"
"No man - well maybe. Can you hear us?"

... Do I respond? I'm crazy. This is fucking crazy. I'm going crazy.

"Shit he can hear us - he thinks he's crazy. How can he hear us...?"

...etc.

Imagine that while coming off your first boom trip :?.

But to compliment that with something nicer - I was once extremely high off my ass and about 6am in the morning going to bed, and I was staring at my bed sheets - I felt a bit weird - like something was happening to me, like I was approaching a wave of a trip and all of the sudden boom, I was on the moon. I was looking at a lunar lander - clear as day! I was on the fucking moon! But if I moved my head or my vision it went away, and I was back in my room. I tried it again and yup - back on the moon - looking at earth. IT was amazing though, thats for sure.

The reason I know I'm not becoming psychotic or schizophrenic is mostly because I think I am! The definition of being psychotic is you don't think you are, right? It's hard to bite down on that, but it's true - what we're both experiencing (when we think we're going crazy) is just fear. Fear of fear of fear, etc...

It was also a relief to realize what was really going on - my brain is going into dream mode, and I'm aware of it. Its close to lucid dreaming but your more grounded, and still are like "wait, what the fuck is happening - I'm awake."

But glad I could extend some comfort - if you think you're going crazy, you definitely aren't. :wink:

 

[DaZeD]

Wow man, your'e one level higher then i am.

You could pick up on a conversation and it was about you?
And they actually respond?

I never had that, i could only pick up on a random conversation, not about me, and without any interaction from aither side, yea, i know if i would have something equal to that when i came off of shrooms i wouldn't doubt that i actually did it, i'd be convinced that i reached the first level of insanity.

But your'e right, fear is something to fear.

The brain is some hell of an organ, the mind is extremely subtile, and we don't know that much about it, we might know more about space or the ocean then about what our minds are capable of and what's going on in it.

Little sidenote, all these things i discribed happened mostly when i'm just sober.

I also have these totally fucked up dreams, i can't remember a single day that i didn't dremt for years, and yea, i know all people will say "but we dream every night", but not in my book, if you don't know you have dremt, then you cant say you did.

It's making me feel so damn tired, the night almost eats more energy then daytime, i wan't it to stop, it's not cool anymore.

Anyways, i'm glad you're more fucked up then i am, it makes me feel more normal.

....Sorry, i'm just kiddin'.

 

[Crimzen]

The reason I know I'm not becoming psychotic or schizophrenic is mostly because I think I am! The definition of being psychotic is you don't think you are, right?

Actually, i had a friend in highschool who was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, he knew he was losing it before he was diagnosed
Ive heard the same thing but i guess it cant be completely true, i think you're just batshit crazy if you dont know it.. and maybe just a little nuts if you can see it happening?

I've had a problem with reading too much into what people are saying, hearing double entendres and analogies and metaphores in peoples speech which, when i reflect on it, im sure they dont mean to say what i think theyre saying
And even talking to myself in my head, being overly negative and then realizing it and thinking the thoughts are not my own and freaking out a bit about it, when one inner voice starts talking to the other and you cant tell which one is 'you' then it causes some problems
however eckhart tolle's videos on youtube (which i found via this site) have helped me in this regard to know that im not my thoughts and this in turn helps me to not identify with these thoughts and so theres no schism

ive always been a bit off my rocker but since last year things have elevated i seem to be getting back on course though

 

[IJesusChrist]

HAHAHA!

That's funny about the dreams, I love having dreams. If your dreams are fucked up it usually means you are worried about something, or you have a heavy weight, so let it out - whats wrong?

I know you used to post about feeling bad and what not, or atleast you did a year ago, I think you have a bit of the bug... It comes and goes with all of us who have some introvert properties, we just can't stop thinking (about ourselves!)

You need a vacation man, you need some change. Go move or something. The best thing I ever did when I started to feel like shit was get the hell out of dodge. I left and I hated coming back, but I had to due to family, but now - I'm more aware of what bothered me that its ok. Life is a trip, holy jesus. I doubt this helped at all lol. Yay me! :wink:

How long have you been sober?

And crimzen - eckhart is a very wise man. Your friend - where is he now? The thing is schizophrenics enter into a stage where they hear voices and believe them completely (usually) and don't question it, kind of like a high, then they come down and start to worry. It's a complicated issue, and to be honest I think schizophrenia is more of a word for those who don't know whats going on... Or maybe I'm just belittling the severity of schizophrenia. It's a complicated issue, :wink:

 

[Mescaline]

People suffering from schizophrenia CAN be conscious of the fact that they are 'crazy', no matter the severity. Of course it is true that the more severe the psychotic episode, the less likely the person is aware of his or her condition at the time, but it's not without exceptions. Also in the beginning stages of schizophrenia, it is not too far fetched to be thinking one is going crazy.

Ontop of that there are different manners in which the psychotic episodes express themselves, regarding frequency, intensity and duration.
-The 'least severe' is an acute psychotic episode, standing on its own, happening just once, and never again.
-Then there are recurring actue episodes, wherein the person is 'normal' in the periodes in between the episodes (or is just suffering from so called 'negative' symptoms, which are things that 'normal' people would be able to do, but the schizophrenic person couldn't, for example dysregulated speech or lack of emotional expression; flattened affect (this is in contrast with positive symptoms, such as hallucinations and delusions, which 'normal' people do not have, obviously )).
-Next there is recurring chronic psychosis, which refers to a chronic psychotic state but with more and less severe periodes. Best comparison I can think of is that the more severe periodes would be the 'peaks' of trips, and the less severe being the come-up or come-down.
-And lastly, the most severe, is chronic lasting psychosis, wherein the person is in a full blown psychotic state pretty much all the time.

Depending on which category 'you' would fit in, you can imagine it becoming less likely a person is aware of their psychotic state / metnal condition the more severe the type of schizophrenia is.

The thing is schizophrenics enter into a stage where they hear voices and believe them completely (usually) and don't question it, kind of like a high, then they come down and start to worry. It's a complicated issue, and to be honest I think schizophrenia is more of a word for those who don't know whats going on... Or maybe I'm just belittling the severity of schizophrenia. It's a complicated issue, :wink:

That is pretty much spot on. Especially "It's a complicated issue" . The psychological community doesn't really have a clue about what they are dealing with, when confronted with people suffering from a psychosis, but a lot do pretend they do know, in my experience.
Schizophrenia is indeed a lable that is put on people who suffer from symptoms involving mainly hallucinations, delusions and paranoid thoughts (usually as a consequence of the delusions or hallucinations). The thing is, that nobody is REALLY looking into what causes these symptoms.
The main theory now is a biological one, wherein the psychotic person is suffering from a dysregulation of certain neurotransmitters (of which again there are three different theories, one involving too much dopamine, another too little, and then some involving serotonine and glutamate or GABA or something.. I would have to look it up to be sure... but it just shows they don't really have a clue as to what really causes it, tbh). This being said, noone really knows whether there might be another pre-existing factor which causes this dysregulation, or whether the dysregulation itself, just randomly 'happening', is the cause. And of course, if all 'schizophrenics' actually suffer from a dysregulation, do they all have the same, or are there maybe different kinds of dysregulations, implying different mental conditions... And then another point of critique is whether this 'psychotic' state is really a mental illness, or whether it just is a non-ordinary state of consciousness, take for example Stanislav Grof's approach, calling it a psychospiritual crisis, implying it is not a real "illness" (and this might acutally be said of some other mental conditions, aside from schizophrenia, as well, imo).
To me what is commonly referred to as schizophrenia, is a big joke, as you could just as well refer to it as "anything crazy/insane!". It is waaay to vague a condition to call it anything specific at the moment, which of course does not mean it doesn't exist.. In my personal opinion, I think, there are many, MANY, different kinds of schizophrenia/psychosis, with different causes, different natures, and which require different treatments.

Anyway, to go slightly back on topic again :lol:, regarding those voices, I wouldn't worry at all. Personally, a long time ago, I remember thinking in another persons voice for a very long time, and it actually started to irritate me as well, as I didn't like the sound of that voice that much haha. I still don't know why it happened, and why for so long (I don't exactly remember for how long, but I'd say for at least a couple of months, and my best guess as to its cause would be 'stress', in a very general sense of the word, but I'm not certain of this at all). But, well, it passed, and hasn't occured since. As long as you do not get caught up in it, or that it starts making demands or something in that manner, there's nothing to worry about. It's when they start controlling your life, or influencing it (in a bad way), that you should start worrying (on a side note: you could be totally out of your mind, seeing stuff everywhere and thinking you were Ceasar himself, but if it is not really bothering you or the people in your surrounding, and your are absolutely capable of taking care of yourself, and able to keep a job, then you would not (should not) be diagnosed with any psychotic condition, even if you actually have all those symptoms of schizophrenia; so of course the same goes for hearing voices as well).
Something to conclude with, to ease your worries, if you have any left ^^: About one-third of the world popualtion hears voices in their head, which are not their own.

 

[IJesusChrist]

Yeah, I was worried - I no longer am - it is just that: a worry, a fear.

I think that most schizophrenics are being opened to a spiritual awakening of some sort. I don't want to condemn or condone it as a good or bad thing, but it is not an illness. You don't "catch" schizophrenia and as far as we all know it's not caused by any virus, bacteria, or the like - it's psychological in my book. And all things psychological with great impacts are learning experiences. I think when people lose control of schizophrenia they have lost control of themselves, given up in a way - significantly due to our societies standards.

Immidiately you get labelled that something is wrong with you, don't listen to the voices, they are fake, you're sick, you need to be treated.

It shouldn't be that way. If you have a condition where you start thinking radically out of the norm there is a reason for it, and the person weilding it needs to take responsibility to understand his/her ownself instead of putting their lives in a psychologist or neurologist who doesn't know whats going on. These experiences are introverted and need to be dealt with as such - realize, understand, and accept. If you don't... you'll go crazy!

 

[Crimzen]

my old highschool mate, last time i saw him he was doing ok, no drugs or alcohol anymore (we used to over abuse these things) and he's working as a tradesman, but we didnt get very deep into conversation as it was kind of a passing by meeting
I have my own idea as to how it started for him, his father killed himself when he was a very young boy and he was the one who found the body out in the shed, a traumatic experience no matter who you are but for a young boy...
He also tried to kill himself (which led to his diagnosis as he was sent to a mental institution)

All of our group of friends knew he had some kind of mental problems, it was like a little joke we had 'swim's a psycho' because he would act out sometimes, for example one time he had a box cutter in class and he threatened my other mate who called his bluff and said 'do it' and put out his hand...to which he slashed his hand pretty deeply

He also had a bunch of guinea pigs running free in his backyard which he would kill from time to time....
i hear thats a major sign of a psychotic?

 

[DaZeD]

Jezus, i'm stressed no doubt, but i feel good overall, quiting cannabis (well, not completely) was a smart choise, it made me feel like me again, i lost myself a long time ago, and i'm coming back ever since i quit, once a month i'll smoke a joint and i really appreciate it then, but i won't be careless with weed anymore.I stopped like maybe 10 months ago i guess, maybe a year.

Dreams can be fun too, but hell, not every single day, and especially not when i'm getting attacked, this morning i had around 3 dreams, every time i wake up and try to sleep again i have a dream, and i was attacked bny some nut with a knife, i was able to take it from him and stab him in the back, but it wasn't fun to stab a knife in a mans back, even though not a real man, the first stab he yelped, it confused me, but i did stab him 3 more times untill he was disabled (read dead).

I guess stress i the problem, i meditate every day now for 20 minutes, but still i can't have a good night rest, but i won't whine about that here.I can be pretty damn introvert at times, true, you'd make a good shrink.

 

[IJesusChrist]

My girlfriend has the same problem - continuously having dreams where her friends and family die or people try to kill her, lots of gore and what not... she hasn't brought it up in a while though, so I think she just got over it.

I had a bought where I had dreams every night, but they were almost always fantastic. I've had two nightmares in the past week though - not fun at all. Throws your morning off. Last nights was really weird. It was like suffering, but in an abstract form. Just there... like an empath's horror.

But, yeah you sound ok, I was just worried - sometimes continuous bad dreams can be a sign of major stress. I hope they go away or you find whats causing them - it might be right in front of you!

 

[DaZeD]

Sorry for the off topic, but since your'e talking about dreams i guess it's ok?

I think it's just stress and bad sleep, i do long hours at work and i think way too much, meditation is the solution, but at work i just can't keep my mind under control, i guess it just needs more practice.

This morning i actually had a cool dream, i was wandering around in a amazing city, everything was just perfect, lot's of trees, grass, sitting benches, parks, the houses and gardens looked very open, like the people there had no worries and trusted everyone.

I don't think dreams always tell things, it's like a second life to me.

Nightmares aren' fun, i know, it's like you wake up and had no sleep at all.

I dunno why people dream, they say it's because we need to process at night what our mind couldn't at day, but "bad" dreams don't seem to fit in. :?

 

[Mescaline]

All of our group of friends knew he had some kind of mental problems, it was like a little joke we had 'swim's a psycho' because he would act out sometimes, for example one time he had a box cutter in class and he threatened my other mate who called his bluff and said 'do it' and put out his hand...to which he slashed his hand pretty deeply

He also had a bunch of guinea pigs running free in his backyard which he would kill from time to time....
i hear thats a major sign of a psychotic?

Actually those are risk factors or signs of later development of an anti-social personality disorder (a.k.a. in extreme forms: psychopaths). But they're not signs of being (or becoming) psychotic as far as I know :b. Sounds like he's doing fine though. It has to be said, though, that psychopaths do quite often have very charismatic personalities, and are very capable of manipulating people to their liking, making use of this charisma. Also they are mostly capable of taking care of themselves and keeping a job. What 'they' lack though is empathy, thus often they are not really aware what harm their actions cause, or could cause, others, in the emotional sense. It is also more often than not other people referring them to a psychologist, as they themselves mostly don't have any problem with their being. I sometimes see this disorder as the "Ultimate ego trip"-disorder, as I personally have this little theory that people differ in the degree of 'ego' they possess (or rather how much control it has over them). In that sense the psychopath is pretty much pure Ego, making him identify only with himself, only caring about himself, and having no clue as to what other people might be feeling, or even caring about them in general. I'm not completely sure as to how correct this theory is though.

I dunno why people dream, they say it's because we need to process at night what our mind couldn't at day, but "bad" dreams don't seem to fit in. :?

Yes, it is what 'they' think, but to be honest, again, nobody really has a clue. Also what you just mentioned is a potential function of dreaming, not per se the reason that we dream.
As to the function, opinions are divided whether it has any, although in my opinion, it would be rather strange if we 'possess' something so inherit, and with such a long existance, that has no function. It might just be a way to facilitate a 'smooth' transition from a sleeping to a waking state, or it could be what you mentioned yourself. In the latter case you have to keep in mind the way this 'information' is processed at night might be in a completely different context than its initial context. What you experience as the (bad) dream is a mix of loads of different experiences that have to be processed that night, and together they coincidentally (or not completely coincidentally of course, if you go further and theorize that there is a reason that dreams are good or bad) form that specific bad dream.
For the cause of dreaming different theories have been developed. One states that we do not acutally dream at all. What we experience as dreams are acutally just "memories", which are created at the moment of waking up. It is imagined as having a big storage of 'casettes' ready for use, and at the moment of waking up, the casette most suited to the noise and other qualities of the surrounding environment, is chosen and played back, resulting in the feeling of having had a 'dream'. Those 'casettes' in turn are theorized to be created during REM sleep out of stimuli occuring in the environment (but not experienced at that moment; the dream experience has never been 'in consciousness').
Another theory states that we actually DO experience a dream during sleep itself, based on external and internal stimuli. The difference with the prior theory being mainly that no casettes are being composed during sleep, but that those casettes are played back immediately on creation (thus there really are no casettes).
Personally I'm more an advocate of the second theory, as it fits better into the phenomenon of lucid dreaming. But then again one could say that lucid dreaming is something completely different, and doesn't follow the same mechanisms as ordinary dreams. In that case, there is no way to tell which one of those two is the 'right' one. Maybe neither of them are, and we have yet to discover it ^^.

As to why you are dreaming so much, I agree with you that it is most probably due to what you identified as 'excessive thought' or stress. As this shows you already have a lot on your mind during the day, and then upon going to sleep, this simply goes on, resulting in dreams. Taking this further, the reason you have so many bad dreams might be because you have this sort of 'overload' happening during sleep, wherin the information just becomes one big confusing mess to the 'mind' (or whatever), upon which your 'mind' responses by making it have an unpleasant nature (or rather this just happens as a cosequence of it being an 'overload'); as the mind is stressed, and wants to 'resist' the overload/confusion. Going this far, the next step of actually correlating your 'stabbing an appraoching dangerous man'-dream experience to the resisting against overload and confusion, is not that hard to make.
Of course this is all highly theoretical, and I might be seriously wrong about this :b. If it's not though, the way to fix it would be to 'slow down' your life (mind), to meditate a lot and to get sufficient sleep. But you're already doing this I gathered, so it will probably fade with time

 

[IJesusChrist]

So it is your job! See? You admit it but don't realize how much it affects you.

Jobs are the leading cause of everything, if you get my drift.

I hope your job is decent. Don't get the delusion that you can't leave. I hate that; people become afraid to leave their occupation, sometimes its warranted but it most often is not.

I won't get into an economic discussion but I sure as hell could!

As far as dreams, I see dreams very similar to my drug experiences. The actual conscious experience of dreams and drugs are very different - but there are subtleties that are so basic between the two I can very much relate them. It is not something I can readily explain because I don't have a vocabulary extensive enough (literally, don't have the words to explain). Sometimes I get glimpses of the background - the noise of consciousness that when really viewed speaks volumes to me, but it is a rarity and I fear of losing that ability - which is where psychodelics come in. They seem to create large amounts of synapses - spurring learning and better observation.

Woo way off topic haha. Lot on my mind today, but in a very positive manner.

 

[DaZeD]

Hey, it's your thread man, you can go offtopic!

I like my job, it's just me, i'm easily stressed i guess.
I really need a vacation, 4 months to go and i'll have two weeks off.
And good nightsleep would make a big change too.

To go back on topic, (oh, as i checked my writtings and the threads title i see we're not in the meditation thread )meditation is the key, i can feel it, it's scientifically proven aswell, (for what that's worth), the brainwaves (alpha waves) are slowed down when one meditates, and when we sleep the same thing happens, or when we wake up our alpha waves are still low, a person who meditates a lot can keep his mind in that state, well, more or less, i don't know if i'll ever be able to do that, but if i could i'm sure my nightrest would be a lot better, every one dreams, also people who are practiced in meditation, but i think they sleep a lot deeper, i could do the same with sleeping pills, but that's not the way, and it's not smart either.


This thread is totally off topic...

 

[Crimzen]

ah yes thank you mescaline i meant to say psychopathic
from what little i know about the subject a psychopath, because of their absolute lack of empathy, cant feel love
(or so i once heard)