Schizophrenia and psychic ability

[Psychotic Jehovah]

How often have people who laid claims on psychic ability been suffering from schizophrenia?

I for one, in a corner of my mind, believe to be God. I still think some day I will be recognised as a God, in a corner of my mind. This is just plain out honest. I hide all psychotic garbage from the public.

How real do you think is psychic ability for the schizophrenic? I have had episodes where I could do very strange things to things I was seeing other people weren't. There is at least some truth in the idea that schizophrenics have "some form" of psychic ability, if even only in their psychosis.

However, does this mean that when they can be observed (in a psychosis) or possessed (psychic ability), they can also exist?

 

[MRC_Hans]

Welcome. A good question. I'm afraid the answer has to be a little blunt.

Consider: You have a mental disorder that makes you perceive yourself as God (congratulations for getting it under such excellent control, btw.). What does this tell you about the reliability of your perceptions? I understand, of course, that just as the God deeption, you also keep a feeling of truth about other things you have perceived, but I see that you have a rational side too. Using that rational side, what can you conclude about other perceptions you have ahd of paranormality?

And to your opening question: I believe that most paranormal expriences are due to what we could call normal deceptions, but there is no doubt a fair fraction that have their roots in various forms of mental disturbance.

Best regards, Hans

 

[Katana]

Building on what Hans said, to be able to claim some psychic ability the way that a Sylvia Browne does requires some organized, albeit deceitful, thought. Some psychotic individuals may genuinely believe that they have psychic abilities, but they probably won't be able to convince anyone else of that fact.

However, self-proclaimed psychics who pray on and profit from the gullible, while morally bankrupt, are likely to be sane even if those who buy into their nonsense are not.

 

[madmonk76]

When I was schizophrenic I was convinced I felt what everyone around me was feeling. I also thought I could hear their thoughts, and was broadcasting mine to everyone around me. None of it was actually happening.

 

[Psychotic Jehovah]

Building on what Hans said, to be able to claim some psychic ability the way that a Sylvia Browne does requires some organized, albeit deceitful, thought. Some psychotic individuals may genuinely believe that they have psychic abilities, but they probably won't be able to convince anyone else of that fact.

However, self-proclaimed psychics who pray on and profit from the gullible, while morally bankrupt, are likely to be sane even if those who buy into their nonsense are not.

It is quite bizzare how people plan these things out to make money.

When I was schizophrenic I was convinced I felt what everyone around me was feeling. I also thought I could hear their thoughts, and was broadcasting mine to everyone around me. None of it was actually happening.

I believed a simmilar thing. Appears to be common for schizophrenics to believe in broadcasting.

I did indeed perceive strange things, but stayed rational. However, this (psychosis) does help me believe there is more between heaven and earth.

 

[Ryan O'Dine]

Snip...

I did indeed perceive strange things, but stayed rational. However, this (psychosis) does help me believe there is more between heaven and earth.

The same kind of thing happens to people who’ve used psychotropic drugs. My layman’s guess would be that such experiences give special insight into how deeply complex a brain is. Instead of concluding that, however, the experiencer concludes that insights are being gained about the actual world.

It seems to me that mistaking what’s going on inside for what’s going on outside -- even after the fact -- are what many mental illnesses and drug experiences are all about.

 

[Belz...]

I assume schizophreniacs (is that how you spell it ?) have roughly the same amount of psychic ability as other people.

Namely, zero.

 

[grayman]

This topic seems like it may relate to this thread.

 

[skeptifem]

'magical thinking' is a symptom of schitzophrenia, so the majority of schitzophrenics believe in some sort of woo as a reality. if anything that makes their beliefs about psychic ability less meaningful.

 

[Slimething]

I for one, in a corner of my mind, believe to be God. I still think some day I will be recognised as a God, in a corner of my mind.

Not a chance. I was here first and I'm not going anywhere!

On the serious side, I have a sister who suffers from schizophrenia. She is a seeker but, thankfully, her malady does not extend to delusions of grandeur as much as paranoia. When she occassionally decides she is cured and skips her meds, it's a real struggle to get her back on them. In her mind, she's OK and you've just become one of the multitude who plot against her. She even imagines she sees people put stuff in her food to poison her.

What I'm getting at is that schizophrenia seems to empower the afflicted in believing anything and making up a complex separate reality to confirm their illusions. There is no coaxing them back without proper medical care.

Yes, their claims may coincide but schizophrenics are sufferers while paranormal con artists are evil.

 

[Solus]

I thought was an avatar of god once... Although I was suffering from what's called a manic episode. Remember, what's real has to pass through a flawed system, namely the human brain. Those that suffer from severe mental illness are further from reality. I recommend psychiatric help to anyone who experiences delusional symptoms like you describe.

As for myself if my psychotic state were true, I'd be ruling the world right about now. Since I'm not, what does that tell you? I thought I was a genius too, that's a funny one!

Good news is there is medication that can help. You have to want to be helped though.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

How real do you think is psychic ability for the schizophrenic?

I think your language here hits a key point--one that you seem to be aware of.

When you say something is real for an individual that's another way of saying something is not objectively real but only seems real to a person suffering from a delusion.

Even leaving actual mental illness aside, everyone at one time or another suffers from misperception, optical illusions (including pareidolia among many others), failed memory and the like. I even used to have vivid visual hallucinations when I was a child, though I've never had any *diagnosed* mental illness. (I suspect that sort of thing is more common than most people think.)

It's pretty easy to say someone else's far-fetched anecdote is just one of these cases, but it requires some discipline to admit the limits of one's own susceptibility to being deceived.

 

[madmonk76]

I believed a simmilar thing. Appears to be common for schizophrenics to believe in broadcasting.

I did indeed perceive strange things, but stayed rational. However, this (psychosis) does help me believe there is more between heaven and earth.

I found it difficult because I was not a believer when I started hallucinating.
But all of my perceptions seemed to be pointing to the exact opposite of what I believed. I never really lost sight of the fact that I was definitely losing my mind, and couldn't trust my perceptions, but at the same time it became not only difficult but tiring to differenciate my hallucinations from reality... if that makes any sense.

Also, a lot of my friends at the time were not as skeptical as I was, or am now, for that matter. I can think of one or two of them who were convinced I was not crazy, but "overwhelmed". They were quite sure that I WAS psychic. That sort of thing does not help when you're trying to find your grip on reality in the midst of all your senses abandoning you.

 

[Sleepy]

I'm not schizophrenic but I have had three drug-induced psychotic episodes requiring hospitalization.

A big hint that it's all in your head is that every psychosis patient at the hospital had constructed their own little universe which differed from the others...

 

[Diamond]

I'm not schizophrenic but I have had three drug-induced psychotic episodes requiring hospitalization.

A big hint that it's all in your head is that every psychosis patient at the hospital had constructed their own little universe which differed from the others...

The "why have you put me with all these loonies?" question comes to mind.

I have never had a schizophrenic or hallucinatory experience but I mistrust my observations regularly enough to check with others.

Madmonk's experiences raise another question - what use are people who reinforce your delusions rather than help you deal with them?

 

[madmonk76]

Madmonk's experiences raise another question - what use are people who reinforce your delusions rather than help you deal with them?

I think it is an important question.
It had it's good and bad points, to be honest.
As I said, there were times when I found it hard to be able to tell the difference between reality and what I was hallucinating, and people who bought into the whole idea that I was actually psychic could make it even more difficult, at times. The upside was that they didn't treat me like I was insane, which, after 4 years of constant hallucinations, was nice. Most of my friends just disappeared.

I am still very close to a friend of mine who is a complete woo.
I'm not sure what she really thought about my psychosis when it was happening, but I do know that she called me a few times a week, we'd be on the phone for hours. She's ask me for relationship advice. She'd ask me if I'd seen anything "interseting" that day, or if the voices had said anything new. I can see how this would sound a bit silly, but it was nice to be treated normally by somebody. She always believed I'd be ok, sooner or later.


I think it's a very tight line to walk, tho. To be there for somebody who is suffering from delusions without either alienating them or feeding inot the delusions.