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Comment by mind-blight | Hacker News Reader

If you don't mind me asking, do you have any cues or techniques that you use to help differentiate between a delusion and something real? Or are the kind of delusions you have consistent to the point where you've already categorized and figured out how to deal with them?

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The way I read his post is that categorizing and differentiating is fundamentally not possible, because sensory input cannot be trusted, period. This makes sense to me because part of what can drive you mad is the constant questioning, so one way to short-circuit this is to simply not play the game.

It's zero trust networking for your brain, and you're asking "but how do you decide which ip addresses are safe?". That's the neat part, you don't.

Yes, that is it. But sometimes I can get clues to differentiate. Another example. The water coming out of my bathtub looked really really blue. So blue that I called the water company. The woman came out and had that look on her face and just said, your water looks fine. I have learned that the look is a clue for me to not trust myself and let go and trust other people. It is sort of like being blind having to trust people to tell you the right way to go.

> If you don't mind me asking, do you have any cues or techniques that you use to help differentiate between a delusion and something real?

Nothing is real. Not for me or for you. That is my greatest insight of my illness.

You all have very narrow band schizophrenia, mine is just more, uhm, loose.

So if I feel like some shadow agency is tracking me I just say; "So what.", If I think what I picked up from the supermarket I just say; "So what if I die." I really had to stop caring about dying or suffering.

The only time I know when I am alone in my perceptions is when I ask someone. For example, I was sitting in a restaurant and I these four Mexican workers were turned around staring at me. I asked my friend if they were and she said no. Now I do not know if I am able to pick up on something, maybe I could somehow tell they were talking about me adn my brain made me aware by making it look like they were looking at me. But again, so what is my answer.

The day before that I felt my dead great uncle was telling me to go to Dillon, MT to make amends for him getting arrested there in 1954. So it was a tough week for me.

I've noticed from my family member that their brain seems to connect more dots, things are more abstract for them. So basically very good for creative work, they are good with words and novel ideas, but also sucks when you attribute behaviors and intentions when they are not there.

> I've noticed from my family member that their brain seems to connect more dots

I've seen that too. It's as if the brain's "saliency threshold" is set too low - suddenly, there are no coincidences; everything is relevant and connected and has personal significance. There's no clear dividing lines between logic and intuition and madness; many of the people we perceive as smartest or most creative are somewhere in the middle.

"saliency threshold", I like that. Yes, this is it. But what is remarkable is that I can get people to believe my delusional thoughts are true because they are so creative and convincing!

The teleological thinking is the worst. And actually so is the creativity. It is fun but it is hard to make a dollar, and also, not everyone likes creative thought because it destroys paradigms.

I don’t want to belittle a condition that is clearly real, but if it helps I think you’re a 100% normal human.

All people have neurotic moments (That someone is looking at them, or believe in some mild conspiracy or whatever). The people who say they aren’t are lying or good at hiding it.

Someone close to me and typically pretty rational has one where she thought bugs were in her bed after repeatedly bug bombing the house. Half the State of New Jersey think we are in the midst of a drone invasion. Thank god we invented the scientific method and other tools for reasoning that can compensate for our flawed perceptions.

> you’re a 100% normal human

100% normal people do not get involuntarily committed to a psych ward. (Well, sometimes they do, but that is another story) The disorder comes when it disrupts your daily life. The thing you mentioned do not do that. Mine did.

There are not 100% normal people. And pathology is essentially multidimensional even though we reduce it to one, and labelled people fallaciously as "sick" or "well."

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