I'm going schizophrenic

[jamie]

to be honest, from what you have outlined this doesnt sound like schizophrenia to me, other than you hearing voices or whispering or whatever..maybe you can go into more detail about that? I hear voices too, while falling asleap for instance or sometimes while just very relaxed and daydreaming, like various echos running through my mind..my point is that that is a vague statement to make, especially on the internet and expecting answers here to your problems is unrealistic.

I dont believe in HPPD I will admit that right now. I dont believe in such a "disorder"..I believe in persisting perceptuial effects sure, but I dont agree with the disorder classification persay. I think it is more about the individual and how they respond to such things more than anything else. Psychedelics make you aware of more things that were already there IMO, how you deal with that afterwords is up to you, and successful integraton is a must.

Everything else you have outlined just sort of makes me think you havent properly integrated your experiable. Questioning the nature/validity of reality and being etc is not qualifiable as schizophrenia I dont think. I have had full blown schizophrenics in my family and trust me, they wouldnt be comming here posting like that sounding so coherant. You dont sound crazy or incoherant. You do seem to be overanalyzing the implications of your existential ponderings though, to a degree beyond it's applicable relevance. You are here in this world either way..go ahead and question yours and it's existance all you want, but not to the point where you become so paranoid that you begin to act as if it's not real to the degree of which you still seem to inhabit this existance either way.

I dont think you are schizophrenic but I do think you are having some sort of reintegration crisis. If I were you I would find a decent psychotherapist who has experience with psychedelics and is open to the use/discussion surrounding these experiences without judgement so that you can work on integrating what you have gone through and become a more grounded individual.

 

[ElusiveMind]

Just wanted to post a quick reply saying that reading some of the other Nexian posts will really help. Also, do seek professional help too... always a wise decision.

As for knowing whether reality is "real" or not... here's a simple trick that AFOAF uses when going through a bad trip or post trip..... just remember....

"I think, therefore I am" - Rene Descartes

Pce,
ElusiveMind

 

[obliguhl]

I have had full blown schizophrenics in my family and trust me, they wouldnt be comming here posting like that sounding so coherant.

This.
I was schizophrenic for a year or two in my teen years. I thought someone implanted a control switch in my brain and that i was trapped in some sort of timehole. I also saw evil version of myself in the mirror and stuff...very scary. I also knew a shizophrenic girl and she was acting very very weird and had confusing thought processes noone could really understand.

I also hear voices while falling asleep. I think that's quite normal.

life's fascinating.

 

[Ice House]

Integration takes time, it can take a long time. IMO you will never be the same person you were pre-DMT and thats OK. You are now a person with many more perspectives on life. Problem is your getting bombarded with all those perspectives all at once. Integration takes time. You are ok.

Do you need to see a mental health professional? Maybe.

The quesion you must ask yourself is not weather or not you can understand whats going on with these new feelings and experiences. You must ask yourself weather or not you can move on and pick up where you left off before DMT. Can you carry on with your life and allow some time to integrate your experience?

Have you forgotten who you were? Have you forgotten how you were?

If you cant move on with your life because of this then, yes, you do need to see a psychiatrist or psychologist.

It takes time.

 

[Jin]

kinkyking ,
awareness can be a very powerful force , and many cannot handle it well ( including me , i am really afraid of awareness as total awareness of the universe is not to be laughed at , that is why psychadelics don't last forever )
thoughts can really make us crazy since we have no control on them , philosophy has its downside and the mind can literally be made to overthink
i would ask you to not worry and relax a bit if these are just thoughts that are causing you to worry , if you are not causing harm to yourself or others , or running nude on the street or some other disasterous activity then just relax
but if you find your body and hands moving out of your control , your legs running when you want to sit or possiblly you wake up in a strange village far away from home , then please immediately seek medical and proffesional help
just chill and try to enjoy existence i would say but if you need to then do seek proffessional help
enjoy the moment
praise the lord

 

[droplet]

if there is one book that ever helped me with an existential crisis its "Remember Be Here NOW" by Ram DAS!!!!

get it if you are having a serious problem and i promise it will help you

http://www.amazon.com/Remember-Here-Now-Ram-Dass/dp/0517543052

 

[SKA]

So how are you doing now KinkyKing? Feeling any better?
If you are still convinced we, nexians, too are illusions; At least we're kind and wise Illusions more than willing to help you.
I am amazed by how incredibly wise and kind many Nexians are. Enoon's innitial reaction was very wise and clearminded.

There's nothing Schizophenic about having an existential crisis, just don't take your own thoughts and worries too serious and your downward spiral will soon again turn into an upward spiral. "Downward spiral" is an overused term. People should become more familiar with the "upward spiral".

What I would like to say to you about Existance is perfectly explained in this short Zen Koan;

82. Nothing Exists

Yamaoka Tesshu, as a young student of Zen, visited one master after another. He called upon Dokuon of Shokoku.

Desiring to show his attainment, he said: "The mind, Buddha, and sentient beings, after all, do not exist. The true nature of phenomena is emptiness.
There is no relaization, no delusion, no sage, no mediocrity. There is no giving and nothing to be received."

Dokuon, who was smoking quietly, said nothing. Suddenly he whacked Yamaoka with his bamboo pipe. This made the youth quite angry.

"If nothing exists," inquired Dokuon, "where did this anger come from?"

 

[kinkyking]

Yes I've been reading about integration before, but what is integration really? I don't get the idea, I need integration to be explained for me. possibly with a good example. Because I don't know how I shall integrate my experiences.

I'm in my very early 20s, and read somewhere that's exactly when people begin to develop schizophrenia, and that freaked me up and reassured me about the problem. You're right, thinking too much about schizophrenia will turn you into one eventually. I shall not overlook seeking professional help if needed but don't take this all serious inside my mind as well. like constantly being paranoid about being actually somewhere else but thinking being somewhere else. Yes sometimes I really worry about being in another place (like in university) but while I'm at home. I tell myself what if I'm having a delusion of being at home and actually I'm in university right now, acting weird and all the students laughing at me.

The other problem is I want to touch everything to make sure it exists, not with my hands, I don't trust my body anymore because I've learned the body is not mine, during a psychedelic experience one might lose the sense of body, I began to learn after my experience, that I don't own any car, house, knives, or any other objects, not even my own body, the only real thing that we own is some fragments of our mind, that's the only thing that remains with us (or precisely saying, is us itself) in a full blown experience.
So I wish I could touch objects with my mind, with myself, to make sure they're real.

The last problem and most freakish is moments of strangeness. these mostly happen at night times. for example it's night and I'm at home with the family, a family member is talking to me, everything is normal, suddenly in a blink of eye, the family member who's talking to me become unfamiliar to me. I'm still aware that he's my brother, but I lose the familiarity sense in his face, like he's an stranger and that's the first time I'm seeing him, that's cool in some ways because I can have a fresh look at his face and observe the details without the "filter of familiarity" which makes us bypassing details, but very freaky as well when I think about the possiblity of this, growing into more serious stuff by time, like not being able to recognize the friends and family in the future.

 

[SKA]

KinkyKing,

I will go with your assumption that you're somewhere else than you percieve to be a little. Let's say you're not behind your PC reading this, but actually in a Classroom acting all wierd.
Let's say fellow students are laughing at you, cause you think you're at home reading this post on this forum; Does it matter? So what if they are laughhing at you. You ARE having the experience of reading this at home on your PC screen now; I would say it is real enough. Real to you. How else could you experience it? I would say that, allthough people can interpret an experience wrongly, there is no such thing as false experience.

Even if you are delusioned out of your mind right now; does it matter? Do you experience sitting in a classroom and students laughing at you? The experience of being laughed at in a classroom is merely a thought; A possibility you ponder. It takes place 100% in your head.
However reading this message on this forum is not just merely in your head; you're experiencing it now. Even if this experience too is an illusion; It is the only experience you're truely having. This is my defenition of "Real". I consider night time dream experiences to be just as real as waking life experiences. They may not be "real" in the physical, waking-state sense of that word, but they are defenitely Real in one way or another. If an experience would not be real, you couldn't possibly have it.
Perhaps it would help if you learned to draw a line between your Experiences and your Interpretations of those Experiences.

Can you tell any difference between the delusional classroom experience & the experience of reading this post on your PC at home?

 

[I am.]

it's always been my belief that if you think you're crazy, you're not.

 

[Bill Cipher]

Let's say fellow students are laughing at you, cause you think you're at home reading this post on this forum; Does it matter? So what if they are laughhing at you. You ARE having the experience of reading this at home on your PC screen now; I would say it is real enough. Real to you. How else could you experience it? I would say that, allthough people can interpret an experience wrongly, there is no such thing as false experience.

Even if you are delusioned out of your mind right now; does it matter?

Well, that's a little preposterous. We're wired into consensus reality for very good reasons. It keeps us from stepping in front of buses while we think we're on a beach in Tahiti.

Clearly, this guy is not all that comfortable with this new way of seeing the world. It's not all that helpful to tell him that his subjective experience is the only one that matters.

 

[Rivea]

Let's say fellow students are laughing at you, cause you think you're at home reading this post on this forum; Does it matter? So what if they are laughhing at you. You ARE having the experience of reading this at home on your PC screen now; I would say it is real enough. Real to you. How else could you experience it? I would say that, allthough people can interpret an experience wrongly, there is no such thing as false experience.

Even if you are delusioned out of your mind right now; does it matter?

Well, that's a little preposterous. We're wired into consensus reality for very good reasons. It keeps us from stepping in front of buses while we think we're on a beach in Tahiti.

Clearly, this guy is not all that comfortable with this new way of seeing the world. It's not all that helpful to tell him that his subjective experience is the only one that matters.

I really liked being on a beach in Tahiti, but alas it was only a vacation 27 years ago.....


Yeah I agree Art. I don't run my fingers through my table saw out of healthy fear of getting cut. I like having my fingers for a lot of reasons and I am adverse to experiencing pain. We are 'grounded' in this 3-d + time reality so that we survive physically. It is not useful to tell people hyperbolic crud about trusting only subjective experiences, and in fact can be very harmful.

 

[soulfood]

it's always been my belief that if you think you're crazy, you're not.

Yeah, I always figured crazy people think they are getting saner.

 

[Felnik]

I think there are different ways of integrating a powerful
Experience . For me it starts with making some calls to my
Friends that are in the know about this stuff and talking it out
In great detail . Expressing it in as many ways as possible writing it down
Etc. Working though it not attaching to any one interpretation .
Trying not get stuck . All theories provisional

The next part is emmersing and engaging myself back to
This reality . Being really present with family and friends .
Doing mundane tasks . Cooking eating planting fixing things getting my hands dirty.
Connecting with this world in a tactile way

Most of the time I am left with awe and amazement at life and this
Planet and how this matter based reality fuctions in such intrinsic balance.
The beauty of nature and our place in the multiverse .

That being said there's no way to really know how severe
Your mental state is . If you feel Like your really losing your
Grip on reality and are in any way not functional in daily tasks and
Interactions or feeling suicidal .
Then perhaps you should talk to a mental health person at your school.

In the mean time stay away from dmt or anything like it .

 

[MySmelf]

Let's say fellow students are laughing at you, cause you think you're at home reading this post on this forum; Does it matter? So what if they are laughhing at you. You ARE having the experience of reading this at home on your PC screen now; I would say it is real enough. Real to you. How else could you experience it? I would say that, allthough people can interpret an experience wrongly, there is no such thing as false experience.

Even if you are delusioned out of your mind right now; does it matter?

Well, that's a little preposterous. We're wired into consensus reality for very good reasons. It keeps us from stepping in front of buses while we think we're on a beach in Tahiti.

Clearly, this guy is not all that comfortable with this new way of seeing the world. It's not all that helpful to tell him that his subjective experience is the only one that matters.

Consensus reality is subjective experience! Subjective experience is the only experience we ever have so its the only one that can matter.

When I'm having a non-lucid dream its real to me. I don't know I'm dreaming until after I wake up and realize it was a dream. During the dream "physical" events and other "people's" communicated experience confirms the consensus reality of this experience so at the time it is the only experience that matters.

We should always keep a skeptical eye on anything really strange that happens in our experience of "reality" as a possible error in our perception of reality. Until that happens all we can do is take our subjective experiences as real.

 

[Jin]

kinkyking , if you're still reading this post and still going schizo ,
read the full post again and all the replies by the members , they have been most intelligent and if i was in your place i would be better by now ,
thoughts are thoughts and they can be too imaginative for people doin psychadelics , i can imagine anything i want even if i want to be on a different planet right now , but i certainly know i am home , however i like to look at awareness being everywhere and this body being a fixed position transmitor and reciever of awareness and experience ,,,
kinkyking , pls pls pls read the full post again , you'll find your answers ,

from my own perspective you are not suffering from schizopherenia , you are definately 100% suffering from PARANOIA and this too is a deadly disease , so pls seek immediate help from anti-paranoia squad :d

jokes apart , read the whole post again and listen to the nexians
and remember you are not alone

 

[Bill Cipher]

Consensus reality is subjective experience! Subjective experience is the only experience we ever have so its the only one that can matter.

I'm sorry, but that's just a bunch of new age crap.

To suggest that all experience is equally valid is complete and utter nonsense. If you disagree, try testing out Rivea's astute analogy and run a table saw over your fingers, then use the power of your subjective experience to beam yourself to your happy place. I'll bet you can't do it. Know why? Because reality is reality and delusion is delusion, and cutting your fingers off hurts.

I know that we gather here to discuss a drug induced model of reality which defies rational understanding, but that's no reason to abandon critical thinking altogether. This guy is not happy with where he's at. Check the title of his thread and re-read his posts. How is telling him that the reality he's currently experiencing is as real as any other going to be at all helpful or instructive?

If someone is experiencing significant breaks from reality months removed from drug use, there may well be something more going on than simple issues of integration. Either way, the "any reality is good reality" fall back position does him a disservice, in my opinion.

 

[I am.]

i agree, art! ok...reality is fake. now what? cool. still gotta keep things going here. so...why not deal with the reality in front of you!

yeah OP...quit taking drugs for a couple months and i can almost gaurentee that you'll feel better and if not, as art said, then it may be time to be concerned and seek help. for now, just stay sober and live in the moment. planning ahead may not be a great idea for you if you're feeling off base. know what i mean?

trust that those you are closest to will "tap you on the shoulder" if you get a little too far out. most schizphrenics are admitted by family (not by themselves). not trying to sound gloomy, just letting you know that if you really are schizophrenic or have some other drug (or dna) induced psychological issue, your closet circles will let you know!

til then...just try to be happy and look for the positive in everything. til then...

 

[MySmelf]

I'm sorry, but that's just a bunch of new age crap.

To suggest that all experience is equally valid is complete and utter nonsense. If you disagree, try testing out Rivea's astute analogy and run a table saw over your fingers, then use the power of your subjective experience to beam yourself to your happy place. I'll bet you can't do it. Know why? Because reality is reality and delusion is delusion, and cutting your fingers off hurts.

You obviously didn't understand my post at all.

First off I already posted my advise to the OP earlier in this thread and I hope you will read it. This last post was only a comment on your flawed argument earlier.

What I said has nothing to do with any "new age crap" or beaming "yourself to your happy place". I don't know how you got that from my post. Why the hell would I cut my fingers off with a table saw? If I did that I wouldn't be taking my subjective experience seriously now would I?

Subjective reality is everything we experience all the time. Whether it is consensus reality, dream, hyperspace, or delusion. All we can do is treat it as real until some evidence contradicts it.

I will restate what I basically said in my first post. If your current subjective reality is getting too weird and interfering with your daily life then you should seek professional help.

 

[clouds]

"Precisely speaking, I'm stuck in a downhill trail toward schizophreny I'm guessing. Somekind of progressive mental problem that gets more serious day after day."

Hypochondriasis or hypochondria (sometimes referred to as health phobia or health anxiety) refers to excessive preoccupation or worry about having a serious illness

"Do I need to visit a Psychiatrist or a Psychologist?"

Some hypochondriacal individuals completely avoid any reminder of illness, whereas others (most) frequently visit doctors’ offices.

"I'm in my very early 20s, and read somewhere that's exactly when people begin to develop schizophrenia, and that freaked me up and reassured me about the problem."

Cyberchondria is a colloquial term for hypochondria in individuals who have researched medical conditions on the Internet.

Hypochondriasis manifests in many ways. Puri B. K, Laking P.J, Treasaden I.H, (2000) states that hypochondrisis can manifest at any age, but usually between the ages of 20 and 30 years, occurring marginally more in males in contrast to other somatoform disorders which are more common in women

Many hypochondriacs require constant reassurance, either from doctors, family, or friends...

"You're right, thinking too much about schizophrenia will turn you into one eventually."

They are convinced that they have or are about to have a serious illness.

"The other problem is I want to touch everything to make sure it exists"

Many people with hypochondriasis experience a cycle of intrusive thoughts followed by compulsive checking.

"The last problem and most freakish is…"

Hypochondriacs become unduly alarmed about any physical symptoms they detect, no matter how minor the symptom may be.

► I am not saying you have Hypochondriasis. But if you do, that's a shame because Schizophrenia sounds a lot cooler. boo.