From:
slider@nanashram.com
### - currently, medical science has schizophrenia put down to a
collection of possible physical causes, these ranging from an inheritable genetic component, to an altered (or faulty) brain structure that somehow gives-rise to a known barrage of uncomfortable symptoms to varying
degrees...
the most common of these being the well known visual and emotional
disturbances leading to mental distress, terror and all the rest of it,
and that if left untreated can often eventually lead to various forms of
mental breakdown and/or collapse to add to their miseries due to being literally driven mad when the person involved just can't take it/handle-it
any more! the only treatment currently, being the application of various
drugs to suppress the symptoms, many of which create their very own
problems due to having severe side-effects... but it's all they've got!
however, 'what if', what schizophrenia 'really' is, is the intrusion, for whatever reason, of a waking dream state that is somehow 'superimposed'
upon (or runs in tandem with) one's more ordinary perception of reality? somewhat similar perhaps to that guy john (whom i posted about on here
recently re childhood night terrors extending into adulthood...) who
often, when going to bed, sometimes began dreaming before he even went to sleep! the 'quality' of these dreams being such that as far as he was
concerned he was still wide awake and didn't even suspect dreaming had
anything to do with it! the resulting unearthly 'visions' (and often vivid visitations too!) he experienced, leaving him with no doubt in his mind
that they were in fact real, perforce terrifying him and the rest of the household too when his resulting screams of terror brought everyone
running from all directions!
as a kid they tried everything to help him, of course, but apparently all
to no avail and it continued on into adulthood... as it only ever occurred
at night (usually just after bedtime) he somehow learned to live with it
and just carry on, bedtime was the only real problem + that of actually getting-off to sleep without experiencing something weird, but otherwise
he was basically ok... the habit of becoming automatically terrified
whenever it occurred remained with him, however, and even though some of
the things he occasionally saw weren't particularly frightening or
threatening, sheer panic would habitually always overtake him whenever he encountered them, whatever they were!
a situation that continued untreated (and untreatable) until he started learning to... WILD?
at which point, a probable cause and explanation to his 'night-terrors'
then began to emerge, revealing the possibility that what he had in fact
been experiencing all along was an inherent ability to enter very easily
into a waking dream state! something which had never even been considered!
so 'easily' could he do it that he didn't ever even know he'd started
dreaming and perforce took the resulting visions and visitations as being
real! (e.g., he'd be maybe trying to get comfortable in the bed and off to sleep, open his eyes one time and clearly see something (or someone)
really fucking weird standing at the foot of his bed! (screams the house
down hah!)
it was only when he heard about WILDs (or rather, my suggested method) and
was trying to do them, that he suddenly realised that he'd likely been 'unwittingly' WILDing all along?? his 'solution' to his night terrors of
old, simply being to use them as a 'dream-sign' to tell him that he was 'already' lucid dreaming!
problem resolved! all he had to then do now was to learn to attenuate his by-now ingrained severe emotional reactions to 'seeing' these dream-signs! it'll take time but all in all a very cool solution!
so, what if schizophrenia happens along similar lines to this? and is, for example, a similar unwelcome intrusion of a waking dream state, one that differs only by dint of the person concerned actually being awake and
walking around when it occurs! the resulting perceptions/hallucinations
being virtually indistinguishable from the usual perception of reality
they suddenly become superimposed upon!
and in which case, maybe learning to WILD more 'deliberately' may 'also'
afford some relief from!
i mean, with the gifts they typically have, these peeps could maybe even
turn out to be the 'champions' of WILDs if only they could tame it thusly!
i really think there might be something to this?
that if WILDing is an ability everyone has in ready reserve to
deliberately + quite consciously access a waking dream state, then who
knows how many times, and in oh so many forms, may this ability to
waking-dream have 'inadvertently' intruded upon us only to be then called
(and become recognised as being) something else?
the implication being that hallucinations & visions etc of all sorts, are ultimately a form of a person's imagination running riot and spectacularly intruding upon their normal waking perception in various recognised ways!
the fact that a schizophrenics typical hallucinations are often of a very threatening and insidious nature, possibly indicating their somehow unconsciously accessing the same (or very similar) frightening waking
state that many peeps experience while getting sleep paralysis?
could be! :)
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: www.darkrealms.ca (1:229/2)