Given all of this-it seems
accurate to me-Is it possible for someone we label schizophrenic to
differentiate between hallucinations and normal waking reality that most
of us experience?
[From Bill Powers (2005.03.29.1905 MST)]
Jason Gosnell (2005.03.29
1730CST)–
]
Yes, in one case I know of, but I don’t know of any others so it wouldn’t
do to generalize. It proved very helpful to discuss the way we can
generate experiences internally, and to accept that they are perfectly
real experiences, though they might not have any external
counterparts.
Or, is he caught here-meaning
our normal experiences are also nothing but neural signals-so he can’t
know the difference?
That’s not the point here. The point here is that the perception, as
Martin said, is the only reality we can know. Some perceptions probably
have something to do with an external world; some probably do not. But we
can’t be mistaken about having experienced the perception, in either
case. What is useful to know is that everybody’s reality is like
this, and that it is very hard to figure out how our directly-perceived
realities relate to what Bob Clark called “Deduced Reality”,
the reality of science.
Or, does he have the
possibility of investigating the hallucinations using other senses, such
as touch, and possibly using reason and seeing if it matches his visual
sense?
I think that once a person starts such an investigation, the
investigation itself puts the person on the right track. It’s blindly
accepting all experiences as objectively real that gets us into serious
mental problems. Not the only cause, of course, but a big
contributor.
The movie called a
Beautiful Mind I didn’t see, but I remember seeing an interview with that
man (Not the actor, but the real person) and he indicated that he began
to question whether or not his thinking was “real.” And from
there, he started to overcome his “delusional” thinking. What
is going on there from a PCT perspective?
What I said above, before I read that paragraph (honest!). When you look
at your thoughts, you are perceiving them from a level higher than the
thoughts – that’s a consequence of the basic thesis of HPCT. And the
basis of the Method of Levels. When you see your thoughts as thoughts,
you have to realize that they are inside you, not outside, and that while
they are perfectly real, they are not the same as the external reality we
can only infer.
Of course, there is the same
issue for all humans-the issue of “thinking” or we call them
delusions for a schizophrenic. Our thinking is a kind of reality we
experience, but out there it is not necessarily real in some objective
sense. In meditation, the goal is to have some space around or with your
thinking or some sense of distance, I don’t know why for sure, but
presumably it is therapeutic not to be trapped in thinking. I don’t know
for sure…
I agree with you – I call it being too identified with your thoughts, so
you accept them without realizing that you are causing them yourself.
That’s how voices in the head become so pernicious – you think they are
coming from somewhere else, and you have to do what they say. Once you
see that you can start and stop them yourself, they have no more power
over you (in other words, you’re operating from a level higher than where
the voices originate).
I can’t prove any of that
“scientifically,” but my experiences seem to support those
views.
Best,
Bill P.
) to be