Understanding why people born blind never develop schizophrenia could transform how we think about and treat one of medicine’s most baffling conditions.
As someone with aphantasia and no internal monologe it makes sense to me.
So many people tell me their brains just send them images and monologe without them “thinking” it themselves first. Like to me they are reacting to what their brain is telling them. And that’s what is required to be schizophrenic.
FWIW i also have aphantasia, but i have an internal monologue and pretty good auditory imagination, and i hallucinate sounds quite often when it’s quiet and i’m laying in bed. I also get a light form of sleep paralysis every now and then, where i’ll wake up and my brain insists that garderobe handles are insects or whatever.
So yeah i think that broadly jives with your hypothesis, since i get auditory hallucinations while awake but only get visual ones when in a severely altered state of mind.
Does it sound like you’re hearing it from your ears?
People can project their mind’s eye image into reality. It’s most likely schizophrenic people can’t control it and would project things they didn’t know they were doing. We know it’s not there and it’s definitely in their mind but they don’t realize that they are conjuring it.
Same with internal monologe.
You have inner speech? I can talk to myself. But someone with an internal monologue they are not talking to themselves like me. Their brain is talking to them, they do not consciously pick each word.
Like you’d think you saw a black cat out of the corner of your eye and then you look and nothing is there? Or you see the black cat actually sitting there and know it’s not real?
I understand your inner voice it seems pretty much like mine.
Do you get earworms? Or is your inner voice completely voluntary?
I find myself defaulting back to playing the last catchy song I heard if I choose to hum or whistle or just decide to play something in my head. I’d say it’s like leaving a cassette in the player, I can switch it out if I think about it, but if I just play “something” there will be a default tape in the player.
Hmm that’s really interesting. In a way, your mind can create images then because otherwise you wouldn’t see them. You just cannot consciously produce an image?
Yeah, kinda. To explain it very simplified, you have a thinking brain, and an emotional brain, for example you are not either of these things, you are (we are all) observing those brain processes. Your thinking brain is designed to churn away, and similarly your emotional brain. In my interpretation, some people’s parts are just louder and more vibrant. Which can have pros and cons, it’s way more manageable if it’s not so loud it’s domineering. Having a thinking brain, that’s essentially grown and formed by all of the input, until now, churning away loudly, isn’t really a description of schizophrenia. It’s more, a depth of perception of reality, both based on internal and external perceptions. This article is talking about the relationship between the ocular reception, as interpreted by the brain, though, so not really the thinking brain, or emotional brain.
I have bipolar and it feels like my brain just tosses things at me. I get some really good ideas and I am quick with jokes because i don’t even think, my brain is an absurdity machine.
I feel like people with aphantasia are less likely to be bipolar because we do not play emotional memories with images.
From my understanding people can change their moods thinking of a beach? Like “Imagine yourself on a beach” and it could make a non-aphant more relaxed and calm?
I feel like my emotions are pure in the moment. Yes I could recall an event that gave me an emotion but it’s nothing like experiencing it in the moment.
I can not smell things without actually smelling them. Same with taste.
I can imagine my hand rubbing on different grit sandpaper and know how they would feel differently but I don’t “feel” it.
I can play songs in my head with sounds that are like the actual sounds but it’s similar to humming or whistling in my head. It’s not like I hit play and just listen. I don’t get earworms.
Yeah I’m the same way. Always wondered how people were able to give such detailed information to police sketch artists.
Like I could work with one but at best it would be them drawing something close and me going “ehh this part and this part isn’t right” if I got a really good look at the person.
Do you get earworms?
I feel in a way I’d have to practice their voice in my head like I was trying to impersonate them vocally, just my mind could make any sound. But I myself couldn’t talk in a New York accent because I don’t understand what all to change and when. If I heard a New Yorker say a sentence I could repeat it back in my head the same way
As someone with aphantasia and no internal monologe it makes sense to me.
So many people tell me their brains just send them images and monologe without them “thinking” it themselves first. Like to me they are reacting to what their brain is telling them. And that’s what is required to be schizophrenic.
FWIW i also have aphantasia, but i have an internal monologue and pretty good auditory imagination, and i hallucinate sounds quite often when it’s quiet and i’m laying in bed. I also get a light form of sleep paralysis every now and then, where i’ll wake up and my brain insists that garderobe handles are insects or whatever.
So yeah i think that broadly jives with your hypothesis, since i get auditory hallucinations while awake but only get visual ones when in a severely altered state of mind.
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What kind of sound hallucinations?
Like people or yourself talking to you?
Does it sound like you’re hearing it from your ears?
People can project their mind’s eye image into reality. It’s most likely schizophrenic people can’t control it and would project things they didn’t know they were doing. We know it’s not there and it’s definitely in their mind but they don’t realize that they are conjuring it.
Same with internal monologe.
You have inner speech? I can talk to myself. But someone with an internal monologue they are not talking to themselves like me. Their brain is talking to them, they do not consciously pick each word.
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“Seldom anything visual”
Like you’d think you saw a black cat out of the corner of your eye and then you look and nothing is there? Or you see the black cat actually sitting there and know it’s not real?
I understand your inner voice it seems pretty much like mine.
Do you get earworms? Or is your inner voice completely voluntary?
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I find myself defaulting back to playing the last catchy song I heard if I choose to hum or whistle or just decide to play something in my head. I’d say it’s like leaving a cassette in the player, I can switch it out if I think about it, but if I just play “something” there will be a default tape in the player.
Hmm that’s really interesting. In a way, your mind can create images then because otherwise you wouldn’t see them. You just cannot consciously produce an image?
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Yeah you lost me
Like you get words popping up in your head when you look at a visual stimulus and you can’t tell if the word are actually written there?
Yeah, kinda. To explain it very simplified, you have a thinking brain, and an emotional brain, for example you are not either of these things, you are (we are all) observing those brain processes. Your thinking brain is designed to churn away, and similarly your emotional brain. In my interpretation, some people’s parts are just louder and more vibrant. Which can have pros and cons, it’s way more manageable if it’s not so loud it’s domineering. Having a thinking brain, that’s essentially grown and formed by all of the input, until now, churning away loudly, isn’t really a description of schizophrenia. It’s more, a depth of perception of reality, both based on internal and external perceptions. This article is talking about the relationship between the ocular reception, as interpreted by the brain, though, so not really the thinking brain, or emotional brain.
I have bipolar and it feels like my brain just tosses things at me. I get some really good ideas and I am quick with jokes because i don’t even think, my brain is an absurdity machine.
Do you have aphantasia?
I feel like people with aphantasia are less likely to be bipolar because we do not play emotional memories with images.
From my understanding people can change their moods thinking of a beach? Like “Imagine yourself on a beach” and it could make a non-aphant more relaxed and calm?
I feel like my emotions are pure in the moment. Yes I could recall an event that gave me an emotion but it’s nothing like experiencing it in the moment.
Interesting, though no, I have no trouble with mental imagery.
Trouble as in poor quality or too many mental images?
You feel your mood shift the most with new mental images?
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I’m not sure.
I can not smell things without actually smelling them. Same with taste.
I can imagine my hand rubbing on different grit sandpaper and know how they would feel differently but I don’t “feel” it.
I can play songs in my head with sounds that are like the actual sounds but it’s similar to humming or whistling in my head. It’s not like I hit play and just listen. I don’t get earworms.
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Yeah I’m the same way. Always wondered how people were able to give such detailed information to police sketch artists.
Like I could work with one but at best it would be them drawing something close and me going “ehh this part and this part isn’t right” if I got a really good look at the person.
Do you get earworms?
I feel in a way I’d have to practice their voice in my head like I was trying to impersonate them vocally, just my mind could make any sound. But I myself couldn’t talk in a New York accent because I don’t understand what all to change and when. If I heard a New Yorker say a sentence I could repeat it back in my head the same way