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Social Hallucinations

8 years ago1,717 words

A number of comments from both friends and strangers recently have made me particularly aware that my thoughts are especially irrational. This is a huge concern, since it's not like anyone chooses to think irrationally. In their minds, everything makes sense; it's only when an outside observer comments that they can get an idea of how far their train of thought has strayed from reality.

It's a common assumption that our senses work like cameras, microphones, etc, feeding raw input directly to the brain which is then combined to form the internal perception of the world. But this isn't what happens at all. Rather, the brain generates an imaginary model of the world based on past experiences and assumptions, using sensory input merely to correct certain details. Much of what you 'see' is retrieved from the 'cache', as it were.

A whole bunch of optical illusions are based on this. For example:



That image has only pink dots, with one disappearing at a time in a clockwise direction. If you focus on the black dot in the middle, you'll see a green one - which isn't actually there - and the pink ones will gradually disappear altogether. Your mind isn't seeing as a camera would; it's assuming, incorrectly.

When sensory input is deprived or distorted, dreams and hallucinations occur; the imaginary model in its raw, untamed form (I'd love to spend some time in a sensory deprivation chamber for this reason!).

Social thoughts are similar, it seems. When isolated and deprived of input to compare to, the mind builds a social world based on previous experiences, extrapolating to the point of madness, paranoia, overgeneralisation. "Social hallucinations" occur... but of course you're unaware of their delusional qualities, because you have no sensible frame of reference.

I spend so little time interacting with other people that my mind's ideas of how they or the world work are absurdly inaccurate... and I wonder how many people notice this about me but only voice it behind my back. Some people have said things directly to me recently, which is the main cause of my concern.

I was with one of my friends recently; I mentioned it in the previous post. Neither of us were in a good state of mind, but while I tried to be entirely non-judging of everything she did or said, my voiced thoughts caused her to snap at me more than once. It was a hot day, and she said she was too hot... I think I said (in a unmistakably jokey way) something like "yes, everyone's always telling you that", because she's told me stories of how guys say cheesy things like "you're so hot it hurts" to her. I said - with resentment - how 'guys who say things like that' probably do win over girls (or something? I can't actually remember), and she got angry at me for my apparent tendency to overgeneralise, to speak of huge groups of people as if they're all homogeneous, whereas she sees everyone as an individual with their own merits and so on. I can't deny that I do this, though I'd lost sight of the fact that it was unusual or 'wrong'; her comment was a smarting wake-up slap that left me feeling quite embarrassed.

For several days at the start of the Summer, my other friend hadn't contacted me, though I'd hoped she would... My mind ran around in circles, imagining reasons why she probably hated me now, drawing connections that weren't there. I probably wrote about it in a post here, though it's embarrassing to think that I did so I won't look for it. I definitely posted about it on a mood-recording app I've mentioned in the past, in excessive and insane detail... It was cathartic to get it out somewhere 'private' and anonymous. However, that app allows anyone to comment on the posts of other members, and a stranger commented on my venting. "No wonder you've been single for five years", they said; "you sound creepy as [PROFANITY]".

This was quite wounding at first, especially as it was days after I'd posted that mad ramble, when my mind was in a very different state. Being able to view this other person's posts and thoughts was a huge benefit, though; many were either basic "[PROFANITY] YOU"s directed at nothing, strings of middle-digit-gesture emoji, rants about how they wished they were a man, how they stalked their 'abuser' because they wanted to see him suffer... They'd clearly had a lot of pain in the past, and drew upon their mental cache of experiences to form a picture of me from scant details. They'd been sexually abused by an obsessive stalker, and saw this one post where I obsessed over my friend (amongst many mundane ones) and assumed I was the same species of demon.

I replied to their abuse with what I thought was understanding, but they replied with condescending aggression, listing easy, obvious solutions that they saw to the problem of my isolation ("go to clubs", "join forums", "make online friends", "try dating sites", etc) as if I my lifetime of conditioning were so simply cured, followed by a description of how I couldn't possibly understand their pain and how I was a sociopath for sympathising with abusers instead of wanting them to be shot in the face with shotguns or whatever (even though I said no such thing).

I found it interesting how minds do this. "YOUR problem is stupid and simple; get over it, it's easy. MINE, on the other hand, defies your comprehension and will never go away." I can't say I'm not guilty of this kind of thinking myself.

I wondered though whether I am creepy... It's something I'm sensitive to because it seemed to confirm a suspicion I already had. I've put off making a vlog after watching my own face and wondering if everyone would get that impression from me. It's a hard thought to bear, because it isn't as if anyone thinks "oh, being creepy seems like a good idea!". "Creepy" just seems to be a label for people who are driven by social hallucinations; whose decisions settle on behaviours that seem sane and nice to them, but off-putting and even dangerous to others. "If I hang around in front of the house of this girl I like, soon she'll see me and appreciate the effort I put in to being a part of her life!" (And no, that's not an example of something I'd do!)

Still reeling from these blows to the ego, I talked with my friend in text today (the one I obsessed over). I won't go into the details of our conversation (just that it had nothing to do with that), but it was quite intense, and led to her saying that many of my thoughts are so irrational that it makes her angry; she can't believe how I can think such things.

This was even more deeply wounding than being called creepy, because I felt that we got along well, and that we both cared about each other; is much of that a delusion on my part? How much of the time she's spent with me has just been in a state of frustration? She's touched on it before, but I'm so uncertain of the details, the whys and hows of her anger and bafflement. Her idea of what's 'rational' is clearly different from my own, but I felt like I was just annoying her further by pestering her for details.

Though I was hurt, mostly I was concerned. I hate to hurt, and the thought that I've been bothering her with my bizarre brain bothers me in a big way... I just want to know what I'm doing wrong so then I can correct it. I just want some social input in order to correct my inner model, my hallucinatory assumptions.

I think some of the things that bothered her most were how I assume she does things that she doesn't. I have a tendency to assume that everyone is living a more active and fulfilling life than me, and I knew she'd been to pubs and things, so I assumed she'd had a good time there and been many times... then I must have sounded as if I resented that or something. It's drawing from the cache, the same as with vision and the person who saw abusers everywhere. Turns out that the reality was quite different from my assumption... but I had no way of knowing that without being directly told. All I had were my untamed assumptions, which led to harm before being corrected.

There's more, but I feel that dwelling on it too much will only fuel more of the sorts of irrational thoughts that upset her in the first place. It's easy to feel trapped in this position; knowing that whatever you say might only dig your hole deeper. What do you do? I apologised profusely, of course, but that probably just made things worse.

I'm currently working on a game that's all about questioning and correcting negative thoughts... but I'm concerned now about every little thing I do or say or write. Perhaps they're all strange and off-putting and weird? Would a game I make have the same feeling about it? While I hoped it might touch people, might that touch be as welcome and pleasant as that of a molester???

I don't know. There are all kinds of psychological, therapeutic approaches to negative or irrational thoughts - writing them down, contesting them, etc - which I might try. Clearing the mind through meditation helps too, so I might try that.

For now, I'm just feeling a strong sense of doubt about my whole personality. What if isolation has made me truly repulsive? What can I even do about that, if any attempts to socialise would only be met with rejection? Or is assuming that an irrational thought itself? I just feel so lost.

I called this blog Taming the Mind for a reason though... I know that thoughts are just thoughts. That they're not true. At this point, it's just a matter of knowing how to sort them...