Alora Fane

No dev blog this week since I haven't worked on Atonal Dreams, so here's a ramble about my various mental issues! What fun!!

I've taken this week off Atonal Dreams development largely because my mum and step-dad - who are twice my age and have way more of a social life because of how extroverted he is - very wisely decided to go on holiday with another couple during this global pandemic, meaning I've been home alone this week. So I thought I'd have a bit of a holiday of my own.

It's freeing... but sad that I'm 32 and still living like a teenager, only feeling like I have freedom when my parents are away. It's not like I even interact with them for more than maybe five minutes a day when they're here, but I feel like I'm trapped in my room because leaving it likely invites awkward smalltalk, which means chances to say something stupid that my demons will beat me up about. Especially annoying since my step-dad's aforementioned gregariousness means there's often some strangers he knows hanging around, and I feel awkward about the thought of being this live-at-home weirdo adult son walking in on them in my pyjamas and dressing gown and making them uncomfortable due to the oddness of it all. ("But then why don't you change out of your pyjamas?!?"... would be missing the point.)

I wish I lived alone or with friends or a partner around my age, but I can't afford it, so I'm stuck here for now. Frustrating.

I have this 'freedom' this week, but it's not as if I've been doing much different to usual other than going downstairs for about an hour a day for a change of scenery while I play Undertale. I've been writing my impressions of that in great detail, so I'll post them when I've finished. Feels like I'm getting near the end, though I'm unsure.

I am constantly paranoid though that someone will burgle the place and I'll be responsible for it, which is unlikely, or that one of my step-dad's many friends will try to come in looking for him, which is less unlikely since that happens randomly all the time anyway. The doors are locked, but I don't know if any of them have keys or anything. Or maybe they'd just knock at the door and call out and I'd either have to awkwardly answer or pretend I didn't hear it and have the awkwardness of that hanging over me for days.

Mostly I try to ignore the paranoia, but a couple of nights ago I was woken up by what seemed like some cluttering sounds downstairs at 3am, followed by an extremely clear posh, male voice saying my name in an investigative tone. I've mentioned it on Twitter and I texted my mum about it moments after it happened to calm myself and just in case it was something they might have an explanation for ("oh, we told [whoever] they could come in during the night but forgot to tell you!"), and it seems the default response to this is to assume I'm a moron who can't tell the difference between the sound of a cat and my name, or a dream and a spoken voice...

I'm no stranger to odd psychological experiences, deliberately-elicited or otherwise, and this was remarkable because it was so different to what I've experienced before. It didn't feel like a lucid dream or sleep paralysis. The voice had a clearly searching tone, like "are you here?", I could identify the approximate age and sex, and it had a distinct accent different from my own. It asked for "Toby?" rather than "Tobias?" or "hello?", which only really my parents (and some commenters sometimes for some reason) call me these days, with an "o" sound completely different to the one I use (it's pointless to try to communicate that in text, even using the IPA (which the formatting likely won't permit anyway), but I'd write my Northern English pronunciation as "Tohby" and the one I heard as "Tewby").

People also assumed I was scared or worried by it, but I was more curious about the psychology of it, since it was obviously produced by my own mind (or at least I could deduce that from checking downstairs and finding nothing out of the ordinary). I'm fascinated by hallucinations, but I've never been 'lucky' enough to have one before, so I always wondered how real they seemed. Can people who hallucinate giant spiders sitting in their room tell that they're different to the other objects in the room, or are they indistinguishable from if they were real? Can people who hear voices tell the difference between those voices, their own inner voice, and other people's voices? When we think thoughts, we feel a sense of agency behind them, as if we created them, but is this missing for hallucinated voices? Sounds like it from what I've read.

This voice seemed real and like it came from outside my head; it sounded like it came from downstairs. It was very different to the usual voice in my head - or any I'd normally imagine - and, interestingly, it created a strong physiological panic response - an adrenaline surge - which doesn't ever happen with anything my demons mutter to me in my waking or dreaming worlds.

I find it fascinating how the brain can startle itself like that! Makes me think about a ton of stuff I read during my psychology course about the makeup of the mind, about dissociative identity disorder (which I'm not entirely convinced is a real thing), schizophrenia, etc, and how minds might potentially be made up of distinct "modules" that can develop into full personalities independent of the rest. It's all very odd, and something I wish I could talk about in more detail, but I wouldn't want to from half-remembered memories and I can't be bothered doing any new research at the moment.

The brain's two hemispheres could even be seen as housing separate minds, too. I talked years ago when I was worried about the brain surgery I needed leaving me with a 'split brain' about experiments with patients who did have the connection between their hemispheres severed, which showed that the nonverbal half could make decisions which the verbal, conscious mind wasn't aware of, but which it'd try to explain - confabulate - as if it was the one who made the decision based on information available to it (which wasn't the case).

Minds are weird.

Anyway, have you ever bought groceries online before? I haven't! Or rather I hadn't, but I did recently, because the nearest supermarket is miles away and I thought I'd use this opportunity to see how it all works. I chose a delivery slot today between 3 and 4pm, and it's 2:50pm now. A truck with the supermarket's logo showed up about ten minutes ago... but I've yet to hear anyone coming to the door or anything. And it's still there. Maybe they arrive early and just sit around in the truck waiting until the slot time? Weird. Also annoying since it's just making my anxiety build, and that won't stop until I've actually gone through the gruelling ordeal of saying "do I have to sign anything?" and/or "thanks", which I might not have to anyway, and maybe they'll just put the food in the porch so I don't have to answer the door at all. I don't know! Social anxiety!! Pfff, I chose this option partly because it seemed less social-anxiety-inducing that going on the bus (which I've done many times over the past few years, but it's been a while, and last time I embarrassed myself by trying to pay with money that was apparently expired due to some overhaul of the currency I wasn't aware of, and UGH).

I am such an absolute pro at living in this world. Obviously.

(At least I can entertain myself and calm my nerves by writing about it. I SUPPOSE. Is that someone at the door?? No? Yes?!? No?!?! There are definitely sounds... I think it's the neighbours though. Probably?!)

...Finally! I just went through an interaction exactly as cringeworthy as I expected it to be, which always happens, so now I can 'enjoy' the relief of not having to dread it and the absolute joy of having little critical memories of my bumblingness come up again and again even though the delivery guy will likely have forgotten about me already since he's surely dealt with so much worse.

Here's what happened during this extremely exciting episode which is totally worthy of the anxiety it causes to electrify my broken brain:

This house has a front door, and a porch thing (or technically I think it's a ∞ vestibule ∞?), then another glass door, meaning that I could lock the glass door while leaving the front door unlocked without any risk of anyone actually getting into the house (I mean a burglar could just smash the glass door, but I doubt a burglar's going to be trying to come in through the front door anyway). So I wrote on the instructions for the delivery 'leave in porch if possible', hoping they'd open the front door, leave them there, then go.

And that's exactly what would have happened! But instead I went down to the glass door, and tried to talk to the (young) delivery guy through it, saying "do I need to sign?", since he had one of those... signing gadget things... in his hand, and that - for whatever reason - was the line I'd 'rehearsed' in my mind earlier. He said "wha?", clearly unable to hear me, and looked at his gadget as if he'd heard that I DID need to sign, and I tried repeating myself, more confusion, so I said something like "is it a corona risk if I open this door?" (he wasn't wearing a mask, neither was I because why would I be in my own house), to which he obviously wasn't hearing what I was saying (I could hear him!), so I opened the door and said "what I SAID was 'do I need to sign?'", and he said no, he just needed to check that I was home, and I said - laughing hopefully amicably rather than insanely - okay, I've never done this before, which I'll now be thinking about the wording of for ages because what does that mean? That I've never talked to another person before?!? That's what it sounded like!! Not just grammatically but because I am clearly incredibly awkward!!!!

...I can't really communicate tone very accurately there, so maybe it comes across as beating myself up or being negatively worked up or something. Mostly I'm just amused, rolling my eyes, because of how ridiculous it is to pick apart these things, as if many brief interactions between strangers aren't awkward in some way or another. Though I am aware I'm not exactly graceful at it because I do it so infrequently.

Also, my diet is awful, the kind of stuff a student might get since I haven't bothered to rethink things since I was one of those (and half the stuff I'd bought was chocolate because why not), so usually I prefer to use the self-checkout things or whatever they're called in supermarkets to avoid the scathing judgements of cashiers, but this guy had to carry all my unhealthy choices to the door and put them in the porch by hand. They weren't in a box or bag or anything, they were just laid on the floor (I think he brought them from the truck in a box, but took them out of that). Again, surely he's seen way worse, but I'm still at least a bit embarrassed!

Reddit threads are useful for putting things like this into perspective. I recently saw one about someone with social anxiety worrying - as I once did - about the exact words to say while buying something from a shop. Some replies were the kind of obnoxiously oblivious ones I remember getting when I was younger and worried about those things ("just go to the counter and pay for it, it's not a big deal"; basically ∞ this subreddit ∞). Others, though, were from people who worked in customer service, who talked about how they dealt with so many people that they literally forgot about even eccentric individuals as soon as they were out of their sight.

Still, it's not so much whether or not other people remember the social anxiety sufferer's failures, but it's more about how their demons do remember, and use those 'mistakes' to remind the poor person of their general incompetence at life. So it's not entirely comforting to know that minds I'll never have access to anyway don't retain a constant judging slideshow of my totally-catastrophic failures like mine does, because, well, mine does.

I also remember a reddit thread about people doing the exact job this supermarket delivery guy was; I think it was something like "what was the weirdest person you've ever delivered to?". I remember a story about something like an extremely morbidly obese man who ordered like 10 pizzas, and opened his door a crack to silently snatch them, but even that crack allowed the delivery person to smell an odour so repulsive it could peel paint, and to get a look at a room so filthy it could be a literal rubbish tip. Makes me wonder about the kind of squalor some people live in... though I suppose I have first-hand experience of that growing up. Hmm.

Anyway. I'm rambling about this far more than I need to. Writing about it does seem to help though. It's one of the reasons I wished I lived with friends, so then I could vent out about my mistakes to them and find catharsis by doing so... though I suppose few - if any - people would be able to tolerate someone like that in the long run, so at least I have a blog???

Next week, I'll need to research answers to the questions I wrote about in the most recent promotion category post!!! Yes! Because I make games apparently!! Right!!!!

(I've done a ton of creative stuff this past week, but it's all been private, not for others' judging eyes, like I've talked about before. So while I'm glad I've done it, and I probably developed skills and relieved some stress on my mental health in the process, I do feel bad since it's not getting me closer to having my next game out.)

Here's a question: have you ever had hallucinations??

10 COMMENTS

Astreon152~4Y

Oh, right, sorry about barging in the other night.

I thought you said you were throwing a pyjama party, but apparently you weren't there. Nobody answered when I called.

What do you mean I'm missing the point ?

Tama_Yoshi82~4Y

I had two kinds of hallucinations, but not those kinds. The first one is a recurring visual artefact of red light dots scrolling across my vision, similar to laser pointers. They occur about once every couple months, and tend to occur after I do exercise or shower, or raise my head in a specific position. Weird stuff; it never lasts longer than 30 seconds, but is notable for how inexplicable it is.

Another is a sort of hyper-sensitivity to texture, which occurs even less often. Most notable is how I can FEEL the ridges of my palate and the bumpy texture of my tongue, the frizzly texture of my beard, the general dimension of my fingers, etc. It used to freak me out a little as a kid, but there's not much to BE freaked out about. It's odd and distracting, and lasts for several minutes but not that long. It feels like my brain suddenly gives a lot more attention to textures (both physical and visual) which is... an interesting way of "feeling" a shift in brain function, if that's what it is.

The interaction as you've described doesn't seem bad at all, honestly; you seemed charmingly awkward, which is something that's easy to overlook.

Have you heard about the difference between egosyntonic and egodystonic disorders? Apparently there's this way of categorizing disorders in terms of whether the subject blames "who they are" or whether they blame "a part of them that's wrong." I found that interesting, because obviously the latter would be more open to treatments since their "self" is not in question!

Another is a sort of hyper-sensitivity to texture, which occurs even less often. Most notable is how I can FEEL the ridges of my palate and the bumpy texture of my tongue, the frizzly texture of my beard, the general dimension of my fingers, etc. It used to freak me out a little as a kid, but there's not much to BE freaked out about. It's odd and distracting, and lasts for several minutes but not that long. It feels like my brain suddenly gives a lot more attention to textures (both physical and visual) which is... an interesting way of "feeling" a shift in brain function, if that's what it is.

The interaction as you've described doesn't seem bad at all, honestly; you seemed charmingly awkward, which is something that's easy to overlook.

Have you heard about the difference between egosyntonic and egodystonic disorders? Apparently there's this way of categorizing disorders in terms of whether the subject blames "who they are" or whether they blame "a part of them that's wrong." I found that interesting, because obviously the latter would be more open to treatments since their "self" is not in question!

Tobias 1115~4Y

I've had experiences which sound similar to those... though I've no idea if they're the same or not, of course! I don't even know if your red is my red!

"Charmingly awkward" is how I always hope to come across, so I'll have to hope that was the case here!

The Psychology course covered egosyntonic/egodystonic disorders, especially in the context of therapy. My own issues have always tended towards egosyntonic, which is why I've referred to my social anxiety as Avoidant Personality Disorder, a personality disorder rather than a mental illness, more akin to a deformed limb than a broken one, as I've likely written about in the past. Recognising this doesn't actually change anything, though!

purplerabbits147~4Y

I'd say that's really interesting with hearing a distinct audio hallucination. I think I can imagine the accent since I have friends from the UK.

The closest thing to a hallucination where I had a sleep paralysis moment where a black shape entered my room and then asked me permission to hide out in my room using my brother's voice. I don't rememver if I confirmed yes or not, but it stayed near the doorway trying to hide from the shadowy figures outside that ocassionally pass. All the while I am "observing," my heart is racing as I my thoughts race about whether the shadow shape is my brother, or something that got him and thats why it sounds like him. At some point, I move my eyes and realize that the door is still closed and I conclude that I the shadow shape was probably a sleep paralysis creation.

After reading Tama's comment, I think I may have had visual hallucinations. So, I have floaters in my eyes since I was very young. The ones in my right eye, coincidently, are in a vauge humanoid shape. The ones on my left eye are random dots. So on ocasion I sorta see "static" but if I focus I notice that the static is more often around when the floaters are more in the center of my field of view. So with the above as my normal, I guess when I saw bright floaters tracing the tiles of the floor would probably be a visual hallucination. It lasted about 10 seconds max and only happened 2 times. I call it "looking onto the Matrix" because the floaters were tracing the outlines of the objects and the "mesh" of the object. Kinda like the 3d model you put out with all the lines and verticies.

I'd say that's really interesting with hearing a distinct audio hallucination. I think I can imagine the accent since I have friends from the UK.

The closest thing to a hallucination where I had a sleep paralysis moment where a black shape entered my room and then asked me permission to hide out in my room using my brother's voice. I don't rememver if I confirmed yes or not, but it stayed near the doorway trying to hide from the shadowy figures outside that ocassionally pass. All the while I am "observing," my heart is racing as I my thoughts race about whether the shadow shape is my brother, or something that got him and thats why it sounds like him. At some point, I move my eyes and realize that the door is still closed and I conclude that I the shadow shape was probably a sleep paralysis creation.

After reading Tama's comment, I think I may have had visual hallucinations. So, I have floaters in my eyes since I was very young. The ones in my right eye, coincidently, are in a vauge humanoid shape. The ones on my left eye are random dots. So on ocasion I sorta see "static" but if I focus I notice that the static is more often around when the floaters are more in the center of my field of view. So with the above as my normal, I guess when I saw bright floaters tracing the tiles of the floor would probably be a visual hallucination. It lasted about 10 seconds max and only happened 2 times. I call it "looking onto the Matrix" because the floaters were tracing the outlines of the objects and the "mesh" of the object. Kinda like the 3d model you put out with all the lines and verticies.

spritebob10~4Y

I have the idea that there's reason to prefer an underperformance rather than setting personal best when new people are getting an impression. That way one can easily live up to or surpass expectations effortlessly, whereas in the other case one risks being tried too hard later on and disappoint when one doesn't measure up to expectations. So shouldn't they be welcome thoughts, the ones that implies some person might get a worse idea of your abilities than you believe to be the case yourself?

That's how I think to be easy on myself, I think. (At least that was what came to mind while I read about your experience with the food delivery.)

Spectre35~4Y

>That way one can easily live up to or surpass expectations effortlessly.

This is so true. I was the top student for my grade in primary school. My parents have high hopes for me, which is a bit suffocating. Since I was the top student, I almost always felt that all the homework and exams in primary school are kinda easy BUT my academic knowledge seems to be plateaued ever since I graduated. I crashed and burned in my secondary school years. I kept failing the exams and barely made it to another graduation. Till this day, my parents still refused to believe that I wasn't as good as they might think.

TheJop32~4Y

Occasionally I would hallucinate when I was really sleep-deprived during college. Nothing as substantial as the voice you heard, but I would sometimes hear some unintelligible whispers or see something out of the corner of my eye. It's really pretty disturbing how tenuous of a grip the human mind has on reality and how easily it can play tricks on itself. Anyway, I guess it's better that you just had an auditory hallucination than someone unexpected was walking around your house in the middle of the night. I hope you don't experience any more though!

Ptyrell37~4Y

I assumed I've never had a hallucination, but reading your comment made me realize I've definitely "heard" things that weren't there when sleep deprived as well. Usually the absurd context of hearing a voice in a quiet room helps me immediately disregard what I had heard, but it definitely does happen. Coincidental that Tobias describes his episode as happening at 3am?

mount201046~4Y

How much do you relate to the Hikikomori? [LINK]

"The author claimed that the hikikomori interviewed for the book had discovered independent thinking and a sense of self that the current Japanese environment could not accommodate."

Tobias 1115~4Y

I learned about hikikomori years ago when trying to figure out what was wrong with me, though it seems in that case it's largely related to the specifics of Japanese culture. I remember reading that expectations are especially harsh there, even in everyday interactions (honorifics, etc), and it's just too much for some people so they retreat from it all. Interestingly, the Wikipedia article says it's not obviously tied to mental issues, which says more about the cultural variation in what constitutes a 'mental issue' than anything.

I can relate to their situation though because mine is similar. In my case, I've ended up here due to a combination of childhood-trauma-related mental issues and poorly-timed events (moving country right after finishing school and becoming slightly internet famous at the same time, then when I tried to go out and finally get a degree, I found out I had brain cancer and had to retreat to recover from that).