Thread: schizophrenia and lucid dreams

the idea is this

hypnosis = trance
meditation = trance
daydreaming = trance
dreaming = trance

all the same, like pizza, just different toppings


people suffering from schizophrenia can not be hypnotized, because they are in their subconscious all the time, but in a bad way, they are all the way in outer space and beyond Lala land

they are under trance and are heavily suggestible


if you take a patient by a car to the dr. and this dr. guy asks him "And how many dolphins did you saw on the way here", the schizo patient`s subconscious will instantly delete every memory of the car and the travel, create a false memory backwards in time of him being captain of ship and sailing across the ocean and will blurt out the answer "11,07 dolphins"

now if our dear dr. will start describing to this guy the train station that he has visited last week, mr. schizo will jump out of the chair screeming and will hide in the closet, because he just saw a train coming through the wall, aiming at him


it`s like being on acid 24/7


these guys left brain functions, such as logical reasoning and linear time, is seriously impared, some research suggests that their right brain tries to overcompensate for a software glitch

and what`s a major right brain function?

imagination

so these guys could be 24/7 lucid dreamers, who just can`t check their reality anymore, not even with trying to whack themselves in the head with a sledgehammer


by the way, don`t worry, doing this stuff and manipulating your subconscious can`t get you crazy

schizophrenia has a genetical component, because it starts with brain damage, these guy have holes inside their brains, that`s more like dead tissue ... you don`t have such problems

so this thread wasn`t a good idea at all

.../Lucid dreaming – when you are aware you are dreaming – is a hybrid state between sleeping and being awake. It creates distinct patterns of electrical activity in the brain that have similarities to the patterns made by psychotic conditions such as schizophrenia/...

Source: New Links Between Lucid Dreaming And Psychosis Could Revive Dream Therapy In Psychiatry

I met a schitzophrenic on the internet who said when he was 7, he could capture and fight real life looking pokemon. He said that the extremely severe schitzophrenics don't even understand the concept of dreaming but the less severe ones can always tell when they are dreaming because they learn how to difrentiate the things they see between whats actual reality. I asked him if lucid dreaming came easy to him, he see he always knows when he's dreaming unless it's a nightmare.

Originally Posted by intheworldofnim

I met a schitzophrenic on the internet who said when he was 7, he could capture and fight real life looking pokemon. He said that the extremely severe schitzophrenics don't even understand the concept of dreaming but the less severe ones can always tell when they are dreaming because they learn how to difrentiate the things they see between whats actual reality. I asked him if lucid dreaming came easy to him, he see he always knows when he's dreaming unless it's a nightmare.

That's actually pretty interesting, the ability to distinguish dreams and dream-like hallucinations just arose out of a necessity to be able to function in normal reality.... I always kind of thought dreaming really just works that way, too. I've never used a single technique to practice getting lucid other than the occasional very weak mantra ("I'll realize that I'm dreaming tonight.") and RCs twice, by accident. It just gets easier every time I get lucid... it becomes simpler to tell the difference between reality and the dream. I think that's really all it takes, you just have to pay attention.

I just had to reply to this thread as a medical doctor that has recently studied psychiatry.

Schizophrenia is nowhere near as simple as you suggest - no one knows what causes it. Some have visible brain damage, some have completely normal looking brains. The theory you present about left and right brains may be true for a small subset of schizophrenics, but this is NOT the main theory and no-one has any real idea what's going on.

Schizophrenia is also not one condition. There are many different types of schizophrenia each of which have completely different behaviours.

Some schizophrenics just stay quiet and seem to have no emotions and no drive to do anything. This is not the standard picture of the schizophrenic we see on TV, but it is quite common and very sad because it is almost untreatable. Some people start off like this, some start off with another form of schizophrenia which is treated, but then they eventually become like this.

Some schizophrenics, as you say, are quite obviously crazy and do/say crazy things. But even then, there are lots of different types and they all behave very differently.

If you want real up-to-date information on Schizophrenia, look here:

emedicine.medscape.com/article/288259-overview#showall

This is one resource that doctors (especially in America) use and which is kept up to date and is reasonably detailed.

The original poster isn't going to respond; it seems he was only active for about a month after registering and hasn't signed on for nearly a year since.

Though I must say, if you what you say is accurate then that's quite annoying. Nearly every neurochemical research article ever made that studies schizophrenia doesn't differentiate between different subsets. In other words, combined with what you've said, it's all completely useless. (Not that I thought any differently as it was, since it's all fairly contradictory and inconclusive anyway.)

Originally Posted by Alyzarin

The original poster isn't going to respond; it seems he was only active for about a month after registering and hasn't signed on for nearly a year since.

Though I must say, if you what you say is accurate then that's quite annoying. Nearly every neurochemical research article ever made that studies schizophrenia doesn't differentiate between different subsets. In other words, combined with what you've said, it's all completely useless. (Not that I thought any differently as it was, since it's all fairly contradictory and inconclusive anyway.)

Yep I see. Oh well, at least some people might benefit from learning it's not so simple.

As for the research articles you seem to have read, well, the link I provided has a number of possible theories as to what might be causing Schizophrenia. I'll copy paste the section on Pathophysiology below:

Originally Posted by eMedicine

Neuroimaging studies have demonstrated anatomical abnormalities, such as enlargement of the ventricles and decreased brain volume in medial temporal areas.[1] These findings are of greater research interest than clinical use.

The hippocampus is a small, cortical, supposedly seahorse-shaped part of the brain, curled within the medial border of the temporal lobe. The hippocampus is functionally part of the limbic system, where emotions are processed. The hippocampus is where we form declarative or episodic memories (memories of facts or events). The hippocampus is affected in Alzheimer disease, the preeminent disease of memory problems.

The hippocampus is also one of the many parts of the brain affected in schizophrenia. Disturbances in declarative memory are common in schizophrenia, although not as marked as in Alzheimer disease. Changes in the hippocampus, such as volume loss, change in perfusion, and change in contour, observed in brains from patients with schizophrenia (including nonmedicated patients) and relatives may be related to the cognitive problems of schizophrenia.[2]

Mattai et al studied a group of children with schizophrenia and their healthy siblings and controls.[3] The average age at the beginning of the study was 12 years. The hippocampal volume of the ill children was less than that of their siblings and controls and steadily decreased over 12 years of follow up, although not at an increasing rate. The children with schizophrenia were administered antipsychotic medications. The authors concluded that the hippocampal volume deficit was more likely due to the illness itself rather than the use of antipsychotic medication.

Interest has also focused on the various connections within the brain rather than localization in one part of the brain. Indeed, neuropsychological studies show impaired information processing in schizophrenia, and MRI studies show anatomic abnormalities in a network of neocortical and limbic regions and interconnecting white matter tracts.[4] A meta-analysis of studies using diffusion tensor imaging to examine white matter found that 2 networks of white matter tracts are reduced in schizophrenia.[5]

Other studies reveal less specific changes. In the Edinburgh High-Risk Study, researchers examined brain images of people at high genetic risk for schizophrenia. Seventeen of 146 people had reductions in whole brain volume and left and right prefrontal and temporal lobes. The changes in prefrontal lobes were associated with increasing psychotic symptoms.[6]

In a meta-analysis of 27 longitudinal structural MRI studies of patients with schizophrenia compared with controls, the authors found that schizophrenia was associated with loss of whole brain volume in both gray and white matter and an increase in ventricular volume over time.[7]

The first clearly effective antipsychotic drugs, chlorpromazine and reserpine, were structurally different from each other, but they shared antidopaminergic properties. Drugs that diminish the firing rates of mesolimbic dopamine D2 neurons are antipsychotic, and drugs that stimulate these neurons (eg, amphetamines) exacerbate psychotic symptoms. Therefore, abnormalities of the dopaminergic system are thought to exist in schizophrenia; however, little direct evidence supports this. This theory has recently undergone considerable refinement.

Hypodopaminergic activity in the mesocortical system, leading to negative symptoms, and hyperdopaminergic activity in the mesolimbic system, leading to positive symptoms, may coexist. (Negative and positive symptoms are defined below.) Moreover, the newer antipsychotic drugs block both dopamine D2 and 5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT) receptors.

Clozapine, perhaps the most effective antipsychotic agent, is a particularly weak dopamine D2 antagonist. Undoubtedly, other neurotransmitter systems, such as norepinephrine, serotonin, and gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), are involved. Some research focuses on the N -methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) subclass of glutamate receptors because NMDA antagonists, such as phencyclidine hydrochloride and ketamine, can lead to psychotic symptoms in healthy subjects.[8]