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Myopia is interesting. One theory I've heard is that it's because people aren't exposed to enough sunlight when their eyes are developed.

Myopia is almost non-existent in hunter gatherer societies.

> Then again, who knows what lies in people heads too? Perhaps that the thoughts they hear are real and some people just can't process it properly which drive them to do strange things. We discount people's experience but there are so little ways to non-intrusively explore people's internal state. A true scientist wouldn't discount that possibility too.

One of my best friends was schizophrenic and he described the experience as being in the back of the car with someone else driving. A literal observer to his own life. That kind of scared me because I have strong internal dialogues with myself, especially if I'm in conflict over something. He assured me it's nothing like thinking or hearing your own voice; these voices are in fact someone else and the state of your mind makes the experience feel real.

I think it's really like hearing an external sound, it's not something you consciously control. I feel like I heard a hypothesis somewhere that maybe there's something off about what you perceive as your own conscious thoughts. Obviously everything is coming from your own brain, so I would argue they are your own thoughts but we're just talking about the perception of being your own thoughts.

Related to this, some schizophrenics think that thoughts are being placed in their head by something external or that they perceive thoughts from other people. Telepathy is also a common rationalization.

For as long as I can remember I have this thing where I hear sounds, voices and sometimes see things depending on how tired I am. It almost never happens when moving around, it sometimes happen when sitting still and often happens when trying to sleep or wake up in the morning. But always goes away as soon as I move around or start using my brain somehow.

However when consuming THC these symptoms are heightened to something that feels like 50x and they occur even when awake and moving around.

The symptoms are also heightened a little bit when consuming alcohol and especially when trying to sleep.

If I stay up very late it's also a lot more intense when trying to sleep.

I consume a lot of caffeine in general, but I don't think it heightens my symptoms directly. Maybe indirectly it makes me stay up longer depending on when I consume.

(I've had cats most of my life too!)

That's interesting. Usually, I would ask if you have ever had difficulties focusing your attention, some ADHD?

How do you grade your visualization? Can you create a scene in your head and control it 100%?

How often do you get a random song stuck in your head?

I think that more people are prone to this than they think but they are simply not aware.

Some people start realizing things when they end up trying some kinds of meditation practice and since they are not in control and somewhat clueless about what's happening internally, for some of them it sends them off the rails (hence the stories we hear about meditation triggering psychosis etc...)

Some people never experience such things as well. For some, it comes later.

Talking to oneself is fine. Feeling external thoughts, emotions and even minor loss of self agency in motor control is something else and I think that some rationalizations could make sense. But the current lack of understanding is leading people to handwave (not every scientist is so handwavy of course).

There is an issue of depersonalization such as seems to be the case with your friend. All these things are really not understood and the nervous system alongside the brain is quite inscrutable for now.

Your questions seem eerily targeted haha

I have issues with attention, such that I easily get distracted when trying to focus on something.

I struggle holding a visual image in my head as it easily deteroitates, it's also very faint. I'm not sure what's normal here but I remember I could do this more easily when using THC, even when the effects start wearing down. It's also easier to do in the morning when I wake up before I start moving.

I feel like I have some song stuck in my head all the time. It's almost always a new song when I wake up from sleep.

I also have somatic tinnitus from what I understand. It's not like the beeping you get in your ear once in a while, it comes more from the center, is very high frequency with many overlapping frequencies and sounds a bit modulated. It also gets louder if I clench my teeth or stretch muscles.

No one is getting (properly) diagnosed with schizophrenia with incidents of drug induced psychosis, which is what you’re describing. Schizophrenia as a diagnosis relies on the presence of both negative and positive symptoms (as defined in the literature). Other people here have talked about the definition and fluidity of schizophrenia, things change but what does not change is schizophrenia is characterised by not only the positive and negative symptoms but also by being a degenerative condition. As opposed to drug induced psychosis, which is reversible if you remove the aetiological agent.

The issue is that it is not clear cut at all.

Psychosis is a positive symptom.

But by changing the neuro-transmitter balance when treating psychosis with anti-psychotic medication, negative symptoms can also appear.

Depending on who establishes the diagnostic, you can be diagnosed as schizophrenic while you are simply in one of the phase (acute or post) of psychosis.

In general, if you repeatedly suffer from bouts of psychosis, you will get a diagnosis even though the real trigger has not been established.

Also, the presence of negative and/or positive symptoms differs from people to people so even that is not clear-cut.

Anyone here has reversed astigmatism? I've heard a lot about reversing myopia, and while I've seen a some stuff on the netz for astigmatism, I haven't found a good enough resource.