Thread: Schizophrenia?
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JE Mack's Avatar JE Mack
06-03-2006, 05:38 AM
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hey, if you like psychiatry, read the book by john e. mack (hence my screen name). he was a psychiatrist with faculty position at harvard who studied alien abduction.

he writes he saw patients that reported abduction and didn't meet DSM-IV criteria for any schizophrenia spectrum disorder or bipolar with psychosis. however, a lot of the "abductees"/patients did have post-traumatic stress disorder, and he discussed the obvious possibility that the PTSD came first and the abduction came second, but for a number of reasons he came to the conclusion that people had PTSD "because" they were actually abducted. i think the guy in RS could have PTSD. everytime the narrator thinks about the experience in the song, when he's re-telling it, he has a panic attack (can't breath, right now...see my heart is pounding/racing).

another part of John E. Mack's book abduction relates to RS. there's actually a chapter (that I thought was ridiculous at first), where a guy takes some acid and sees an alien -- very similar to RS-. i thought it was stupid, but by the time i finished the book i realized why that chapter was there -- basically, when you hear about something you've already decided isnt' real, you feel like you can just dismiss it as a hallucination, whether drug-induced or related to psychosis. somehow, saying he's crazy feels like a scientific explanation. however, it's not enough to just say "you're crazy" and that's "why" you think you were adbucted by aliens, because it doesn't explain "why" so many people who don't know each other report EXACTLY the same details. there were even children, one as young as 2 years old, that reported the SAME abduction experience. basically, as a psychiatrist, i think he was trying to say, it's not enough to just label someone as crazy and then say that means science explains it.

a little off topic, i read his books "Abduction" and "Passport to the Cosmos" in 2001, and then listened to Third Eye and could have sworn the song was intentionally making reference to abduction. Then after hearing the overall message of lateralus the same year, followed by the last track, the album lateralus made me think of the message the abductees are given in John E. Mack's book. so hearing RS gave me goosebumps for about the first 50 listens. the band definitely has a thing for aliens.

oh, sorry this is so long, but someone is bound to say "a scientist said abductions are just sleep paralysis". plenty of abductees are awake (driving n whatnot) when they are abducted.

oh, and one more thing. i think i completely missed your point Jjunkhead, but ilqua ruxa was right that according to the DSM-IV exclusion criteria, you aren't schizophrenic if your hallucination(s) was drug-induced.

sorry this is sooo long.
Old 06-03-2006, 05:38 AM   #12
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Re: Schizophrenia?

hey, if you like psychiatry, read the book by john e. mack (hence my screen name). he was a psychiatrist with faculty position at harvard who studied alien abduction.

he writes he saw patients that reported abduction and didn't meet DSM-IV criteria for any schizophrenia spectrum disorder or bipolar with psychosis. however, a lot of the "abductees"/patients did have post-traumatic stress disorder, and he discussed the obvious possibility that the PTSD came first and the abduction came second, but for a number of reasons he came to the conclusion that people had PTSD "because" they were actually abducted. i think the guy in RS could have PTSD. everytime the narrator thinks about the experience in the song, when he's re-telling it, he has a panic attack (can't breath, right now...see my heart is pounding/racing).

another part of John E. Mack's book abduction relates to RS. there's actually a chapter (that I thought was ridiculous at first), where a guy takes some acid and sees an alien -- very similar to RS-. i thought it was stupid, but by the time i finished the book i realized why that chapter was there -- basically, when you hear about something you've already decided isnt' real, you feel like you can just dismiss it as a hallucination, whether drug-induced or related to psychosis. somehow, saying he's crazy feels like a scientific explanation. however, it's not enough to just say "you're crazy" and that's "why" you think you were adbucted by aliens, because it doesn't explain "why" so many people who don't know each other report EXACTLY the same details. there were even children, one as young as 2 years old, that reported the SAME abduction experience. basically, as a psychiatrist, i think he was trying to say, it's not enough to just label someone as crazy and then say that means science explains it.

a little off topic, i read his books "Abduction" and "Passport to the Cosmos" in 2001, and then listened to Third Eye and could have sworn the song was intentionally making reference to abduction. Then after hearing the overall message of lateralus the same year, followed by the last track, the album lateralus made me think of the message the abductees are given in John E. Mack's book. so hearing RS gave me goosebumps for about the first 50 listens. the band definitely has a thing for aliens.

oh, sorry this is so long, but someone is bound to say "a scientist said abductions are just sleep paralysis". plenty of abductees are awake (driving n whatnot) when they are abducted.

oh, and one more thing. i think i completely missed your point Jjunkhead, but ilqua ruxa was right that according to the DSM-IV exclusion criteria, you aren't schizophrenic if your hallucination(s) was drug-induced.

sorry this is sooo long.
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