In this BodyTalk 4 Life newsletter I will provoke your thinking with a short discussion on the “sanity” of people suffering from schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders. Who is sane, and who is crazy? Read on to find out.
Vyara
Psychotic disorders and perception: Who is sane and who is crazy?
In his book, Hyperspace, physicist Michio Kaku describes his childhood visits to a Japanese garden. As a child, he pondered on how the carp in the pond there probably had no idea that they were surrounded by water. He also wondered if the carp were aware of the world outside the pond.
Kaku pictured taking a carp out of the water and tossing it back in. To the other carp it would most likely look like their friend had disappeared. Kaku imagined that the fish would give the following account on returning back to the pond:
“I was somehow lifted out of the universe (the pond) and hurled into a mystery nether world, with blinding lights and strangely shaped objects that I had never seen before. The strangest of all was the creature who held me prisoner, who did not resemble a fish in the slightest. I was shocked to see that it had no fins whatsoever, but nevertheless could move without them. It struck me that the familiar laws of nature no longer applied in the netherworld. Then just as suddenly I found myself back into our universe.”
Kaku realized that the other carp would dismiss their friend’s claims as the ramblings of a mad carp; every carp knows that there is nothing beyond the pond universe.
Like carp in a pond, we humans are also limited in what we can perceive. Physicists are discovering higher frequencies and other dimensions that most humans cannot comprehend and are not aware of. However, some arguments are being put forth that schizophrenics and people suffering from other psychotic disorders may be suffering nothing else but increased and heightened awareness and ability to connect to other universes – ones that are “normally” beyond our scope of perception. Like the rest of the carp in the pond we (the “normal” people on Earth) label schizophrenics as “crazy” and want to treat them. At the same time, most of us would love to broaden and expand our awareness. What if the people we think of as crazy are the ones we need to learn from if we want to gain understanding about other universes?
If you are intrigued by this possibility, I recommend reading “Punk Science” by Dr Manjir Samnta-Laughton.
