This has both to do with unusual beliefs and cognition, meaning why do we nestle around conspiracies like kids around a campfire?
Why do sz tend to believe in a small handful of conspiracy theories? I am not getting into specifics because that’s triggering–but why do sz gravitate towards conspiracies like flies to the honey? It’s just weird that every sz I meet has an eye for conspiracies. The whole neuroscience is really interesting, like, what about our brains makes us see things in terms of “alliances” “conspiracies” and etc…?
Is there an area of the brain that is associated with stuff like “conspiracies” that would explain why most sz get deluded into believing a specific conspiracy theory? Is that a personality trait of ours, a genetic trait that shows up in our brains, or both? I assume there’s a fault in our sense of logic, but where is logic located in the brain and how can logic be restored?
Curious to hear people’s thoughts on where this conspiracy “radar” comes from!
I think it’s because humans are instinctively wired to first recognize stress/fear, then identify the source, and then confront the source. That is how most people deal with everyday life. But when there is no outside source because the fear/paranoia/stress is coming from mental illness, it’s easy to get totally stuck and floundering in the “identify the source” phase. But it’s completely natural to feel a strong instinctive push to try to identify it.
Sz types can think their neighbors, the Government, even the whole world is out to get them. (like I did)
Through socialization, everyone connects dots, but the Sz type connects dots that shouldn’t be associated with each other…we take it to the nth degree and wonder why no one else can see what we are seeing and believing.
I just think most of us Sz types have more creative brains than your average shmoe and this can lead to devastating results when we go overboard and lose insight into ourselves.
I wonder if this has any relation to those of us who get really vivid, intrusive thoughts. I sometimes feel like my imagination is just too powerful and needs to be toned the ■■■■ down.
I’ve never been one for conspiracy theories. My delusions were about other things and my paranoia doesn’t reach that level of thinking virtually everyone is out to get me.
Plus I don’t know if anyone else experienced this, but I also remember that anything that tried to prove a conspiracy theory, it was like my brain rapidly absorbed it, but anything that sought to disprove a theory, no matter how accurate and well done the video or article was, it was like my mind could not absorb it in the same way, as though if the message was “good” then it couldn’t be trusted. In retrospect I feel like this was the very crux of my paranoia in most cases, “good” things could not be trusted, which left only scary things for reality.
I think @Patrick made a very good point. We tend to connect dots that shouldn’t be there. We have very high dopamine in our brains so we believe things that are not true.
I had a thought last night after watching the 3rd episode of Star Talk. A guy transitioned to a girl and then observed how the way she reacted to things was completely different. Which brought her to question free will. I wonder myself about free will now because I have subjected myself to things that alter my thoughts as well. And after watching this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Chfoo9NBEow I wonder if we are really in a simulation too.
I know that my ideas, my thoughts, and their themes are just an event in an ever culminating series of events that I experience throughout my life both inside and out of my mind. And if I can alter that, others can too and it’s been proven that others do. And if they (or I) are projecting onto me personal biases (that we as humans all do) that can later be repeated then what makes that different then a simulation? What goals that might be are various, from trying to raise awareness about a particular community to trying to just empathize with a friend, it all seems the same to me.
It seems plausible to me but I could just need my meds adjusted. What do you think?
I think people absolutely are influenced in more ways than most realize, manipulation and brainwashing are real things that abusers on all levels use to great effect. But I also don’t think that means we’re living in a simulation. For me personally, thoughts like, “This is all a simulation,” are usually meant to serve as an escape from the reality that I am vulnerable and there are manipulative people out there.
After rereading what I typed, I thought to myself maybe it’s the meds that make some of us think that. That we go through the hormonal changes and we think we are not in control and that the meds do this to us and that the people supplying the meds are out to change us. This is one way conspiracy theories start. Another way is one is to see how other people affect us and to having high dopamine we see that change in larger…I don’t know…conscious mindsets? And we begin to feel out of control and blame others for doing to us what believe is purposeful manipulation.
Ob believe me, if meds could actually change me, I’d have been all over them years ago. But I am still my same dysfunctional ass self, even when I am medicated.
This is so strange, but this is exactly the sort of thing that helps me fight some of my delusional thoughts - I get a rush thinking about them, feel warm and excited and safe, and it’s like my brain throws on the brakes: “THIS FEELS AWESOME, WHAT’S THE CATCH?!”
Yeah I mean specifically paranoid delusions, which for me usually involve massive conspiracy theories OR people in my personal life trying to poison me. I don’t get many grandiose delusions, but when I do, they do feel both scary and cool at the same time.
I thought I united mankind through music, humour and love…
Then I woke up the next day and told my wife that I had checked Global Unification off of my bucket list, and that I was going to now start paying more attention to her and the kids.
Just one of many delusions I’ve had over the years.
During my last stay at the Hospital, the Doctor said to me, “You look surprisingly calm considering you think the whole world wants to kill you.”
I told him that I was used to it by now, and that I was at peace about my impending death. That’s when I brought all of those items to give to our Prime Minister. I thought someone was going to leap out of the pack and murder me…but I didn’t care anymore. I was sooo tired of overthinking, death would’ve seemed like a holiday by comparison to how I was feeling.
