I’m not sure if this is the right board for this, apologies if it isn’t. And first off, I feel like I should put a trigger warning here for unreality and the discussion of subjective reality.
So, I’m in college and taking a philosophy course, and one of our readings was about how maybe nothing is real except for what we perceive. This struck me as a psychotic person, because what if a lot of what I perceive is largely classified as “not real?” So I got to thinking about reality and how it must be subjective - the example I like to use is color; we know that everyone sees color differently, so even just based on that alone, everyone experiences reality slightly differently, and so must be subjective.
If reality has to be subjective, why are my experiences classified as “not real?” I understand that the majority of people don’t experience hallucinations and ‘delusions’ (I have complicated feelings about that word) like I do, and presumably like many people on this forum do, but sometimes I feel like these experiences are discounted by virtue of being “not real,” which can be frustrating sometimes.
However, on the other hand, sometimes I don’t like the idea that my hallucinations and the things I believe could be considered real - that’s kind of scary! So I’m torn between thinking psychotic experiences can, or even should, be considered “real,” and thinking that the dominant view of hallucinations and such being “not real” is helpful and for the best.
Anyways, this got a bit longer than I was expecting it to, sorry. I just thought it was kind of an interesting topic, and I guess what I want to ask is, does anyone else have any opinions on this?