That's the thing, when I'm really "kneedeep", we'll say, in a psychotic episode, everything is real and true, truer and more real than anything else in the world. When I am deeply in a paranoid state, nothing can prove to me that I am not being persecuted, even if a raybeam shone down from the heavens and said, "You are safe, the CIA does not have a file on you," etc., I wouldn't believe it for a second, it would just instantly be incorporated into the systematic delusions as more proof that I am being persecuted, this time, by a raybeam telling overt lies.. see what I mean? But I'm lucky, on the other hand, in that I rarely get that bad, and it hasn't happened in a while..
I have actually rarely hallucinated, or if I hallucinate, then I'm really not aware that they are hallucinations. I never even thought of the possibility, and frankly I don't have time to investigate such things. Cause, yeah, the world does seem pretty hostile to me, and weird things happen, but I mean I never thought that maybe I was seeing or hearing things not actually there.
Forgive me if I find my own condition somewhat humorous at times, though I never laugh at anyone else's pain, just my own, it's how I relieve the stress sometimes. Cause I was recently asking myself, "What constitutes proof, scientifically?" And it got too complicated so I put the interrogation on the backburner for now. I mean I think I could fare pretty well in proving any number of things scientifically, I am an engineer by trade (sound eng.) and a professional painter. Rhetoric (the
art of persuasion) is part of what I do. But I would never use it for evil... I just think that if I was able to tell the difference all the time between a delusion, an hallucination, and objective reality, then I wouldn't have been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, but with an anxiety disorder such as obsessive-compulsive disorder, or panic disorder, etc., what they used to call a "neurosis" as opposed to a "psychosis" (and that was the criterion to make the difference, awareness or nonawareness that one's cognitions are absurd or illogical, untrue, etc.)
As usual, I don't know if this helps.. I just think that anything goes in the realm of beliefs.. If believing something or seeing something, etc., does not cause extreme dysfunction or stress, anguish, trauma, or pain, then thank goodness, it's not a sickness, it's a blessing. I honestly believe that. Or else psychiatrists would have to tackle all world religions and superstitions, myths, etc., and prove that they were all a "sick man's dreams", which will never happen, because those beliefs bring people meaning, peace, sobriety, happiness, joy, truth, etc.
On another note, there are accounts out there of mediums who say they have been able to "connect" with a nether-region, like another wavelength or something. That's never happened to me, and I'm uncertain about what I believe in those cases. Take Edgar Cayce, he would enter a sleeplike state and would do "readings", and for forty years he developed one of the most stunning philosophical + spiritual system/doctrine.. Trust your intuition, and "follow your bliss" as Joseph Campbell, great forerunner of comparative mythology, would say.. if it ain't broke don't fix it, or in other words, if it doesn't cause you traumatic pain.. I dunno, I would just be wary of manic states, of those grandiose thoughts that can creep in, like when I think I'm Napoleon or someone like that. Cause that's a form of ecstasy, it just hurts quite a bit after the downer hits.. the post-psychotic depression...
