Is it a glitch in the Matrix?

Originally posted by redhorse

Originally posted by kevinunknown
It seems that nearly everyone one this thread has read my first post, without understanding that i am mocking the idea that schizophrenia is a “glitch in the matrix” . Most of the stuff that has come my way is offensive and entirely unfair, read my other posts they are valid points.

Just so you don't feel too slighted, misunderstood and ignored... Rest assured, I read all of your posts before responding to you, this time or the other.

While I understand your concern over possibly creating an ultimately episode-exaserbating feedback loop for the OPster, (and I must admit... This may be valid, which is why I haven't ventured an opinion on the topic directly) your own approach in expressing this concern is little better, and quite probably even worse, in that regard. A schizophrenic episode can be later coped with as unfortunate chemistry... Grinding away at such a persons seld asteem can have more lasting effects and cause emotional stress that can contribute to later episodes.

I don't know if what I would have to say on the matrix topic could be helpful or harmful, but I KNOW that what you are doing is harmful; and since you are indicating that you feel you are psychologically stable, I will call you out on it... Gloves off... Where others can see.

'Tough Love', or even I guess 'Tough Concern' is all well and good, but is too often an instinctive and popular refuge for the psyche of a bully... Along with 'but I was only kidding', and 'I didn't mean them personally/that way/etc...' You're manifesting two outta three here at least, and I'm willing to call a spade a spade, or an emotional thug a thug.

Regardless of what you are telling yourself about the intent of your responses, the way that you have shown contempt for the thread also manifests as contempt for the poster him/herself.

For example, saying a thread is stupid is a (slightly) oblique (and really sneaky) personal attack, but still a personal attack; and when you add in that the thread itself may (or may not) be a manifestation or result of a 'mental illness' your ascerbicness is exponentially irresponsible, and frankly just mean.

If you cannot see how your bull-in-a-china-shop approach here is harmful to someone who may be in a delicate psychological state I frankly cringe at the thought of you working with the mentally ill on a regular basis. I hope that isn't the case. However, because you indicated that you do work with the mentally ill, I responded.

On another note, schizophrenia is a spectrum brain disorder, and a broad spectrum at that. It manifests very differently, to different degrees in different people. I don't know the extent of your experience, or the circumstances but I'm beginning to suspect it is rather more limited than you would like to admit. In short, some people, even highly trained professionals in the field of mental health do not hold the same perspective that you do on schizophrenia. Get over it.

On another, more personal (cause lord, no sense denying it, you've pi**ed me right off), note: In my opinion it's a rather hypocritical, really irritating and frankly silly behavior to fire off a bunch of insults and then whine about 'unfair' and 'offensive' when everyone crawls up your A**.

Although... you've done a fair job of back peddling since the thread became 'so popular.' It's an interesting response to social pressure that I think is worth noting. It fits the above mentioned behavioral pattern as well.

In other words... If you don't like it... Go cry to the mods. Now where have I head that before... Lemme think.

I've never seen such bitterness in an ATS post.

reply to post by LightofLiberty


I forgot about this. I was keeping a notebook on my nightstand when I was trying to keep a dream journal, and I heard a conversation going on. When I realized there were people "talking," I quickly wrote down what I could remember one of "them" saying.

All I wrote was:

Creases in Curtains.

"Someone" was talking about this in my head. I should note that I could care less about curtains and the creases in them.

I understand what you are saying! Who is to judge what is schizophrenic or not? Also, can't we have some rules about being a bully? Some people are beyond rude! It's just stupid and time-wasting, when someone is trying to make a valid point! I have seen things that other people don't see, and I have heard things that other people don't hear. I just think that some people are on a different frequency. I have visions about certain things and then they happen! I have always been that way! I would know when people were going to die, or I would see big events that were going to happen. Maybe not all of a big event, but some of it. It's like a puzzle, where some of the pieces are missing!

I think that when you die, you just cross over to a different plane, and some people on earth, are already tapping into that realm. Sometimes, I hear beautiful music in my dreams, and when I wake up, I want to write it down, but I can't remember all of it.

A thought on the notion of matrix has to do with the underlying geometry.

Is it a freely re-configurable [flexible] geometry/topology that is totally internally self-referencing or is it something with some degree or extensive cross referencing [is it relatively rigid]?

If [non-quantum?] physics is to be taken at face value, when an event happens at one place in the Universe [reality?] it eventually [usually at light speed] has effects elsewhere in the Universe/system. 'Gravity' [conventional definition] causes mass bodies in reasonable proximity to have effects upon one another.

I will guess there are other independent Universes somewhere, but they may quite possibly [or not] be where we will essentially have no connection nor access to them.
Which would require that our Universe/system must have some limited span/domain/range of cross referencing. Its roots can not be infinite, except possibly where numerous universes share the same concentric infinity(s). But the non-infinite roots could be very, very, very deep or not. Like a roof truss, there is cross bracing, but it is neither solidly infilled with wood & it by itself [generally] does not extend to the floor/ground.

If you have a topological surface of some number of dimensions that is totally self-referencing/connected & yet flexible in its relation to anything else, It probably retains consistency. A flexible [surface?] topology could have any external form, but could not allow any bifurcation of its defined [requisite?] connections/adjacencies.
It has no fixed relationship to its context, only to itself.

In standard physics, retaining/maintaining continuity of connections is best facilitated by not changing the external relationships. Like metal & many materials can take some flexion, but at some point of stressing & re-stressing the material may break [lose coherence/connection/bond].
Some materials can take a great deal of flexion, for extended spans.
Also engineering designs, such as interlocking chains or hinges are designed so the elements are not internally stressed nearly as much as the relationship between interlocking elements is changed, to minimize each element's internal stress.
Retaining a fixed relationship with its context aids longevity.
Arguably it does or may have linkages with its context as well as the requisite connections/references to itself.

Now as in a roof truss, if one fills in a cross connection & then another & another it becomes indistinguishable from a solid slab of wood. Then further if each of the trusses is melded along the length of the ridge it becomes a massive piece of wood. It becomes arguably more weight than it would every be worth to support as a roof. Further if the room below this solid chunk of wood is also filled in with wood, then the structure can facilitate nothing internally & could only serve to support something on its exterior. [Kind of like some of those Mayan temples or the Great pyramid, lots of stone, with a small amount of interior space created.

If a universe [reality?] is infinitely cross-referenced it probably can not be sustained. It might easily be a horror to live in or experience. [blackhole?]
Even in a computer program simulation, if there is infinite cross referencing it will never be able to process anything. Usually in computer programs they are designed for the minimal-sufficient referencing/computation.

Your experience notably exceeds the expected perceptual range(s).
But keep in mind what you may be seeing may not be a complete autonomous 'reality', but bits, chunks, pieces that may fill some chaotic span of 'trash' between this & some other coherent reality.
Interestingly, if that view were true, that is not to say you might not be able to salvage something from it, something that could be quite useful, applicable or even treasured by yourself or even for the rest of us if you choose to share it.

Your experience may be yanking your chain of expectation, or desire. Whether that is by design of some external mind or just random circumstance would be difficult to fathom. But keep in mind, most of us enjoy occasionally yanking one another's chains. Sometimes wickedly maliciously, even vindictively, & hopefully more often gently & with easy recovery. And we may not be alone as a quasi-intelligent species.

The universe we implicitly concur that we live in, seems to be highly consistent in terms of its physics. And if that is true then we have something where we can apply strategic methodology. It has useful, agreeable coherence.

While it is possible to have some surface [self-referencing] reality that is very coherent and simultaneously externally flexible it can't help but be somewhat more fragile [much less dependable]. Leaping to or into it would range from risky to perhaps suicidal. Even if it hangs together under stressing, it would entail learning a whole new set of behavior criteria for you to learn before it might be reasonably safe or useful.

Conversely i will say that if a given reality/universe is somehow growing in its cross-referencing parameters it could have a tendency to collapse in upon itself. Blackholes come to mind.

So i suppose the optimal idea might be you want a reality/universe/system where the cross referencing remains relatively constant.
i also will speculate that we have some kind of discrete time instant passage.
If we had to run an infinitely continuous gauntlet of time to get from one instant to the next, time simply could not pass.

I suppose modularity might also prove useful both for repair & possibly expanding its extent of a reality/universe system.

sort of like double entry bookkeeping without actually certifying & documenting each individual penny that is transacted.
There must be some range(s) that might be argued are reasonable for acceptable operation.

I suppose in your life, if it works for you, then who the hell is anyone else or everyone else to tell you otherwise, as long as you are not transgressing other people's lives.
If however it is uncomfortable, frightening or dangerous to yourself or others, then it is quite surely something to address & attend to.

One shouldn't be too quick to make presumptions about what you are seeing/experiencing, but that would also include you.

There is an interesting case that Ramachandran [a leading British brain scientist] where brain damage caused a man living with his parents to feel think & believe they were imposter replacements when he saw them, but when he talked to them on the phone he knew/felt/believed they were his 'real' parents.

Our reality belief system is a function of our emotions.
Which has to be a cause for pause in any thinking person.
Generally i will guess our emotional beliefs are at least workably close to what intellectual discernment would confirm,

but look at Iraq. No WMDs, No terrorists, yet viewing the American public they express no expected outrage, anger or shock,
even after probably a million civilians have been killed, that will inspire all new sources of anti-American anger & hate,
as well as at least a 1/2 Trillion dollars have been spent on just the immediate invasion & occupation.

Obviously our societal perception, response has been highly warped from any kind of accountable, rational, orthogonal relationship with the facts.
Somehow we have become highly dissociative from the quite frightening facts of reality.
In all likelihood it will come to bite us on the backside, & we will feign innocence & shock.
Sadly it will probably hit future generations, who were not culpable.

So when these same expert idiots are telling you what is real & what is not real,
take it with a HUGE grain of salt.
But when you are presuming what you are seeing is totally real the way the Universe is, take that with a large dose of salt as well.

It is always more complicated than we will ever imagine. Let's hope we are lucky & the metaverse is for whatever reasons, is gentle & not too painful with us.

reply to post by kevinunknown


kevinunknown, do you have any idea of how much of he psychiatric/psychological knowledge we operate on was directly related to MkUltra funded research in the fifties or 60s and how twisted the medical community in general has been because 70% of research in the entire US was funded by the defense department up until the 90s? I know that the what we call schizophrenia is no joke, but does psychology have an adequate explanation for it? I don't think you can produce one since much of the former diagnosis of that has moved over to a more general and nebulous "bipolar" diagnosis in the last decade. People hardly even touch the term schizophrenia.

reply to post by LightofLiberty


Sorry - but this is wrong. One of my close friends has MPD... it's not a "glitch in the Matrix"... sorry, but this is wrong.

I wish I had something more constructive to say.. but I don't. I've had first hand experience with this first hand..with my friend who has it.

This is just wrong.

Ladies and Gentlemen sit down im about to blow your minds with some thought. lol


OK Lets say for a min that this is true and people who are skitzo are seeing something or reacting with something in another dimension where is the proof and can we ever find it? For example

I think that the worlds time line is layered.. That right now its July the 3rd 2010 ok Maybe every july the 3rd since the beginning of time up to this point has its own layer and we are on top of the stack..

And this person with the illness sees a man reading a paper in a chair.. He could possibly be seeing someone on july the 3rd in 1864.


Thats just something to think about.. Now

Lets put this to religion.. Jesus.. Maybe he was ill as well and this god wasnt real or maybe god is real and he is on another plane in time and when jesus walked on water he was walking on another dimension and time which the water he walked on was dirt so he was able so shift through these dimensions..


Maybe Jesus is from the future and at the end of all this he finally meet him and hes alive maybe he went back intime to the time he was born from the future and he is actually like a time traveler.. ok i need sleep but seriously there is alot of things thats hard to explain...



My take on The Matrix.. Who knows? Noone really knows what happens after death but If aint mistaken albert einstein claims when we die our energy goes on.. IT doesnt really die..


What if someone gets killed in a car wreck and as soon as they are hit and killed they find theirself in another town city or state or they are born again on this earth and they have no recollection of how they got here..


I get those feelings alot like i dont belong in this time period i feel like i am from another earlier time maybe the darkages..

Im sure im not the only one who sometimes feels like they dont belong.


Maybe past life is real and some people are more aware of this then anyone else is?


I dont believe the matrix in the movies stuff though..


But lets say it is real and we have rules that could bend.. Jesus did supposidly walk on water.. So that could explain some stuff.... Good job OP you got me to thinking lol

[edit on 3-7-2010 by gerg357]

Okay so correct me if i'm wrong but there have been many theories thrown around basically entailing that alot of extremely intelligent people throughout our history, somewhat iconic figures such as albert einstein, were supposedly border line schizophrenics.

If anyone knows of any real evidence that would back this up i would love to see some. As our mental and pneuro science being very limited and unevolved i completely entertain the idea that this is not enteirely a mental illness and stems somewhat from an overloading of information. moreso than the persons brain can handle... the word visionary comes to mind when i think about this.

As for the matrix, the idea is plausable on some accounts. IMHO ask mr hawkins his take on it! hes possibly one of the most intelligent people around.

reply to post by LightofLiberty


I would think someone intelligent enough to build a matrix (in which the participants are self aware) then they would be smart enough to fix all the glitches.

I have thought of this many times... while waiting for the bus some lady walks up and asks if this is the stop to get on to go to wagon wheel train station and she needs to get on soon or will miss the rodeo. I really was struck by how intent she was and facial expressions she made asking each person sitting at the stop... Later in the day when i returned home i relayed the story to my daughter and she was replied:Mom maybe she used to go to the rodeo before she went crazy and she remembers this as some sort of important part of her life. Could be true.

Sir, you need to lay offa the hallucinogens.

Everyone, I am wondering if we can take this thread in a new direction. As a result of my work on aircraft I was exposed to MEK (Methyl Ethyl Ketone) and benzene. I have always wondered if perhaps this could have been the cause of my schizophrenia. After doing more research I found that inhaling Toluene can cause psychosis/schizophrenia symptoms. Toluene is MEK's stepfather. I am wondering if those of you who are more intelligent than me can find anything linking these chemicals/solvents to schizophrenia.

Thank you for your participation.

I have a question,
Are your experiences whole & intact, discretely self-coherent, or do they flow in & out & morph like dreams to some degree?

If they are weird are they consistently weird in that way for whatever duration?
Like a window on to a self-consistent alternate domain.

Having mentioned how we are driven by emotions into reality beliefs,

how emotionally attached are you to them?

Generally scientific reality favors persistence & [mutually reinforcing?] dispassion.
That may be science's bias, but it is almost an instinct we have about credibility or at least relevance.

Your experiences are real, the question is, do they correlate to something beyond your own internal brain &/or mind activities.

Do your experiences seem structurally sound to themselves if you look at them as a completely disinterested observer?

Do you want to believe they are real?
Do other people want to believe they are not real?

Empirically, intellect, analysis, calculation & logic should be the driver & measure of our presumed or any reality.

An odd question to all, could emotion feed our reality? Either our internal world modeling &/or an actual exo-reality?
We invest our emotions with things.
What if Universal reality is driven by aggregate emotional buying in of it?
Like a self-fulfilling prophecy of compounding emotional investment.

Listen to the back & forth discussion, maybe including my own disturbance at it, it is quite emotionally loaded.

Where is the clinical critique?

I will add that the reason your experience is so subject to suspicion or complete disbelief is that it does not cross reference at all with anyone else's experience.
Also that there is no demonstrateable evidence or product of it (at least that you have related).

So even if you are glimpsing an alternate reality/realities, if there is no product except your memory of it, how relevant is it? Clearly it affects you, but for other non-familiar people it just logically doesn't mean much to them.

We [virtually?] all accept that we dream, imagine, fantasize, but we give it a binary partition with our mostly shared 'reality'. Although technology & somewhat science, is arguably a transference/interweaving from the domain of fantasy/imagination & even sometimes dreams to our 'real' world & lives.

I don't know if it is relevant, but Einstein's first wife & a son were or went schizophrenic.

As a physics student herself his first wife did contribute to his work as well.

Originally posted by LightofLiberty
WARNING: This may be uninteresting to most of you but it is important to me.

So I’ve been watching parts of the matrix and it occurred to me that perhaps schizophrenics are experiencing a glitch in their matrix. Instead of experiencing nothing out of the ordinary as most people or 99% of the population does we have experiences that are bizarre and out of this world. Of course people have odd experiences but not of this kind.

When I experienced my first episode there was a singularity about it that I cannot explain accurately to those who have not been there. All through my life I’ve experienced these glitches, I’ve had gut instincts about things that were going to happen before they happened. And in my first episode of schizophrenia the events were overshadowed by something more powerful than I can contemplate. I’ve heard (yes, I actually heard it) and seen a footprint in a stream of water flowing through a gutter with no one around, I’ve seen five Indians in a hallucination, I’ve heard what sounds like demons talking to me, I’ve also heard brilliant music in my head and snippets of intellectual conversations that I could not fathom on my own consciously. Where do these things come from?!?!?!? I want to be as intelligent as the people holding the conversations in my head or at least hear more than snippets of their conversations.

What do you think? Do you believe schizophrenic individuals are experiencing some kind of glitch in the matrix? I’m interested to know your opinions.

Thank you for your future thoughtful reply.

I have had more interaction with schizophrenic patients than most anyone here. And in my humble opinion they are not experiencing a glitch in a non existent matrix. Recently we started studying teens who are schizophrenic so we can see how the disease progresses. MRI's detected gray matter loss of more than 10 percent first in the parietal, or outer, regions of the brain; this loss spread to engulf the rest of the brain over five years.

Patients with the worst brain tissue loss have the worst symptoms, delusions, psychotic thoughts, hallucinations, depression and hearing voices...

We still don't know what causes this disease that effects 1% of Americans.

But the physical results of testing indicate it's not them percieving some kind of glitch in a nonexistent matrix. The matrix is a movie, not reality.

reply to post by kevinunknown

I’ll tell you what, when you start treating people who have sliced there face, arms and bodies with razor blade because they thought that if they had no skin the voices would stop only to find out this hasn’t worked and then spent the best part of a month on suicide watch in a constant emotional state, then tell me it’s a “glitch in the matrix”.

I am convinced this glitch is in the definition rather than what a person hears, that society says doesn't exist.

According to the definition used, humans are the only beings with intelligence in the entire construct of what ever is out there.

Now that is an insane definition. More likely a definition with an agenda.

reply to post by LightofLiberty


I also have read that gluten causes psychotic behavior patterns in people who are intolerant to it but can still consume it. One other side effect is to become bloated, if the person is not marching 16 hours a day, like the Roman army.

FYI: Wheat/gluten consumption was made popular in the free world by the Romans and it also seems their actions, according to history, were kind of psychopathic as well.

Try cutting gluten, sugar and milk from your diet. That might help and doing that is something you don't need a shrink for.

Hi all,

for start Id like to say this thread is awesome. After months of reading I finally joined to reply to this thread.

Validity of the thread?

As for the whole thread being wrong or sick or something, I have to politely disagree. The people who say it is wrong because their friends have a mental disorder are perhaps very empathic to their friends, but imho are not empathic to the advancement of understanding the very problem their friends have.

Just try and imagine that your friends are indeed just sensitive to other realms of existence, and that their changed perspective of reality is somehow curable by simple stuff as a change of intake of chemicals in the body?! Would you not want to know about that? Would you rather have your friends suffer from drug side-effects and the disorder itself for the rest of their lives? I know you dont, so I am asking to refrain yourself from discouraging people from questioning the "accepted views".

Chemicals and food

I would like to note that I am a vegan, and that I have found that my change of diet was the best thing I have done for myself in my whole life. The reason for that is that I have not had a single health problem since I stopped eating chemically processed food, animal products and using chemicals. I wont go into detail about that so I dont stray off topic, but I will say that I have seen a big difference in my emotional balance and mental strength as a consequence of this change of diet.

Furthermore, I have spent a few years reading and exploring different diets and other peoples experiences of different diets and have come to a conclusion that eating raw food may be a cure for many if not most of health problems, including psychological ones. In general I have seen a consensus of raw food eating people that they have seen a tremendous difference in the way their mind works, achieving way higher levels of concentration, relaxation, mental clarity and emotional stability.

Perhaps those of you who have a desire to clear your mind of strange things and regaining control of it, might have a benefit of trying a different, raw food diet, for a short period of time.

I usually never promote diet change for people without being asked for opinion because I believe everyone must make his own choice at his own time. But in this case, I am simply trying to share an opinion, so please dont see this as a chance of start a diet debate.

The matrix

As for the matrix, I am sure that we can all agree the movie "Matrix" is not a definition of reality. It is a nice movie asking very interesting questions, but it provides no answers, and couldn't ever, imho. The use of the word matrix could be seen as describing our reality as not finite and complete, or simply not being the only one.

My own personal experiences, and those of my parents and ancestors (stories personally related to me) have lead me to believe that our reality is certainly not the only one. Also, I have somehow in a logical manner proved to myself that everything that happens to us, happens with a reason. Mostly, the reason being - giving us a chance to discover, learn and evolve.

Also, regarding the "matrix" theory, I have concluded after 10 years of reading, thinking and debating that our reality in fact isn't the real, fundamental and only reality. In fact, I firmly do believe it reshapes itself all the time to align itself with what we individually and as a whole believe. I have seen things happen that cannot be explained otherwise. Things like provoking the universe to respond in bringing future events to reality. I have tried to test these things to see if it was just somehow an example of people seeing things that are yet to happen, and I concluded it cannot be so. Thus, I also vote for the "illusion" of reality, one wich constantly tries to keep itself believable and real. If you believe something that is impossible firmly and long enough, it will become real. For you or for everyone.

My 2 cents.

SOme of you are missing something very important, especially the above poster. They are not experiencing a different realm of existence. Schizophrenia=Gray matter loss. I percieve things that others don't but I don't suffer from gray matter loss. The more gray matter loss the more delusional the patient.

I'm not openminded to your possibility because the schizophrenics I work with daily and the mri's we run weekly show the truth.

Schizophrenics are not percieving another dimension, they are not having a glitch in the nonexistent matrix. Their brains are deteriorating, and they are experiencing an altered reality because of it.