delusional thinking

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Do you have delusional thinking, i.e. do you ever think you are being watched (when it is very unlikely you could be watched), that you are being remotely monitored, that you are a pawn in a massive conspiracy (government or otherwise), that your existence has grandiose religious import, that your thoughts can be read or that thoughts can be inserted in your mind... or anything else delusional?

I do have a degree of delusional thinking and always have, as far back as I can remember.

No, but I sometimes worry that people will mistake my AS for schizophrenia.

Tim

I believe that I can control every aspect of the world, given enough willpower. But this isn't a delusion.

People are always watching us. We are always being watched. Fact of life

Well part of the problem is that people with delusional thinking can't always tell when it's delusional. Sometimes my reality testing remains intact (even if I still believe the delusion, I am able to see it is most likely a delusion) and sometimes it doesn't-- I can't even see that it is delusional, AND I believe it.

hyper-alien... there are situations in life where we probably are not being watched. The question is, do you believe you are being watched during the unlikely moments? For instance I will feel watched by a window even if that window faces a blank exterior wall. That is delusional.

Online, I always feel watched, but that's no delusion.

It's a bit difficult to explain,but it isnt that I believe things as much as I believe in the possibility of things.It's kind of like the premis that..."germ existed before we had a way to see them or know their effects.".I think that there are
many more things that could be true(then ever could be imagined in your philosophy,Heratio)...or some thing like that.

I actually have a problem being a "true believer",because there is so little proof in so many beliefs....I cant make the leap of faith.Because of this and the need to have some structure to make decissions in my life,I decided I am an existentialist.I believe there is a possibility of past lives,karma,alien intervention in human evolution.

I also read Brave New World,1984,Animal Farm,The Wanting Seed,Ferinheit 451, and several other anti-utopian novels...so yes,I am a bit cynical about the government.

About being watched online, let me clarify: it's not delusional to know that everything you type could be monitored. But to think that you are being targeted in some way when there's no real reason for you to be targeted, to think that you are being singled out and given special attention or surveillance by some agency (assuming you are not involved in illegality) might well be delusional.

And of course, delusional thinking encompasses more than just thinking you are being watched. They tend to fall into either persecutorial (paranoid) or grandiose camps but can take on any variety of detail.

To think that you are under some kind of unique surveillance is a paranoid delusional. To think you can control the world with your thoughts is grandiose. (I'm speaking clinically here... after all, since I can get pretty delusional myself, I might be wont to believe someone could control the world with their thoughts.)

Absolutely agree.

Nobody really knows what's real, anyway. The general understanding of reality just comes from whatever belief the majority of people have agreed upon. Seven hundred years ago, everyone agreed that the earth was flat. That doesn't make it true, butI bet anyone who believed otherwise would have been considered delusional. People with "delusional" thinking just happen to disagree with the majority.
Nothing is true. Everything is permitted.

I was assigned the title of "delusional" by people who would horse me around and behave with true insanity, so how am I going to know?

... which is a delusion. The idea that the Earth is flat has never been popular (since circa 240BC). Some early members of the Christian church did argue in favour of it. The majority took no notice and/or didn't think about it. See Flat Earth.

And the cycle is completed. The will rules all.

Right on, I appreciate the correction.
I just needed a quick example to help illustrait my point.

There was a point in my life, between 14 and 17 (I'm 20 now), where I believed that I had a soulmate who lived in Sweden and would move to Canada and we would meet and be together forever, but I grew out of that, it seems.

Sorry. I missed putting a smiley on my post...

(I'm A QI-ophile, and a Mythbusters-ophile...)

No, but I fear everyone else in the world does.



Why do you ask that.........who have you been talking too!! !!



You mean your's doesn't? Wow, thats sad.

While it's true that on a philosophical level, no true sense of reality can be determined ultimately, there is still a functional reality for which most people maintain a reality testing. Social norms are taken into account when determining this clinically. So, if most of one's society accepts that the world is flat, it is not delusional to think that the world is flat.

Some delusions can be very frightening and disturbing, to the point of significantly impairing a person's ability to function in an even modestly productive manner.