
How Culture Affects Hallucinations - ryan_j_naughton
http://priceonomics.com/how-culture-affects-hallucinations/
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im3w1l
There is an internet subculture that tries to create _tulpas_. They are like
voices in your head, but they have bodies too. So culture is already changing.

[https://community.tulpa.info/](https://community.tulpa.info/)
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Tulpas](https://www.reddit.com/r/Tulpas)
[http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/tulpamancy-internet-
subcultur...](http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/tulpamancy-internet-
subculture-892)

~~~
d-equivalence
Tibetan Buddhists and other weird occult folk knew about them for ages, and
required years of training before approaching them as a subject. They
considered them as highly dangerous too. I shiver at the thought that this
concept evolved enough so as to be picked up by reddit subculture. Let's see
how many lives will get fucked.

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bourgoin
"If your only explanation for an auditory hallucination is that you must be
going crazy and you have to fight it, you’re going to develop a very different
relationship to your illness"

This is really the key idea. It reminds me of the story of Eleanor Longden
[1], a psychological researcher who has heard voices for years and has come to
learn to live with them. "Mental illness/health" is a powerful meme that isn't
always for the best.

[1] [http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/aug/08/ted-
talk-e...](http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/aug/08/ted-talk-eleanor-
longden-schizophrenia)

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ggchappell
I wonder about cultural patterns that might result in selection bias in the
studies mentioned.

> All sixty participants were diagnosed with schizophrenia, and regularly had
> auditory hallucinations.

And later:

> ... the Americans’ hallucinations seemed much more aggressive and violent.

Perhaps (for example) Americans with non-violent hallucinations tend not to be
diagnosed with schizophrenia.

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gojomo
There's a "hearing voices movement" that aims to change the Western
interpretation of auditory hallucinations, in roughly the way this article
suggests:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hearing_Voices_Movement](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hearing_Voices_Movement)

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hellbanner
I highly recommend the book Echopraxia, sci-fi written by a marine biologist
which explores voices in heads as reptile programs not unlike shell daemons
communicating through audio.

[http://www.amazon.com/Echopraxia-Peter-
Watts/dp/076532802X](http://www.amazon.com/Echopraxia-Peter-
Watts/dp/076532802X)

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jccooper
Ah, I see Priceonomics has completed its transformation into Medium. Kind of a
strange pivot.

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kevingoslar
This article misses the fundamental difference between vision and
hallucination.

Hallucinations are psychiatric states, characterized by confusion, loss of
identity and control, and have a destructive nature.

Visions on the other hand are spiritual experiences, they come with clarity,
finding of identity and control about the inner and outer world, and are very
constructive and uplifting experiences.

~~~
smellf
Hallucinations are certainly not by definition destructive. If you play Guitar
Hero for a few hours and then look at something stationary, it will look like
it's moving. If I haven't gotten enough sleep for several days running,
sometimes walls will look like they're at the wrong angles.

~~~
patmcguire
Tetris effect/hypnagogia is maybe what you're talking about, it happens to
most everyone given the circumstances
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnagogia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnagogia)

