3 ms·

very interesting, do you know the name of this phenomenon? i have experienced something similar, when the brain is munched from overworking and undersleeping, y

very interesting, do you know the name of this phenomenon? i have experienced something similar, when the brain is munched from overworking and undersleeping, you kind of start "daydreaming", although it might be slightly different than what you have described.

rapnie 3y ago
I don't know a medical term, other than that it is in the area of Mania [0]. For me it was luckily a one time adventure induced by the circumstances. In hindsight I consider it positively, as an enriching experience. When reading the wikipedia page, I avoided some of the more severe afflictions. There are risk factors to avoid. Good sleep most important among them. After such episode the brain is completely drained and needs time to 'recharge'. Having multiple episodes in a row usually leads to a bipolar disorder with true depression following the manic episodes, I was told. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mania https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mania
- kergonath 3y ago
  > Having multiple episodes in a row usually leads to a bipolar disorder with true depression following the manic episodes, I was told. Yes. I am not sure about the odds, but you might have been lucky. It’s a good way to end up properly insane. I’ve never been anywhere near that state but even milder cases can be frightening. I’ve had 2 periods were everything worked, I was so clever and solved everything, and that was wonderful. Except that after that I could not get out of bed for days, had severe burnouts (no true depression though, thank goodness). And it turned out that what I did was so “clever” and complicated as to be almost re-done from scratch, and also contained mistakes hard to spot amongst the cleverness. It turns out that it does not make you a super-human, but mostly feel like one. I wonder if I had been a painter or a musician instead, if those mistakes would not have been seen as strokes of genius. Since then I’ve noticed that I get mentally tired much more quickly, and I need much more sleep. Anyway, I’m happy for you that you came out of it in one piece and enlightened.
sammalloy 3y ago
> very interesting, do you know the name of this phenomenon? Not OP, but they are describing apophenia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophenia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophenia Many things can trigger it, even high doses of caffeine (such as drinking too much coffee).
- circlemaker 3y ago
  Hyperassociativity is not necessarily apophenia. Apophenia is finding meaningful patterns in random noise, but it is not clear that the patterns being discovered were in random noise, or if the person merely saw the present patterns more clearly. That can happen too, and is not apophenia. It's something more like hypercognition
  - sammalloy 3y ago
    The original context of the discussion was altering consciousness under the influence of psychedelics. The phenomenon of apophenia is well known in that context and has some unfortunate side effects that overlap with other communities, such as the conspirituality subculture, all of which make use of an almost institutionalized form of apophenia that is accepted as valid by their adherents. More interestingly, this kind of imagery is often used as a social glue to keep the community in sync. The most simple and basic example is the use of imagery such as tie-dye by people in the psychedelic community. The colors and patterns themselves are highly reminiscent of a drug-induced hallucination. The images of colorful, random bits of noise produced by tie-dye designs promote a kind of basic apophenia at the most sensory level which allow the members of the subgroup to engage in apophenic flights of fancy at will by using their eyes. This can evolve into more elaborate forms that go beyond the sensory system, like the kind of all encompassing, conceptual conspiracy theories that are common to more religious and spiritual subsets of related communities. These intellectual flights of fancy are similar to tie-dye designs that facilitate apophenia. Fundamentalist Christians and QAnon adherents, as only two examples, also make great use of this, in their search for signs and symbols that emerge out of the random chaos of everyday experience. This kind of patternicity-seeking is common to these communities, and many of their shared values and beliefs come out of their use of apophenia to create and augment their experience of new or altered realities that align with the values of the group. In a very real way, this is a form of alternate reality role playing, the only problem being that for many of them, they see it as real. This is where the disconnect emerges post-experience. In an attempt to recapture the magic of the altered state, many of them will forget about the mundane nature of noise and how patterns will emerge from random chaos just about anywhere, and attribute real, concrete information where none in fact exists. This is the problem.

rapnie 3y ago

I don't know a medical term, other than that it is in the area of Mania [0]. For me it was luckily a one time adventure induced by the circumstances. In hindsight I consider it positively, as an enriching experience. When reading the wikipedia page, I avoided some of the more severe afflictions. There are risk factors to avoid. Good sleep most important among them. After such episode the brain is completely drained and needs time to 'recharge'. Having multiple episodes in a row usually leads to a bipolar disorder with true depression following the manic episodes, I was told. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mania https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mania

kergonath 3y ago
> Having multiple episodes in a row usually leads to a bipolar disorder with true depression following the manic episodes, I was told. Yes. I am not sure about the odds, but you might have been lucky. It’s a good way to end up properly insane. I’ve never been anywhere near that state but even milder cases can be frightening. I’ve had 2 periods were everything worked, I was so clever and solved everything, and that was wonderful. Except that after that I could not get out of bed for days, had severe burnouts (no true depression though, thank goodness). And it turned out that what I did was so “clever” and complicated as to be almost re-done from scratch, and also contained mistakes hard to spot amongst the cleverness. It turns out that it does not make you a super-human, but mostly feel like one. I wonder if I had been a painter or a musician instead, if those mistakes would not have been seen as strokes of genius. Since then I’ve noticed that I get mentally tired much more quickly, and I need much more sleep. Anyway, I’m happy for you that you came out of it in one piece and enlightened.

sammalloy 3y ago

> very interesting, do you know the name of this phenomenon? Not OP, but they are describing apophenia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophenia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophenia Many things can trigger it, even high doses of caffeine (such as drinking too much coffee).

circlemaker 3y ago
Hyperassociativity is not necessarily apophenia. Apophenia is finding meaningful patterns in random noise, but it is not clear that the patterns being discovered were in random noise, or if the person merely saw the present patterns more clearly. That can happen too, and is not apophenia. It's something more like hypercognition
- sammalloy 3y ago
  The original context of the discussion was altering consciousness under the influence of psychedelics. The phenomenon of apophenia is well known in that context and has some unfortunate side effects that overlap with other communities, such as the conspirituality subculture, all of which make use of an almost institutionalized form of apophenia that is accepted as valid by their adherents. More interestingly, this kind of imagery is often used as a social glue to keep the community in sync. The most simple and basic example is the use of imagery such as tie-dye by people in the psychedelic community. The colors and patterns themselves are highly reminiscent of a drug-induced hallucination. The images of colorful, random bits of noise produced by tie-dye designs promote a kind of basic apophenia at the most sensory level which allow the members of the subgroup to engage in apophenic flights of fancy at will by using their eyes. This can evolve into more elaborate forms that go beyond the sensory system, like the kind of all encompassing, conceptual conspiracy theories that are common to more religious and spiritual subsets of related communities. These intellectual flights of fancy are similar to tie-dye designs that facilitate apophenia. Fundamentalist Christians and QAnon adherents, as only two examples, also make great use of this, in their search for signs and symbols that emerge out of the random chaos of everyday experience. This kind of patternicity-seeking is common to these communities, and many of their shared values and beliefs come out of their use of apophenia to create and augment their experience of new or altered realities that align with the values of the group. In a very real way, this is a form of alternate reality role playing, the only problem being that for many of them, they see it as real. This is where the disconnect emerges post-experience. In an attempt to recapture the magic of the altered state, many of them will forget about the mundane nature of noise and how patterns will emerge from random chaos just about anywhere, and attribute real, concrete information where none in fact exists. This is the problem.