Drkduality

Well i was wondering what is insanity anyway? I mean being insane is usually frowned apon in society but i still don't quite understand it........ From what i can tell it's the way the brain adapts to extreamly high stress levels which is caused but extreame emotional/physical pain. Soooo if that's true couldn't insanity but simplified to a drastic perseption change in an attempt to adampt to drastic change in the enviroment that the brain wasn't equipt to handle in it's former state of mind? Therefore couldn't we call any perseption change regarding the world around you as a very very mild version of insanity?

What i'm trying to ask is basically where is the line between change in perspective and insanity?

p.s. sry if this doesn't make much sense =P. I like to think about weird stuff like this when i'm bored......*cough cough* math class *cough*.

erosennin

Well, from a physiological perspective, I don't believe the term 'insane' is used to much anymore. More like 'imballanced'. Insanity is really a general purpose word, used to describe radical, behavioral abnormality. Now that we understand the biology of the brain better, we have terms for these disorders. Such names include OCD, Dissassociative personality disorder (multiple personalities), Bipolar Disorder (manic depressive), Schizophrenia (insane), and so on.

Most of these disorders are due to chemical imballances in the brain. The brain works off of chemical and electrical transmissions. When these transmissions are interfered with, or the method of the transmission is damaged, people display behaviors which we would consider 'insane'. Note that this isn't a perspective change. Most people with these disorders are more than likely born with them or possess genetic qualities that will predispose them to getting it later in life.

But what about shell shock and victims of abuse? We call that Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. While the above disorders are mainly genetic in nature, PTSD is caused by extreme trauma which can be found in extreme situations such as one's life being threatenned, torture, sexual abuse, etc. PTSD usually occurs when the person is not allowed to recuperate from the previous stress levels of the traumatic experience(s), thus keeping the vollume of certain chemicals at a constant level (which they should not be at) and altering brain chemistry. Again, not a perspective shift. This person has had this disorder forced on them.

And that's insanity in a nutshell, that is to say, insanity is more of a buzz word these days. That's not to say that people don't display aberrant behavior, but that we have a better idea as to what causes it.

Edit: Answering the actual question. There's a huge line between perspective shift and insanity. Changing your opinion about something is not a mild case of insanity. Changing your opinion to say, "I once thought the sky was blue because of light passing through the atmosphere, but now I know better. A group of hyper scientists created aerosol to change the color of the sky. They marketted it as a way to easily force chemicals from a can under pressure, but of course they didn't tell anyone their true motive. Even the texts have been changed, saying that the sky has always been blue. But I know better, it used to be purple" is something else entirely

Drkduality

ISn't PTSD a reponce the brain naturally has to the intense conditions in order to cope?

erosennin

You could call it a natural response, but we're also talking about conditions which are not. For example, you're not going to get PTSD from a lot of exam taking or a single, shocking revelation. PTSD comes from conditions which are extreme, along the lines of life threatenning.

Edit: And the chemical levels induced during stressful situations are not supposed to stay that way. Under normal conditions, they return to, well, normal. PTSD happens when they don't, or certain chemical levels stay elevated or depressed, which results in various symptoms, such as the infamous "flashback".

Drkduality

well then let my clarify/ When i use the word "insanity" I am refuring to only the conditions relating to those conected to high levels of stress. I don't mean genetic ones. I'm not talking taking a hard test i'm more talking torture levels.

Joshua001

Insanity is the brain trying to cope with the world but failing for some reason that varies from person to person.

Alucard_Spriggan

Insanity can come in many different doeses as well...if u were to go to an asylum and see each person that was instituted then u will see some people that see things, some that talk to imaginary people, some that believe in fictional characters, and even some that are very much sane but have a lust to kill and also a lust to injure others. I myself have been tested because of my swordfighting and was classified as sane but then they tested me when my adrenaline was running and when I was angry and I was then classified as insane...but they called it a type of berserker or something like that because I would only go for those that wronged friends and such and would never attack an innocent person. But still knowing that I go into a state of insanity when I sword fight is kind of scary....

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silvebloodalchemist

And that's insanity in a nutshell, that is to say, insanity is more of a buzz word these days. That's not to say that people don't display aberrant behavior, but that we have a better idea as to what causes it.

Edit: Answering the actual question. There's a huge line between perspective shift and insanity. Changing your opinion about something is not a mild case of insanity. Changing your opinion to say, "I once thought the sky was blue because of light passing through the atmosphere, but now I know better. A group of hyper scientists created aerosol to change the color of the sky. They marketted it as a way to easily force chemicals from a can under pressure, but of course they didn't tell anyone their true motive. Even the texts have been changed, saying that the sky has always been blue. But I know better, it used to be purple" is something else entirely

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Lighting Count

Did you know that after a person has token 10 hits of LSD her/she is considered clinicly insan.With that being said i would belive the frist post is true.

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Drkduality

well i can understand that responce if someone is threatening your friends

erosennin

I thought it was something more like three, but that's just heresay, I've never actually looked it up.

What I've been trying to say, though, is that 'insanity' has biological causes. Really abnormal behavior = really messed up biology. Like we were discussing before, things like PTSD are not normal. Now let's talk environment and people. Did you know you affect the brain chemistry of the people around you? It's true! Down at the base level of thinking, everything is chemicals and electrical impulses (more or less). These chemical levels go up and down throughout the day depending on what we are experiencing. In the end, though, they always return to normal.

Now, PTSD as a natural response to extended periods of mind boggling stress. How does it happen? Why? When we are in periods of elevated stress, some neurotransmitters are emitted more, others less. But what happens if these chemicals are not allowed to go back down to normal levels for weeks, months, perhaps even years at a time? The brain simply keeps on doing its thing even when the person has returned to 'normal' life. That, in short, is what happens when a person is imballanced.

The same hapens in drug addiction. Drugs work by blocking certain receptors, enabling the release of extra neuro transmitters, or binding to and activating receptors themselves (thus acting like extra neurotransmitters, in a way). Over prolonged periods of use, the brain will simply stop making certain neurotransmitters or receptor blockers, resulting in addiction.

kNowing this, can we simply call a perspective shift, even a radical one, insanity of any sort? Changing your opinion is a type of learning, the 'rewiring' of certain neurons to other areas as your experience grows.

Edit: I guess what I mean here is that learning is different than illness. Even in drastic situations if you learn something or change your opinion about the world around you it is still the adaptive process we know as learning, and that's natural. The side effects, the insanity, comes from the instinctual side of things, our fight or flight responses being 'turned on' for far too long, essentially resulting in what one might call extremely minor brain damage. Not everyone who has gone to war and saw attrocious things came back shell shocked. I think we can safely say that all of their perspectives on reality had changed, but only the ones that had never been given a moment's rest to collect themselves would come back 'insane'