I seem in a trance sublime and strange
To muse on my own separate fantasy
--Percy Bysshe Shelley, “Mont Blanc”
And then a Plank on Reason, broke,
And I dropped down, and down—
And hit a World, at every plunge
--Emily Dickinson, Number 280
Lucidity came to me when at last I succumbed to the vertigo of the modern
---Louis Aragon
As I’ve stated in my recent article, “Living with Schizoaffective Disorder,” I myself am inflicted by this disease, or as Emile Kraepelin called it: “cancer of the mind.” He was speaking specifically of dementia praecox, or what we know now today to be schizophrenia, but to include schizoaffective disorder in this description— also very similar to schizophrenia—is not unfounded. All people suffering from a schizophrenic illness have at one point exhibited what are called “negative” and “positive” symptoms. Negative meaning “lack thereof,” and positive, referring to symptoms present in the mentally ill that are not exhibited in the general population, such as hallucinations (voices, tactile, olfactory, gustatory, and visual). A visual hallucination is one of which a person sees something that isn’t there at all, whereas an “Illusion,” something that everyone has had one time or another is actually seeing something that is there, but the mind projects a false interpretation upon the subject in view i.e. a shadow that looks like a person who is following a person, but isn’t actually a person at all. This is an example of an illusionary experience, which we all have had. The two are hard to distinguish to the layman because of the close connection between the two symptoms, and so is the case for the “delusion.”
By saying a person is “delusional,” means that he or she has held, with absolute conviction, a false belief interwoven in his or her belief system that cannot be shaken no matter how much effort is made by outside influences. Often times this word is thrown around to refer to being “out of it,” or “foggy in mind,” where in actuality it means something completely different to this popular misconception. The correct terminology for this state of consciousness is “delirium.” As with schizophrenia meaning “multiple personalities,” it has no relation to the word being used. Having multiple personalities is known as “multiple personality disorder,” a very rare illness. And “delusion,” is often used incorrectly when the word “delirium” should have been employed. A delirium involves a quick change between mental states (for example, from lethargy to agitation and back to lethargy). It includes changes in alertness, changes in feeling and perception, changes in level of consciousness and awareness, changes in sleep patterns, confusion about time or place. These have no direct relation to the word “delusional” which, as stated before, means to have false beliefs. Since we’ve that clarified, I’d like to move on to discuss what a delusion is exactly, and why it is such a devastating component in the schizophrenic spectrum of illnesses.
There are several types of delusions, being the bizarre delusion: a delusion that is very strange and completely implausible; an example would be that aliens have removed the afflicted person’s brain. The non-bizarre delusion: a delusion that, although false is at least possible, e.g. the affected person mistakenly believes that they are under constant police surveillance. A mood-congruent delusion: any delusion with content consistent with either a depressive or manic state, e.g., a depressed person believes that the news anchors on television highly disapprove of them, or a person in a manic state might believe they are a powerful deity, (this does NOT mean a multiple personality), but a sensation of grandiosity that persuades a person, willingly or not, that they are something “more” than they actually are. And mood-neutral delusion: a delusion that does not relate to the sufferer’s emotional state; for example, a belief that an extra limb is growing out of the back of one’s head is neutral to either depression or mania.
In the schizophrenic spectrum, the bizarre delusion is usually exhibited, whereas in the non-psychotic state, one exhibits a non-bizarre delusion—one that is believable through a false veneer, but once examined closely, turns out to be a belief that goes against all “truth” as we know it. I experienced the bizarre type of delusion during my psychotic break from reality. I thought that I was Jesus Christ delivering a message that would be carried out through my dog by E.S.P. and delivered to the police who had come to arrest me, which I thought to be the Romans coming to take me away to be crucified. This sounds insane, yes, of course it is. But at the time, in that particular moment, it seemed all too logical because of my false interpretations of the world around me. I was not, however, in a “delirium” since I knew where I was, and not floating in and out of consciousness as would someone in a fog after having a head injury, a state that the word delirium is correctly applied to.
I just thought that, on behalf of the rest of the mentally ill community that has to put up with stigma and false understanding, I should make an effort to clear this matter up. There is a difference between the two words, and although referring to the human mind are not closely related. That is all I can think of off of the top of my head, but if you’ve any questions or wish to discuss this matter in fuller detail, feel free to email me at stan_flannery@hotmail.com. Thank you for reading this and I hope that now you’ve a better understanding, if you hadn’t already known, of the differences between a “delusion” and being "delirious."
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