medicine
The medicalization of mental illness has given rise to many forms of pharmacological relief that restore chemical imbalances in one's brain.
The Noise
Finding quiet when your own thoughts feel like your greatest enemy Living in a Constant StormFor years, Hamid lived with a noise that no one else could hear. To everyone around him, he was a quiet, hardworking man who kept to himself. But inside his mind, there was no silence — only a constant, loud chatter of worry, regret, and fear. Long ago, he had faced a series of sudden losses and difficult events that left him feeling helpless and out of control. Since then, his mind had never truly rested.
By The Curious Writer4 months ago in Psyche
An Introduction to the Eidetic Afterlife Hypothesis
1. The passage of time is malleable. American neuroscientist Hudson Hoagland (born: 1899 CE, died: 1982 CE) discovered that time is more than just relative to position and momentum—there is a completely different gauge of time inherent to each individual: interoceptive temporality, or psychophysiological time. Interoceptive temporality is a subjective underlying feeling of time based on physiological factors (such as temperature) and psychological factors (such as stress). Each of us views life through an individualized psychophysiological time-lens controlled by our body’s internal chemistry. This time-sense can be distorted and even manipulated by altering the body’s temperature or its ability to utilize oxygen. The brain relies on its own autonomic rhythms to measure the duration of a moment and the span of events. Mr. Hoagland, studying sick patients, determined that the heightened temperature arising from fever causes a subsequent acceleration of the sense of temporal sequences. Higher temperatures make our cerebral clocks run faster, thereby shortening our perception of time’s passage. Hoagland later realized that restricting the brain’s oxygen flow also has the effect of speeding up the sensation of time. As people grow older and become less capable of taking in and processing oxygen, many of them begin to experience the years passing more rapidly. Our minds actually do observe time to move at a faster rate during the elderly stage of life due to oxygen depletion. The perception of time can be shortened to the feeling that every moment is flying by, or it can be elongated to feel as if every moment is crawling in slow motion—the data-processors of our brains can be sped up or slowed down by various biological, chemical, and psychosocial factors. Bottom line, the perception of time can be altered.
By J. Martin Strangeweather4 months ago in Psyche
Exploring the Relationship Between Aphantasia and Dimethyltryptamine Levels in Cerebrospinal Fluid
For the purposes of this exploration, let us define a hallucination as the experience of something that is only present in one’s mind. The hallucinogenic substance known as dimethyltryptamine, or DMT, enables the vivid experience of things that are only present in one’s mind. Our imagination also enables us to experience things that are only present in the mind. Studies report that low concentrations of endogenous DMT (that is, DMT which forms naturally inside one’s body) between 0.12 to 100 ng/ml are normally present in human cerebrospinal fluid [1]. Aphantasia is the inability to picture things in one’s “mind’s eye,” or imagination. There are two types of aphantasia: congenital aphantasia, which is present from birth, and acquired aphantasia, which develops through brain injury or illness. Studies show there are no significant structural differences between the brain of someone with congenital aphantasia and the brain of someone who can visualize things in their mind’s eye, so the primary contributor to congenital aphantasia must be a matter of functional divergence as opposed to structural abnormality. To be clear, there are some subtle structural differences in aphantasic brains, but not enough to explain the disruption of the visualization process [2]. This paper proposes that extremely low levels of endogenous DMT in human cerebrospinal fluid (near or below the lower end of the reported range, or ≲ 0.12 ng/ml) may contribute to the functional differences underlying congenital aphantasia.
By J. Martin Strangeweather4 months ago in Psyche
Counting Pennies and Brain Wiring: Why Do Some of Us Do Our Own Thing?
The Penny-Counting Puzzle As always, one thing leads to another. A random memory drifted into my mind one day, and—like memories often do—it nudged me toward a bigger question. That moment from years ago made me wonder about brain connectivity, individuality, and why some people seem wired to do things differently.
By Treathyl Fox (aka cmoneyspinner)4 months ago in Psyche
Terminal Lucidity and Hyperconnected Neural Dynamics in the Dying Brain
1. I presented a credible model to explain the phenomenon of terminal lucidity in purely mechanical terms last year (see Notes Concerning Eternity, part nine: A Neurocellular Explanation for the Manifestation of the Eidetic Afterlife During the Dying Brain Process, section 11, originally published on Facebook, February 14, 2025) [1], but it seems very few people were paying attention, so I’ll go over it again. At least once a week I chance upon someone on social media using terminal lucidity in an attempt to validate their spiritual belief system (as well as sate their desperate ego and increase their bank account, or so I often suspect). Be leery of any modern-day Lazarus who comes back from death with “secret” wisdom or the answer to everything, and be especially leery if they urge you to buy their latest book (spoiler alert: their insights are invariably flimsy and cliché) or pay through the nose to attend their latest lecture or conference. That being said, I’m not claiming that my interpretation of terminal lucidity is the correct one. What I can say with certainty is that it’s the most plausible model anyone has put forth thus far. And you can ponder its validity for free, right here, right now. Or you can listen to someone in the future regurgitate a watered-down version of this same information, most likely translating it through a self-serving lens of tropey spiritualism. I’m not saying spiritualism isn’t a viable path to knowledge—I’m saying be careful of those who peddle it! Spirituality and capitalism serve entirely different masters.
By J. Martin Strangeweather4 months ago in Psyche
11 SIGNS YOU ARE EMOTIONALLY BROKEN
Some people do not enter relationships looking for love. They enter looking for shelter from wounds they never healed. And at first, you may mistake their pain for depth, their inconsistency for mystery, or their emotional chaos for passion.
By The Curious Writer5 months ago in Psyche
