In this essay, he mentions not knowing what a schizophrenic experiences, and then talks about his preoccupation with what is real, how reality seems fake, and startling coincidences that seem like precognition.
These actually are most of the core experiences of schizophrenia for some people; people don't realize this because the stereotype (of hearing voices and so on) exists semi-independently of the illness and is self-reinforcing.
Probably there are many people who are more or less what is called "schizotypal" and don't have an episode that leads to hospitalization or other crisis so they never identify with the people who experience psychosis.
There was a former judge who was institutionalized a long time ago, and was still able to write a great deal about what he experienced, named Daniel Paul Schreber.
Perhaps these are just fundamentals of human experience. Jung for example held that experiencing synchronicity was normal and healthy. What is real and not is a question that has occupied thinkers for literal millennia; some degree of solipsism seems like a natural outcome of considering critically how knowledge can be obtained by someone limited by her senses and beliefs. It's just sound ontology if it doesn't manifest as debilitating illness.
>Perhaps these are just fundamentals of human experience
I think they are fundamentals of human experience. Especially because people are culturally influenced by those with more pronounced experiences than they themselves have had.
> In this essay, he mentions not knowing what a schizophrenic experiences, and then talks about his preoccupation with what is real, how reality seems fake, and startling coincidences that seem like precognition.
The sense that some things are real and other things are fake is present in virtually all philosophy and is probably part of being human. Sometimes, in philosophy, the empirical world (the way things appear to us) is fake and thought/categories/essences/ideal objects are real. Other times this is reversed, categories are seen as mere conventions, and reality is just empirical measurements with no "real" way to order them.
These actually are most of the core experiences of schizophrenia for some people; people don't realize this because the stereotype (of hearing voices and so on) exists semi-independently of the illness and is self-reinforcing.
Probably there are many people who are more or less what is called "schizotypal" and don't have an episode that leads to hospitalization or other crisis so they never identify with the people who experience psychosis.
There was a former judge who was institutionalized a long time ago, and was still able to write a great deal about what he experienced, named Daniel Paul Schreber.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Paul_Schreber