Schizophrenia and The Third Eye

I recently sent a very similar message to one of the members of this board and I'd like to post it and have a discussion about the possibility.

I personally believe that there is a "spiritual" element to the phenomenon of people hearing voices and having "paranoid delusions". I think that these things may happen when your spirit is out of tune, so to speak. I'm not going to try to put it into any specific religious contexts because I think a lot of religion is speculation but I also think that there is a lot that we haven't considered.

I have found some very interesting links concerning the ancient world and modern schizophrenia. For example, consider that most prophets today would be considered paranoid schizophrenic. I believe that prophets, as schizophrenics today, were actually receiving otherworldly messages. Who knows from where (God, angels/demons, the devil) but that's not what matters. What's interesting is the ancient world's focus on something called "the third eye" which is perception of a hidden world that nobody can see with their two eyes or the "spirit realm" if you want to call it that. Ancient researchers gave this third eye a biological designation: the pineal gland. The philosopher Descartes called it the "principal seat of the soul". Today we know that the pineal gland is responsible for the production and regulation of many different chemicals including melatonin and DMT, both of which are chemical and hormonal elements intrinsic to the nature of sleep and schizophrenia. We also know that patients with schizophrenia show elevated levels of DMT possibly due to "problems" with the pineal gland. I put problems in quotations because of my belief that the pineal gland or third eye isn't accidentally (as in some random biological factor) but forcibly opened by who knows what, really but I would venture that it is something that exists in a place that we cannot venture or see. An extra dimension, I suppose?

Do you see my point here?

People can tell me I'm crazy but I know that whatever it is that's reaching out to me is real and I've worked with it.

As a result, I've figured out quite a bit about myself and the nature of our existence here on planet Earth as it relates to ancient world history and religion. Nothing I would call Earth-shattering, really, but this experience has help me put the pieces together.

My own personal path towards salvation has been revealed as a process of trial/error and very carefully listening to my third eye. I do believe there is an unseen war waged between good and evil so you are definitely open to messages from both sides.

Try this and tell me if it doesn't help: turn off the television/music/videogames, eat wholesome meals (no animal products), stay focused on accomplishing your goals and help those around you. That has been a part of my own personal path to salvation but I believe that this is going to be very helpful to anyone else who has had problems similar to mine.

I do believe that there is "a way" to live and I would be more than happy to answer any of your questions in public or private. It really helps to believe that there is a loving God that cares. If any of you have any natural aversions to religion then please come to me and I can help you see things how I have seen them and bring you closer to love and grace.

When I read your post, it sounds to me a little hyper-religious, a bit delusional, and suggests that maybe you are hearing things with your "third eye" that are not present to the rest of us, so naturally some would think you are having hallucinations.

So, I have to ask what would be the difference? I mean, if you are right, and you are having a spiritual experience rather than a psychotic experience, if it manifests the same way in this world regardless, then wouldn't it be the same thing?

In other words, if your spiritual experiences are causing you to have the symptoms of psychosis, wouldn't you want to either control or stop those spiritual experiences? What good are they serving?

I'm down with your way of living, a2f. All that constant electronic stimulation is not good for anyone, and they are bound to pick up some bad thoughts from it. Nothing wrong with healthy food and helping others.

If your spiritual side is causing you to appear crazy, then I say it's worth it.

"For what good is it for a man to gain the whole world, but lose his soul in the process?"

And I do believe we receive messages from 3 places...Good, Evil, and The World. The World could be people in the world or just general philosophies that are of the world but not necessarily spiritual. I believe that the more you practice healthy living, the more of your messages will be from Good, and not from the other two.

And again in the Bible it does mention to pay attention to things that are unseen. Think about God. You can't see him. But you can see evidence of him.

I'm by no means endorsing trying to see schizophrenia as a major advantage or to try to enhance our delusions, just debating and above all advocating healthy living as the key to success for any person, diagnosed or undiagnosed!

Hello,

I am also interested in the topics you have outlined above. I am especially intrigued by the work of Rick Strassman, whose work is depicted in the documentary "DMT: The Spirit Molecule" and by the ayahuasca shamanism of the Amazon basin. Aside from schizophrenia, this research tells us that there MAY be (though we can't know for certain) a way for our consciousness to connect with a (meta)physical reality that is much larger than our bodies.

We must approach these explorations with some skepticism, as our materialist science tells us, but to write them off completely is to ignore much, if not most, of human history regarding the subject of consciousness.

At any rate, my company is currently working with a man named Charles Steinbach, who was born with chronic paranoid schizophrenia and began seeing things at the age of eight. Over time, Charles has developed a way of living in both worlds at the same time -- the schizophrenic world and the world we all can see and share, which Charles calls "out here."

Charles does not make an attempt to say whether the schizophrenic world is "real" or "delusional" - instead, he accepts that it is real *to him* and that he must learn to navigate the world we share regardless of what is going on in his schizophrenic world.

He is remarkably successful - he is a single dad raising a teenage son, a college student, and he speaks about his experiences to large groups of people. He has consulted with doctors, administrators of colleges and universities, and families with mental illness and been of great inspiration and help to them.

So, I have decided to make a documentary about Charles's life so that many other people can see how he deals with things.

I am hoping to raise some of the questions you list above about the nature of reality, but I think Charles is right -- we can only decide these questions for ourselves, and we must remember that even though we feel "good/evil" or have religious/spiritual experiences, we need to always think about what we can sense here, in the real world, with the people who surround us, and navigate accordingly. Not all signs are true signs, and not all feelings are reliable.

This is a relevant message for anyone who has spiritual experiences, not just those with schizophrenia.

As for what you say about eating and living well -- I myself subscribe to the Paleo diet. I think there's a lot of merit in remembering where we came from, how we were for much of our history as a species, and what our bodies are designed to do. Living in cubicles, cars, and shopping malls runs up against those things, absolutely. Whatever we can do in this environment we've created to embrace our physiology is important.

Thanks for raising such an interesting question.

Greetings! I really found a lot of interest in this message here. It's been the research of the pineal gland, spiritual enlightenment and other similar topics that has actually brought my attention to Schizophrenia Disorder. I have been on a spiritual path for sometime now, and have had many different enlightening experiences. Some of the most powerful have been through use of DMT, and while I do not advocate any type of substance abuse, I have to feel that this is somewhat different.

I do believe this is something more than the doctors and such care to see. Or maybe it's because they can't see it, that they believe it's a disorder and label it in a negative light. I'm not sure. I do know though, that not every case of Schizoaffective Disorder would be considered "enlightening". Our bodies are machines, and like all machines they can have problems. In fact, we all have slight problems, some more than others, and for some their problem exists with brain chemistry. Which is a very real cause to hallucinations and to some can be very debilitating. There is nothing enlightening about a voice whispering in your ear to kill yourself, or a figure appearing with a knife to your throat, or whatever else may haunt some people.

But, I digress. Not all hallucinations are evil. In all of my psychedelic experiences I have been on all ends of the spectrum. From seeing demonic faces and very evil "looking" creatures, to the most beautiful, awe inspiring, truly blissful experiences that left me stunned even to this day years later. I found after much research, experimentation and trial & error that generally the better health I was in, and more importantly the more positive my mind was in, the cleaner, more beautiful, less diabolical my experiences became. To a point, where I thought I was hitting enlightenment over and over. Now, it could all be in my mind, and I am sure it is, but we label the word mind as just some elictrical impulses in a mush of tissue which causes a very odd side effect we know as the self.

And, here is where things start to get, well, strange. Depending on how you look at it, how you interpret it, you can manifest your reality in different ways. By your example, a person with Schizophrenia can live their life with a deeper meaning, if they believe their perception is actually that of a supernatural state. If they find piece in their mind, it's possible that the psychosis could manifest itself in a beautiful way. Or, more typical, people are diagnosed with the diseases, inherently feel as if they are defective, and live their lives fighting it as a problem, which only reinforces their own personal concept of disease. I guess what I am trying to say is, a big part of this could be related to how the person allows it to affect them. In many ways I believe our physical mind is merely a tuner for the energies that are always around us. It's a type of filter, if you will, that can be trained to let in the proper thoughts, but in many people, and many people with Schizoaffective Disorder, their "filter" is turned off, and they inherently suck up the only truth they know, which is that they have a disease.

Here is what I would be curious of. Let's imagine two people with no knowledge about Schizophrenia started having hallucinations. Both people were very very sheltered, and both of them start off with very benign hallucinations. Now, let's imagine they both went to the dr to see what was going on. Let's imagine the first person was told that they have a debilitating disease, and they are sick in the head and need to take medications to try and help suppress the experiences. This person would undoubtedly take this as something negative. Now, let's take the second person, and let's say they did the same thing but this time the dr told them they were special, that they were a seer, that they were a prophet and had a very special perspective on the spiritual world. This person would then believe they are gifted, have a special purpose, whatever.

Now, I would be curious to see, what would these people see then? Would their hallucinations mold with their ideas of who they are? Or would their perspective on their condition have absolutely no bearing on what they see when they hallucinate? This is something I have often wondered, because it could mean the difference between people with a disease and people with a blessing.

The all seeing eye of orus. Most people never open it, others can't seem to shut it. Others can apparently to some degree control it.

I'm not religious I think religion causes too many problems, I do believe in God however. I also believe in angels, spirits good and bad, aliens (why do we not have enough water, because the aliens come and buy it) yeah I'm completely insane according to professionals who have spent years being brainwashed in their training. Cuckoo quacked. Yet if I had listened to these professionals I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be here today. So I'd say listen to your gut feeling. If you think you're ill then see it like that if you are convinced you're not ill then you're not.

Rob, that last question you posed was interesting.

I believe we can only hallucinate within our consciousness. If I am not conscious that underwater hovercrafts are possible, there's no way I'll have a hallucination about that.

And it makes me think, how much does positive or negative thinking in general affect the world? Not hallucinations, I'm talking about...If I'm a waiter and I think I'll get a good tip, how much will that help me?

What if the people just don't have enough money? I could think I'll get a good tip until the cows come home and it would never happen, right?

Or what about when I can somehow guess what people are going to say?

For instance, my friend was talking about a girl he had just met (that I didn't know). I somehow was able to guess that her name started with a K. If I had said to him, does her name start with a K? Would it have changed the name? I contend that it might have. A "normal" person would say no, that's stupid. Her name started with a K regardless of whether you thought it did, or your friend met her or any of that!

Or how about if I had straight up TOLD him her name starts with a K, and he was like damn, how'd you know that?

That's basically quantum physics -- the physics of possibilities.

Of course to be sure, it's a lot easier to guess what friends are going to say or think than a perfect stranger...right?

Love you guys!

I'm interested in the pineal gland too, it apparently secretes a crystaline substance calcite apparently, in some cases.. what you might find interesting is third eye and pineal crystla relevance to telepathy as I heard the crystals are similar to what you find in mobile phone technology[but dont take my word and memory for it] crystals are sensitive to energy...[telepathy is a concept of our organism communication] synchronicity too although that is more a materialistic representation of the worlds interconnectivity [being aware or interested in such things from experience is considered a symptom of schizophrenia although personally I treat it with more intellectual distinction, yet in answering a psyhciatrists questions I could elaborate and be deemed symptomatic--and draw out all the psychiatrist ignorances and lack of ability to judge reality on such notions, they aren't qualified to interpret spirituality rather deem spirituality as a sign of illness, how barbaric or there probably is a better word to describe it, my vocabuary isn;t the best --I used to get words like alittle voice in my head, yeah that's a symptom too although it served me well, I had events with telepathy also yet I was never able to prove it, just went on it feeling right and serving me in some way to understand more] ..

I wonder how shamans have nourished their pineal, I know shamans who use DMT substances have greater serotonin activity.

when I'm not on antipsychotics I have visions of astral realm that could be attributed to third eye, can;t be bothered going into it here but for some reason my beliefs that are rational and based on evidence or knowledge from alternative sources make me to be considered delusional about spirituality and medicine.

medications I believe are detrimental to the pineal funtion, nobody knows its real function other then secretion of meletonin, DMT production is speculative but interesting to find how it is produced in the brain, maybe it is by the pineal or based on some other mechanism....apparently DMT is released when you die like a gateway to the afterlife or making for horrific experiences and hallucination.

What technically is a hallucination, or is it based on some reality that cannot be tested, some would be based on archetypal forces of the subconscious making its way to consciousness, personally I was aware and focused my attention on astral phenomena.

If the OP is interested in herbs Gotu Kola is said to detox the pineal, also called mandukaparni in ayuveda, I wrote a post in schizophrenia forum about "Herbs"

can't be bothered going on a rant about spirituality, my personal self-transcending experiences were considered part of schizophrenia and even when not having psychosis I was considered having delusions about spirtuality yet psychiatrist don't have a very good reference to determine delusion in case of highly tuned spiritual beings, they might say its a delusion to attribute spiritual concepts to psychosis since they are educated that it is biological and an illness, so spirtual people get told they have little insight into being ill.

I'm interested in alchemy from taoism, and the pineal gland is like a gate or passage for energy circulation, similar to kundalini.

chakra's opening up in kundalini syndrome appears the same as psychosis and some people would be misdiagnosed...initiates would be opened up to new perception and activity of third eye and be overwhelmed by stimuli, it is distressing ---maybe psychosis could be explained better if researchers were familiar with eastern thought and understanding of energy and the chakra system. How organs and glands relate to emotional states and mind influencing patterns of energy.

sorry did a lousy job of talking about this point of interest, I usually have more going for me so I think

apparently the pineal gland calcifies at a very young age around puberty, it would be interesting to see what schizophrenics pineal is, although it may be damaged by the drugs, certainly fluoride in the water supply makes it calcify much more...spiritual practices could improve the pineal function in terms of its third eye correlation.

I didn't explain a theory of hallucination in my previous comment very well interms of third eye perception of the astral world, the astral world I guess is like a dream land and may inhabit other entities and beings, I guess everyone's experience of astral phenomena is different yet it cannot really be deemed or proven real or un-real or deluded even, maybe there is some truth in these psychic visions but care must be taken to determine what one is seeking to communicate with, I know i got myself in trouble with deviant spirits that propagated delusion, or my inexperience I didn;t realize symbolic nature or that spirits can;t really comment on physical reality in the world around us, some might even test us with karmic stuff, maybe even implications into past lives, a psychiatrist has no grasp on these concepts that may be important for understanding some psychosis...

I said previously some manifestations could be that of subconscious dreams entering the waking consciousness. Some suggest that trauma could initiate maladaptive daydreaming, so trauma theory of schizophrenia would mean the hallucinations are a type of coping mechanism to stress and trauma. More recently I have read of a correlation between trama and spirituality as a method of healing, self-transcendence. Still that doesn;;t really incorporate a functioning of the third eye or something is activated energetically and can only be understood according to eastern thought, not the DSM. I guess it is too mysterious for people to grasp and is over the heads of a psychiatrist that would be lazy to consider spiritual implications to hallucinations, or activity of the third eye..I'm totally useless at the moment too sorry.

maybe consciousness gets in the way of true perception from the third eye and where a schizophrenic will become mislead by energies that the third eye receives...maybe its important to cleanse it from artificial forms of the mind influencing third eye perception. I can only recommend meditation techniques though it takes a while to learn and may not suit everyone as it could stir repressed states that could cause disturbance.
I mentioned spontaneous kundalini awakenings, that's from yoga===personally I learn techniques for activating kundalini and make it activate the chakra's including the third-eye chakra and make for opening of perception to astral dimensions, impurities on all levels could cause problems as the kundalini activates the chakra's...The crown chakra is interesting too, supposedly the gateway to universal consciousness and activated in receiving wisdom......I guess so delusions don;t manifest one should practice mindfulness and meditation and cleanse the chakra's so no delusion is present from forms in the mind altering perceived reality, only in total stillness and tranquility can telepathy and extrasensory perception be actual.

Do your own research on kundalini syndrome, I haven;t really said all that much...Not sure if it is always accompanied by physical distortions of perceived energy in the body. I like the taoist thought in reference to kundalini as it rotates the energy back down from the center of the brain[pineal] to the third eye, down the nose, gate closed with the tongue at the roof of the mouth and down the throat and back to nourish the organs and back to the dan-tian below the navel and I'm a bit confused but through some passage associated to the genitals back up the spine and around again [it starts from the base chakra and drawing energy from earth into the genitals and up the spine].... I mean I not sure when the energy cultivates and ascends to the heart [and doing practice can feel the heart activating and into the brain from lower energy feild below the navel...after a while of studying it it makes sense to me I know I made it sound complicated, but not sure about beginner stages if you found yourself having kundalini syndrome but focusing attention on the solar plexus or traditionally the dan tian, interesting meditation techniques say you observe one point with second sight yet focus attention on other places, i guess you'd have to have practiced it to see its affects on sensation of energy or better do your own reading on taoist alchemy.

Is it just me or am I sounding really vague today?????

My comments are so long sorry