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TIL people who are blind from birth never develop schizophrenia
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this post was submitted on 09 May 2026
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As someone with aphantasia and no internal monologe it makes sense to me.
So many people tell me their brains just send them images and monologe without them "thinking" it themselves first. Like to me they are reacting to what their brain is telling them. And that's what is required to be schizophrenic.
...i have no internal monologue and i can conceptualise spaces and environments but not images; i hallucinate all the time, mostly sounds...
What kind of sound hallucinations?
Like people or yourself talking to you?
Does it sound like you're hearing it from your ears?
People can project their mind's eye image into reality. It's most likely schizophrenic people can't control it and would project things they didn't know they were doing. We know it's not there and it's definitely in their mind but they don't realize that they are conjuring it.
Same with internal monologe.
You have inner speech? I can talk to myself. But someone with an internal monologue they are not talking to themselves like me. Their brain is talking to them, they do not consciously pick each word.
...random disruptive sounds, peculiar phrases in strange voices, typically loud interjections but seldom anything visual; over time i've grown fairly proficient at recognising the hallucinations for what they are...yes, they're sounds like i'd hear from my ears but at the same time they carry similar resonance to sounds i play in my mind, and learning to distinguish that difference in acoustic character helps to identify them...
...i don't have an internal monologue orchestrating my thoughts but i can recite, read, sing, or imagine sounds, music, and acoustic environments in my mind with perfect pitch...
"Seldom anything visual"
Like you'd think you saw a black cat out of the corner of your eye and then you look and nothing is there? Or you see the black cat actually sitting there and know it's not real?
I understand your inner voice it seems pretty much like mine.
Do you get earworms? Or is your inner voice completely voluntary?
...i don't really get earworms unless i'm playing them deliberately...
...the hallucinations appear real and range from subtle peripheral perception to full-focused attention, but they're unexpected and incongruous with my immediate environment, so recognising them is akin recognising a dream for what it is...
I find myself defaulting back to playing the last catchy song I heard if I choose to hum or whistle or just decide to play something in my head. I'd say it's like leaving a cassette in the player, I can switch it out if I think about it, but if I just play "something" there will be a default tape in the player.
Hmm that's really interesting. In a way, your mind can create images then because otherwise you wouldn't see them. You just cannot consciously produce an image?
...no, they're never really visual images; they're more akin to the ideas which images represent when i parse visual stimulus, but that's a pretty muddled distinction to distinguish in the heat of the moment, ceci n'est pas une pipe and all that...
...kind of like when you struggle to parse sounds into phonemes and then phonemes into words and then words into coherent language, but you're never really hearing language directly...
Yeah you lost me
Like you get words popping up in your head when you look at a visual stimulus and you can't tell if the word are actually written there?
...ideas, not words: written language is weird one (and kind of oblique to my point), but in that instance visual stimulus -> letters -> wordforms -> sounds -> words -> ideas; hallucinations skip all those earlier steps and go straight to the idea end of the perception chain but it's not obvious that the earlier steps are missing...
(i don't think i've ever hallucinated written language, though, just the ideas of hearing sounds; or of seeing creatures or objects; or of inhabiting spaces, environments, or situations; similar to how one experiences dreams)
When I see something visual
I wouldn't think letters, sounds, or words. I'd just get ideas that I can use my internal voice to consider if I wanted to think about it in words.
I believe I have visual dreams when I have them which isn't often. They feel extremely real when I have them. I feel like I know the details without feeling like I made a list of details to remember, it's like I remember from seeing it.
Yeah, kinda. To explain it very simplified, you have a thinking brain, and an emotional brain, for example you are not either of these things, you are (we are all) observing those brain processes. Your thinking brain is designed to churn away, and similarly your emotional brain. In my interpretation, some people's parts are just louder and more vibrant. Which can have pros and cons, it's way more manageable if it's not so loud it's domineering. Having a thinking brain, that's essentially grown and formed by all of the input, until now, churning away loudly, isn't really a description of schizophrenia. It's more, a depth of perception of reality, both based on internal and external perceptions. This article is talking about the relationship between the ocular reception, as interpreted by the brain, though, so not really the thinking brain, or emotional brain.
I have bipolar and it feels like my brain just tosses things at me. I get some really good ideas and I am quick with jokes because i don't even think, my brain is an absurdity machine.
Do you have aphantasia?
I feel like people with aphantasia are less likely to be bipolar because we do not play emotional memories with images.
From my understanding people can change their moods thinking of a beach? Like "Imagine yourself on a beach" and it could make a non-aphant more relaxed and calm?
I feel like my emotions are pure in the moment. Yes I could recall an event that gave me an emotion but it's nothing like experiencing it in the moment.
Interesting, though no, I have no trouble with mental imagery.
Trouble as in poor quality or too many mental images?
You feel your mood shift the most with new mental images?
I'm not sure.
I can not smell things without actually smelling them. Same with taste.
I can imagine my hand rubbing on different grit sandpaper and know how they would feel differently but I don't "feel" it.
I can play songs in my head with sounds that are like the actual sounds but it's similar to humming or whistling in my head. It's not like I hit play and just listen. I don't get earworms.
...yeah, odor, taste, touch, and vision i recognise but i can't just recall arbitrarily; more than once i've become separated from my wife out in public and realised that if someone were to ask me to describe her i'd have no idea how to do so...
...i can hear her voice in my mind, though...
Yeah I'm the same way. Always wondered how people were able to give such detailed information to police sketch artists.
Like I could work with one but at best it would be them drawing something close and me going "ehh this part and this part isn't right" if I got a really good look at the person.
Do you get earworms?
I feel in a way I'd have to practice their voice in my head like I was trying to impersonate them vocally, just my mind could make any sound. But I myself couldn't talk in a New York accent because I don't understand what all to change and when. If I heard a New Yorker say a sentence I could repeat it back in my head the same way