Whether it brings the voices of heaven
or of hell, it causes what
must surely be the worst affliction a sentient, conscious being can suffer: the
inability to tell what is real from what is imaginary. To the
person with schizophrenia the voices and visions sound and look as authentic
as the announcer on the radio and the furniture in the room.
In paranoid schizophrenia, the patient becomes convinced of
beliefs at odds with reality, hears
voices that aren't there or see images that exist nowhere but in his
mind.
...The voices the patients heard were therefore as real to them as the
conversations in the hallways they passed through en route to the lab.
...(Andrea) *Yates, who has a deeply religious background had satanic hallucinations. ...The seeming authenticity of the voices means that
people with schizophrenia can be barraged by commands that, they are
convinced, come from God or Satan. That inference is not illogical; who
else can speak to you, unseen, from inside your mind?
Newsweek, cover story on
schizophrenia (Newsweek, March 11, 2002, p. 46+)
*Andrea Yates (of Texas) drowned her five children because
"God" told her to.
