Reddit reviews What is Madness?

This is interesting, I've been reading this book What is Madness - Darian Leader after genuinely asking the question 'how do I know I'm not insane?' (possibly after smoking a lot of weed)

I was amazed that there are over 46 types of schizophrenia, to be diagnosed you need to display 2 out of 5 symptoms to be 'schizophrenic'. That means that two people diagnosed with schizophrenia can have completely different symptoms. I can't believe we still use the term. I'll definitely read your link.

In the book it states that bodily boundaries and the way we perceive reality is mostly learnt through interactions when you're an infant. Really you have no sense of identity when very young - your mother and your nursery may as well BE you. This causes some trauma when your mother leaves/spends less time with you (according to psychoanalysts). The only reason psychotic/schizophrenic people are labelled so is because they haven't gone through the same conditioning and so experience reality differently to the majority of others who were successfully conditioned. This conditioning is obviously necessary for society to function but when others don't share our worldview we call them insane.

When you take psychedelics I believe you are temporarily 'forgetting' this conditioning. So in a way the effects of drugs can be seen as a psychotic/schizophrenic episode however it's not that the drugs are 'causing' a psychotic reaction. I really believe that the reality you experience on psychedelics IS reality but without conditioning. Schizophrenics today would be shaman if born in a more esoteric tradition - there's a TED talk about it somewhere on youtube.

I am by no means an expert so this may all be bullshit :)