How would you distinguish an alien invasion from insanity?

[Bulldog Psion]

It doesn't need to be an alien invasion, actually.

How would you go about determining if an unprecedented event of some kind was actually happening, or if it was an hallucination brought on by insanity? I've thought off and on about this for years, and I can't come up with any satisfactory test to determine its actuality.

It could be anything -- a spacecraft landing and some bizarre alien emerging; a tyrannosaur appearing in the treeline beside the road; a superhero flying past; a skeleton erupting from the earth in a graveyard; etc. etc.

On the one hand, if such an event actually occurred, not responding to it in the correct manner could be dangerous or lethal. However, in that these events are impossible according to our everyday experience, if encountered, they would far more likely result from insane hallucinations than to be what they actually appear.

How does one determine if seeing a spacecraft land and strange figures emerge and start shooting people with energy weapons means you should call the police, the military, and everyone else who might be able to respond to it, or if you should check yourself into the nearest hospital?

[The Glyphstone]

Get someone else to verify it, would seem to be the simplest answer. If they're also seeing the spacemen or the monsters, the odds of two people suffering the exact same hallucination drops extremely low. The police/military/etc. aren't going to listen to a single random report anyways, even if it's authentic, so you might as well start the volume reports immediately.

[golentan]

Get someone else to verify it, would seem to be the simplest answer. If they're also seeing the spacemen or the monsters, the odds of two people suffering the exact same hallucination drops extremely low. The police/military/etc. aren't going to listen to a single random report anyways, even if it's authentic, so you might as well start the volume reports immediately.

This requires faith that you are correctly interpreting the other person's words or even existence.

Having dealt with psychotic mental illness myself my entire adult life, it is not something that is easy to navigate.

[Spacewolf]

Considering you can't prove you exist as you perceive yourself, that other people exist, that anything outside your line of sight exists, etc. This question is basically impossible to answer 100% the best you could do is try and make sure what your perceiving matches with what's going on around you.

[The Glyphstone]

Pretty much. If you can't even verify that other people exist, you're not going to be spending any effort to warn them about hostile aliens anyways, so the question becomes moot if your personal detachment from reality is that severe.

In any other circumstance, the best available option is finding a second opinion or perspective.

[gooddragon1]

Having dealt with psychotic mental illness myself my entire adult life, it is not something that is easy to navigate.

Sounds like it'd be insanely difficult.

But I wonder, if you've read a book while sane (if that's a possibility), shouldn't it remain unchanged? I would ask someone to read to me the contents of a book I already know. If I'm holding the right book they read it as I should know it. If they don't then something's wrong even if I'm holding the wrong book. Then I'd ask them to read me a book (part of it) that I don't know. If words start coming out that seem out of place. Well then that's that. Not foolproof, but there was a deep space 9 episode of star trek where one of the characters realizes he's still inside the mind of someone else because the pages of a book he was reading are blank.

[golentan]

I'm just saying, if you see spaceships descend from orbit and start blowing up things, and you have reason to suspect its veracity but can't differentiate from the world around, you're not in a good circumstance to trust your senses on the people around you.

Seriously, I don't think most people give much thought to verification of reality. I have had to in my daily life, and it's not an easy task, and I'm not even dealing with say photorealistic hallucinations. You're coming at this from a position of "Well, my mind has never played me false before," and so you find it easy to trust that you can interpret words correctly or that if you're seeing something completely outside your existing context of the world that you can trust the things that are in context are really there. It's not that simple. If there's not some clear inconsistency to things to hang onto like a lifeline, it's very, very, VERY hard to navigate your senses or memories or the like.

I have delusions. Whenever I have a thought or memory, I have to ask myself "If someone said they had this experience to me, would it sound crazy?" For every thought, every day, every memory. If the answer is "yes," or "maybe, context dependent" I have to go through every detail I can think of to see if there are logical inconsistencies, and at some point it comes down to faith because you can second guess yourself into treating reality as fiction or fiction as reality. Do you know how exhausting that is? Now, imagine you just saw your city explode, say. And you have to wonder to yourself "did that guy who shouted 'run, it's an alien invasion,' have a shadow? Did his voice sound distorted in any way? Did I have a flash of heat on my face when I saw the fireball?" Without prior context of "my senses may be suspect."

At some point, you need to take it on faith. But if you're suspicious... that can be hard.

[golentan]

Sounds like it'd be insanely difficult.

But I wonder, if you've read a book while sane (if that's a possibility), shouldn't it remain unchanged? I would ask someone to read to me the contents of a book I already know. If I'm holding the right book they read it as I should know it. If they don't then something's wrong even if I'm holding the wrong book. Then I'd ask them to read me a book (part of it) that I don't know. If words start coming out that seem out of place. Well then that's that. Not foolproof, but there was a deep space 9 episode of star trek where one of the characters realizes he's still inside the mind of someone else because the pages of a book he was reading are blank.

Not always. I remembered a fake ending to Return of the Jedi for several years, for example. It's HARD to navigate. It's hard in a way that doesn't lend itself to easy answers. I think that more than anything is why so many schizophrenics develop paranoia: having to be on guard for inconsistencies in literally everything drives one to distraction.

[Brother Oni]

...that anything outside your line of sight exists, etc..

I would have thought that this one would be obvious to prove - get shot by a sniper out of your LOS by hit by indirect fire for example.


Sounds like it'd be insanely difficult.

Pun unintentional?

[gooddragon1]

Pun unintentional?

Quite deliberate. But I can't just explain a joke.

[Bobblit]

Mmmmh... even in the case where you have to seriously doubt whether you're interpreting others' reactions correctly, isn't it still the best option to just tell someone else about what you're seeing? (I mean, in the scenario of an alien invasion and if you're not sure if it's an hallucination.) Mostly because, if it's actually happening, it doesn't matter how you interpret their reaction, they still can call the police if necessary. That way you can delegate responsability to someone feeling more 'sane'.

... Unless you think everybody is suffering from mass insanity, or your perception of the world is so warped that when trying to warn others you actually say something completely different from what you believe to be saying, but I guess that in such case there's nothing else you could be doing anyways. So, at least you tried.

[Alent]

I think I'd try to fall back on my usual go to solution when suffering lucid nightmares with realistic sensations: Find someplace safe and take a nap, and see if I can trigger a lucid recursion loop that can't be true given the previous iteration.

If you can't alter the scenario with inexplicable reality warping powers, play along. If you are hallucinating and can't prove it, enjoy the ride while it lasts. Make sure to commit everything to memory so that after the meds kick in and reality comes back, you can write down what you saw and sell it to a publisher.

[Vinyadan]

Well, how do you distinguish this forum or your laptop or your chair from insanity? I understand the point that seeing something completely unexpected may trigger an "impossible!" response and bring fear of madness (and mysticism has a tradition of questioning the status of what was seen: sleep, hallucination, revelation, treachery?), but you could bring that question on everything.


Considering you can't prove you exist as you perceive yourself, that other people exist, that anything outside your line of sight exists, etc. This question is basically impossible to answer 100% the best you could do is try and make sure what your perceiving matches with what's going on around you.

Isn't the point that you can prove you exist exactly because you perceive at least your perception? I mean, cogito ergo sum. Everything outside yourself, however, is fair game. Or maybe I misunderstood the first sentence.



Seriously, I don't think most people give much thought to verification of reality. I have had to in my daily life

There was a strange time when I had just begun university and I was very worried about not screwing up relations with a teacher of mine. In the first week, the thought was so persistent, that I found myself thinking, before I showered, "well, wouldn't it be funny, if I actually were in his study, and got distracted and thought I was in my bathroom and took of my clothes". Then I noticed that I really hadn't a way to check out were I was, beside unexpected things happening with details I wouldn't have pictured (the shower head falling, for example, and making unexpected, albeit believable, sounds). The whole thing was rather surreal and went away as soon as the stress faded, however. I am sorry you have to deal with such things.

[Eldan]

Ach, yeah. Reality verification. It's a lot worse when I'm under stress. Mainly, I get dreams where, in the dream, I'm not sure where I am. Often, dreams where I'm doing the wrong thing in the wrong place, like the shower thing Vinyadan describes. But then, during my first few years of university, when I was really badly stressed, it started to come up while awake, too. I was suddenly unsure whether I was actually sitting in a lecture hall or dreaming about sitting in a lecture hall. Which results in massive paranoia as I start examining every detail for whether it's logical and real-looking or not. It can go a few steps deep, too. "So, it's 11:15 now. But wasn't it 11:15 when I checked the clock ten minutes ago? I think it was, but maybe I'm remembering wrong. I'm wearing red. I never wear red in reality. But wait. Maybe I just think I never wear red in reality because it's a dream where I remember colours wrong..."

[Spacewolf]

Isn't the point that you can prove you exist exactly because you perceive at least your perception? I mean, cogito ergo sum. Everything outside yourself, however, is fair game. Or maybe I misunderstood the first sentence.


The firsts sentence was to do with there being no way to know if you are just a brain in a jar being fed some sort of Artificial reality through sensory input, or a butterfly as the usual quote for one of the possibilities goes. (Although the full quote for that doesn't fit with the common use but whatever.)

[Hamste]

If everyone you meet agrees with it saying it is real, you see it and in all other ways your brain has supplemented it so you experience an alien invasion as real to you then isn't it real? I mean for all we know everything we have experienced is just a madman's fever dream already and none of this exists. Wake up John. You could be a raving mad person who is locked up in an asylum but if you experience it then it might as well be real. The danger of this comes from you deciding to do something violent to help with the unprecedented thing or someone trusted you to take care of someone or something as you might abandon it or leave it as you react to non-real circumstances. Basically, if you believe 100% that you are experiencing an alien invasion then you are. Sure to other people's perspective you might be a danger to yourself and everyone around you but that is what asylums are for. If you see something completely unprecedented then ask people around you, try to act in a non-violent way and contact who ever you would need to. If you are insane this gives ample time for you to be picked up and if you aren't then you alerted the right people.
Added the wake up John just in the case someone named John reads this to freak them out.
A random tip though, if aliens came down to earth and started shooting lasers then they almost certainly not real. If they are capable of going to earth then they almost certainly have something that could kill humans from out of orbit with out risking nearly as much by actually landing.

[aspi]

I was suddenly unsure whether I was actually sitting in a lecture hall or dreaming about sitting in a lecture hall. Which results in massive paranoia as I start examining every detail for whether it's logical and real-looking or not."
Why is this a problem? If in doubt whether what you are experiencing is real, can't you just proceed under the assumption that it is real? If it is: good. If it isn't: you lost nothing. This is of course problematic for alien invasions, but for lecture halls I'm going to say that it's a pretty safe approach.

[Hamste]

Ach, yeah. Reality verification. It's a lot worse when I'm under stress. Mainly, I get dreams where, in the dream, I'm not sure where I am. Often, dreams where I'm doing the wrong thing in the wrong place, like the shower thing Vinyadan describes. But then, during my first few years of university, when I was really badly stressed, it started to come up while awake, too. I was suddenly unsure whether I was actually sitting in a lecture hall or dreaming about sitting in a lecture hall. Which results in massive paranoia as I start examining every detail for whether it's logical and real-looking or not. It can go a few steps deep, too. "So, it's 11:15 now. But wasn't it 11:15 when I checked the clock ten minutes ago? I think it was, but maybe I'm remembering wrong. I'm wearing red. I never wear red in reality. But wait. Maybe I just think I never wear red in reality because it's a dream where I remember colours wrong..."

Wouldn't that second one mean you are dreaming? You either never wear red or your dream made you think you never wear red. Both of those deny it being a reality. I'm not quite sure the problem with imagining a normal scenario to be honest but wouldn't a pocket mirror have worked? I'm not sure about others but any mirror in every dream I have ever have had never even remotely worked right.

[goto124]

but wouldn't a pocket mirror have worked? I'm not sure about others but any mirror in every dream I have ever have had never even remotely worked right.

Other possible ways I heard from elsewhere:

- Look at a clock or watch. In dreams, they look weird.
- Try to put your hands together. In dreams, your hands can pass through each other, or something equally weird.

[Hamste]

Other possible ways I heard from elsewhere:

- Look at a clock or watch. In dreams, they look weird.
- Try to put your hands together. In dreams, your hands can pass through each other, or something equally weird.

I think I heard of the clock or watch thing but doesn't that only work for clocks with a second hand (the repeated consistent movement works weird in dreams I think).

No idea on the putting hands together thing. I can never see my body in dreams and I don't have enough control to question it.

[Telonius]

Either the world is ordered, with effect following cause, or it isn't. If it isn't ordered, then it really won't matter if I'm perceiving reality or not, since everything is just random anyway, and I'll probably be eaten by the squid that my daughter was worried was in the toilet a few months back. (Or I can just give the squid call like I did back them and get it to go away; either way would probably work).

If it is ordered, then everything I'm perceiving must be connected to some sort of objective reality, even if I am just a brain in a jar and it's all being fed to me. If I perceive something, it means that there is an object of that perception: reality separate from me, or at the very least separable parts of myself that are not the whole of me. Something is causing those perceptions, even if I can't detect what that something is. I have to use the tools I have available, namely my senses, to figure out what that objective, external reality might be. Even if they are imperfect, there the only way I have of interacting with that reality. So if I'm perceiving a T-Rex on the road, or a squid in the toilet, I've got to work on the assumption that it's there unless I have some other conflicting perception that suggests that it's not.

[Murk]

Descartes once told me that, if faced with problems like these, it helps to lock yourself up in an Alpine cabin for months on end and go crazy until God talks to you.

Sounds pretty fool proof.

[Bulldog Psion]

While it's true that there's no proof as such that everything isn't a hallucination, one can still reframe the question as "how can we determine if an event or entity which is massively divergent from the background conditions which we have perceived since we first started perceiving, is an actual part of that background, or a phantasm (for lack of a better word) which does not actually affect that background?"

Additional opinions are helpful, though flawed.

I suppose that, if I saw something that was impossible in terms of whatever it's been I've perceiving during my period of perception, that I would also test it by observing everything else. Even if I encounter a tyrannosaur on a rainy nighttime drive through Northern Wisconsin, if I'm sane, everything else should still be working the same. The amount of gas in my tank should be lower than it was earlier; the passenger side window should still stick slightly at first if I try to roll it down; the town of X should still be Y miles ahead; if I open the hood, the engine should still be hot after driving; and so on, and so forth.

And yes, I suppose that, barring other signs of being completely bonkers, one would have to treat such phenomena as real until proven otherwise.

[Starwulf]

Ach, yeah. Reality verification. It's a lot worse when I'm under stress. Mainly, I get dreams where, in the dream, I'm not sure where I am. Often, dreams where I'm doing the wrong thing in the wrong place, like the shower thing Vinyadan describes. But then, during my first few years of university, when I was really badly stressed, it started to come up while awake, too. I was suddenly unsure whether I was actually sitting in a lecture hall or dreaming about sitting in a lecture hall. Which results in massive paranoia as I start examining every detail for whether it's logical and real-looking or not. It can go a few steps deep, too. "So, it's 11:15 now. But wasn't it 11:15 when I checked the clock ten minutes ago? I think it was, but maybe I'm remembering wrong. I'm wearing red. I never wear red in reality. But wait. Maybe I just think I never wear red in reality because it's a dream where I remember colours wrong..."

Why wouldn't you just cause yourself a bit of physical pain in that scenario? I've never felt pain in a dream before, even when reliving the moment I broke my back by falling off a 40 foot cliff. Just bite your lip hard enough to draw a bit of blood, if you don't feel it, you're dreaming, if you do, you're awake.

[golentan]

Why wouldn't you just cause yourself a bit of physical pain in that scenario? I've never felt pain in a dream before, even when reliving the moment I broke my back by falling off a 40 foot cliff. Just bite your lip hard enough to draw a bit of blood, if you don't feel it, you're dreaming, if you do, you're awake.

I've felt physical pain as an effect of psychotic symptoms.

People keep looking for easy answers when there aren't necessarily such. Seriously, try to get out of immediate evident harm's way, sure, but it's SUPER HARD to navigate the world if you can't trust your own senses the way people are assuming they can.

[Telonius]

I've felt physical pain as an effect of psychotic symptoms.

People keep looking for easy answers when there aren't necessarily such. Seriously, try to get out of immediate evident harm's way, sure, but it's SUPER HARD to navigate the world if you can't trust your own senses the way people are assuming they can.

I've never had "false positives" the way that mental illness can give a person, but I know that my senses can't fully be trusted. Being born with 20/300 vision and a 30% hearing loss will do that; my problem is usually in not perceiving things that actually are there. That can be just as dangerous. Fortunately it was just a drill, but I learned that my office fire alarm is in the pitch range that I can't hear.

But even without actual mental illness or impairment, the senses still have their limitations. My sense of touch works just as well as any other person's. If I smack my hand down on the table, I'm going to feel some pain. My hands tell me that the table is solid, and I know I'm going to get a bruise if I hit it hard enough. I also know (intellectually) that if I were to get a strong enough microscope, I'd see that the table was mostly made up of empty space between atoms. It's not solid at all, really. I could only perceive that indirectly.

[The Glyphstone]

[/COLOR] A random tip though, if aliens came down to earth and started shooting lasers then they almost certainly not real. If they are capable of going to earth then they almost certainly have something that could kill humans from out of orbit with out risking nearly as much by actually landing.

What if they're on an alien game safari? Shooting the prey from their version of a helicopter isn't very good sport.

[Starwulf]

I've felt physical pain as an effect of psychotic symptoms.

People keep looking for easy answers when there aren't necessarily such. Seriously, try to get out of immediate evident harm's way, sure, but it's SUPER HARD to navigate the world if you can't trust your own senses the way people are assuming they can.

Please note I wasn't referring to your situation, I was solely responding to Eldan's scenario of questioning whether or not he was in a dream, which compared to your scenario is incredibly easy to solve, as you can't feel pain in a dream, insane or sane.

[blunk]

you can't feel pain in a dreamI have felt pain in dreams, intensely and unmistakably.

[Starwulf]

I have felt pain in dreams, intensely and unmistakably.

I had to look this up because I've always heard you can't. Turns out it is possible, but highly unusual:

You could have a psychosomatic pain caused by a dream, but that's kind of unusual. Not impossible, but unusual. A more common thing that happens is the reverse of what you are thinking. You have a real sensation from something and you feel it in your dream.

The top result when googled and repeated in multiple articles.

[Vinyadan]

Unrelated fun fact: you could die of a heart attack caused by intense emotion during a dream, and nobody would ever know.

[blunk]

You could have a psychosomatic pain caused by a dream, but that's kind of unusual. Not impossible, but unusual. A more common thing that happens is the reverse of what you are thinking. You have a real sensation from something and you feel it in your dream.It was in a lucid dream, which is unusual in itself. Likely it wasn't a bleedover from reality, unless I was being torn apart by wild animals there, too :smallfrown:

[Dodom]

When I get dream pains that come from real discomfort, they're super amplified, so an upset stomach will summon a dream of being stabbed, or an arm that's going numb will be stuck under a large rock in the dream, so I'm used to pain being more intense in dreams than in real life.


I sometimes have hypnagogic hallucinations/sleep paralysis, and I can testify to how far the brain will go to believe its own trips. At first I'd see not very plausible things, like a big rock falling towards me even tought I'm lying in bed with the ceiling 1,5m above me and certainly nowhere for a falling rock to come from, and when I disbelieved that, it changed to animals trying to bite me, and when I remembered there's no way a goddamn dolphin would be in my room, it changed to rats - don't they go everywhere? - and once I told myself no smart rat would attack a human when there's bread and other foods that won't fight back at reach, it changed to feeling the bedsheet tangled a bit too tight around my neck, or a bad position threatening to dislocate a joint, or smelling smoke; things that could threaten one in one's own bed, so even knowing I'm in conditions where anything could be false, I can't be sure of it.
So the part of the brain that generates hypnagogic hallucinations is able to learn and teaches itself how to go around the rest of the mind's reality check criteria.

I don't know if hallucinations due to psychosis work the same way, but I wouldn't be surprised if they also adapted to fit in the person's worldview and take forms they're ready to accept.

[Bulldog Psion]

Interestingly, I had a weird "nesting dream" a few weeks ago. I kept "waking up" in the dream and thinking that I was awake; I even talked to people in the dream about how I had a dream in which I "woke up" into another dream, then woke up to tell them.

I think I went through 6 layers before I actually woke up.

But when I woke up, I knew instantly that this time I was really awake. Not only by the immense wealth of sensory input lacking in the dreams (despite their overall visual realism) but through another crucial difference:

In all the dreams, I was actually happy. When I woke up, everything sucked, and I was miserable and totally hopeless. :smallbiggrin:

"Well, this is definitely reality." :smallwink:

[Telonius]

When I get dream pains that come from real discomfort, they're super amplified, so an upset stomach will summon a dream of being stabbed, or an arm that's going numb will be stuck under a large rock in the dream, so I'm used to pain being more intense in dreams than in real life.


I sometimes have hypnagogic hallucinations/sleep paralysis ...

I don't know if hallucinations due to psychosis work the same way, but I wouldn't be surprised if they also adapted to fit in the person's worldview and take forms they're ready to accept.

This might be in the "urban legend" category, but I've heard that sleep paralysis is a pretty good example of what you're talking about. In some forms of it (so the story goes), the person sees a big shadowy thing right in front of their face because that part of their eye isn't "awake" yet. The genital region is also one of the parts of the body that's awake as well. The brain tries to make that into some sort of cohesive narrative. Centuries ago they thought it was a demon (the origin of the succubus/incubus stories). Demons kind of fell out of favor as an explanation, so nowadays you get stories of alien abductions.

[Conradine]

The same way I distinguish dream from reality: hermeneutic ( interpretation of perceptions ).
Reality has internal consistence, that can be confronted with the non consequential nature of dreams ( and drunkness) .

[Bulldog Psion]

The same way I distinguish dream from reality: hermeneutic ( interpretation of perceptions ).
Reality has internal consistence, that can be confronted with the non consequential nature of dreams ( and drunkness) .

That's kind of the point, though. How does one determine if an inconsistent, unprecedented event is part of a larger, previously unknown consistence, or a hallucination?

An alien escape pod landing on your lawn is inconsistent with the reality you've observed up to that point. How do you determine if it's an actual escape pod or just a figment?

Similarly, our consistent reality tells us the undead are impossible. If a rotting corpse lurches out of the darkness into the circle of light from your family vacation campfire, how do you determine if you should be acquiring a machete because our assumptions were wrong, or checking yourself into a hospital first thing in the morning?

[Tvtyrant]

That's kind of the point, though. How does one determine if an inconsistent, unprecedented event is part of a larger, previously unknown consistence, or a hallucination?

An alien escape pod landing on your lawn is inconsistent with the reality you've observed up to that point. How do you determine if it's an actual escape pod or just a figment?

Similarly, our consistent reality tells us the undead are impossible. If a rotting corpse lurches out of the darkness into the circle of light from your family vacation campfire, how do you determine if you should be acquiring a machete because our assumptions were wrong, or checking yourself into a hospital first thing in the morning?
The same way you do anything else in life, assume that what you see is real unless given proof otherwise. There is no philosophical way to prove the difference between reality and delusion, so pragmatism sets in.

[Knaight]

The same way you do anything else in life, assume that what you see is real unless given proof otherwise. There is no philosophical way to prove the difference between reality and delusion, so pragmatism sets in.

On the other hand, you know that your perception is imperfect. At the very least you've got some fun paraeidolia going on, and things like borderline hallucinations while half awake are hardly uncommon. You routinely don't assume that your initial perception is real if you're being careful, from recognizing someone in a crowd then realizing it was probably someone else to the whole phenomena of dreaming. Part of pragmatism is an appreciation of the probabilities of the events you do see, at least at some scale.

So, at this point it becomes a matter of how much is seen, how much you trust your own senses on past history, what verification is available, etc. A glimse of an alien craft in the corner of your eye can probably be summarily dismissed. If just you, personally, see a landing while wide awake, the insanity hypothesis starts losing steam. If you personally see a landing while wide awake, get later confirmation from other people that they have seen it, see news reports on the invasion, hear conversations about the invasion, and are generally immersed in data confirming that there is an invasion, then at that point you should probably assume that what you're seeing is real. Still, the insanity hypothesis remains very possible.

[Tvtyrant]

On the other hand, you know that your perception is imperfect. At the very least you've got some fun paraeidolia going on, and things like borderline hallucinations while half awake are hardly uncommon. You routinely don't assume that your initial perception is real if you're being careful, from recognizing someone in a crowd then realizing it was probably someone else to the whole phenomena of dreaming. Part of pragmatism is an appreciation of the probabilities of the events you do see, at least at some scale.

So, at this point it becomes a matter of how much is seen, how much you trust your own senses on past history, what verification is available, etc. A glimse of an alien craft in the corner of your eye can probably be summarily dismissed. If just you, personally, see a landing while wide awake, the insanity hypothesis starts losing steam. If you personally see a landing while wide awake, get later confirmation from other people that they have seen it, see news reports on the invasion, hear conversations about the invasion, and are generally immersed in data confirming that there is an invasion, then at that point you should probably assume that what you're seeing is real. Still, the insanity hypothesis remains very possible.
Agreed, lots of people (myself included) have seen things that they shrug off because of setting. As a kid I once saw a Moose in a friends yard ip in Alaska, I startled it coming around from the sideyard. No one, my father included, believed me despite their house backing into BLM land and having no fence.

True, but once you have at least a couple verifications it becomes no more likely to be insanity than anything else is.
How likely are flying metal boxes and computers really?

[Vinyadan]

This kind of reminds me of when I was drowning as a kid. I was there without anyone I currently know, so no one ever reminds me of that, or even shares that memory. For a while, I have even believed that it wasn't such a big deal: how could something that important have happened, if even my parents don't give it any weight and never talk about it?
I realised that it had been seriously real when 20 years later I read about instinctive drowning response, and it matched perfectly with my memories. So, I was really about to die, even though really no one knows. Wow. Talk about socially induced reality representation.

[Aliquid]

Interestingly, I had a weird "nesting dream" a few weeks ago. I kept "waking up" in the dream and thinking that I was awake; I even talked to people in the dream about how I had a dream in which I "woke up" into another dream, then woke up to tell them.

I think I went through 6 layers before I actually woke up.

But when I woke up, I knew instantly that this time I was really awake. Not only by the immense wealth of sensory input lacking in the dreams (despite their overall visual realism) but through another crucial difference:

In all the dreams, I was actually happy. When I woke up, everything sucked, and I was miserable and totally hopeless. :smallbiggrin:

"Well, this is definitely reality." :smallwink:
I've had that happen once. It was a group of really annoying dreams where I was dealing with a frustrating challenge that just wasn't working... then I would realize "hey I'm dreaming", and force myself to wake up... but only be pushed into another dream to repeat the process.

When I finally woke up for real, I was so agitated that it took forever to fully fall back to sleep.

[Bohandas]

Call 911 and say you think you're suffering from delerium. If the responders can see the aliens too they're probably real (or else you're hallucinating them too)

[Bohandas]

Not always. I remembered a fake ending to Return of the Jedi for several years, for example. It's HARD to navigate. It's hard in a way that doesn't lend itself to easy answers. I think that more than anything is why so many schizophrenics develop paranoia: having to be on guard for inconsistencies in literally everything drives one to distraction.

Now I have to know, how did you think it ended?

[golentan]

Now I have to know, how did you think it ended?

The Second Death Star was destroyed by deliberate ramming of Ackbar's capital ship into it to punch through the shields, allowing them to detonate torpedoes inside the core in a heroic sacrifice. Things play out basically the same with Vader, Palpatine, and Skywalker, but on the surface of Endor victory is achieved by Lando bringing in the Falcon as an emergency rescue when he heard that Han was in danger, allowing the rebel strike team to escape in the confusion and rally with the ewoks.

[Bohandas]

The Second Death Star was destroyed by deliberate ramming of Ackbar's capital ship into it to punch through the shields, allowing them to detonate torpedoes inside the core in a heroic sacrifice. Things play out basically the same with Vader, Palpatine, and Skywalker, but on the surface of Endor victory is achieved by Lando bringing in the Falcon as an emergency rescue when he heard that Han was in danger, allowing the rebel strike team to escape in the confusion and rally with the ewoks.

Sounds cool.


Similarly, our consistent reality tells us the undead are impossible. If a rotting corpse lurches out of the darkness into the circle of light from your family vacation campfire, how do you determine if you should be acquiring a machete because our assumptions were wrong, or checking yourself into a hospital first thing in the morning?

It could also be a greedy land developer in a mask like in every episode of Scooby Doo

[Donnadogsoth]

That's kind of the point, though. How does one determine if an inconsistent, unprecedented event is part of a larger, previously unknown consistence, or a hallucination?

An alien escape pod landing on your lawn is inconsistent with the reality you've observed up to that point. How do you determine if it's an actual escape pod or just a figment?

Similarly, our consistent reality tells us the undead are impossible. If a rotting corpse lurches out of the darkness into the circle of light from your family vacation campfire, how do you determine if you should be acquiring a machete because our assumptions were wrong, or checking yourself into a hospital first thing in the morning?

(1) Poke the inconsistent entity with a stick.

(2) Find someone else and compare observations.

(3) Try and recall if you took those funny pills you're supposed to take.

[Bulldog Psion]

(1) Poke the inconsistent entity with a stick.


Okay.

*Pokes T-rex with stick.*

"Uh-oh -- reality confirmaaaaaaaaAAAAAA--*"

[Donnadogsoth]

Okay.

*Pokes T-rex with stick.*

"Uh-oh -- reality confirmaaaaaaaaAAAAAA--*"

Proof of principle:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUopYgVh-3o

[blunk]

The Second Death Star was destroyed by deliberate ramming of Ackbar's capital ship into it to punch through the shields, allowing them to detonate torpedoes inside the core in a heroic sacrifice. Things play out basically the same with Vader, Palpatine, and Skywalker, but on the surface of Endor victory is achieved by Lando bringing in the Falcon as an emergency rescue when he heard that Han was in danger, allowing the rebel strike team to escape in the confusion and rally with the ewoks.Do you consider yourself creative enough to have come up with that? If I had a false memory like that, I would start looking for mystical/sci-fi explanations, because I'm not much of a storyteller.

Tying in to the original thread - this is my "go to" for deciding if something is unreal; if it's beyond my own creative abilities, it's probably not real. (This only works in some cases, though. What if it's a very pedestrian alien invasion?)

[Friv]

Why wouldn't you just cause yourself a bit of physical pain in that scenario? I've never felt pain in a dream before, even when reliving the moment I broke my back by falling off a 40 foot cliff. Just bite your lip hard enough to draw a bit of blood, if you don't feel it, you're dreaming, if you do, you're awake.

Just chiming in - I have frequently felt pain in dreams. I don't think it's ever been as severe as that pain would be in real life, but while I'm asleep I'm not really properly categorizing the pain. Sometimes I've woken and still felt it, so it was a real muscle spasm or something that I miscategorized, but a few times it's been purely psychosomatic.

On the other hand, I've never been in a dream in which I was uncertain about whether I was dreaming. As soon as I begin to suspect I might be dreaming in dreams, the whole thing becomes pretty obvious to me.

[OldTrees1]

1) Consistency
All self contradicting statements are false. Thus if a scenario is self contradicting (careful, there might be an unknown explanation) then it is likely an imposed fiction (dream, hallucination, having the wrong premises).

2) Deviation from expectation
Merely checking for inconsistencies can readily fail if the imposed fiction is self consistent. However you might have vague recollections of normality. If you are comparing 2 mutually exclusive possible realities (the imposed fiction vs recollections / reality vs false memories), then likely one of those is false.

3) Security
If you die in reality you die in the imposed fiction. As such trying to remain alive in both realities is a good way to try to stay alive in the real reality.

[Donnadogsoth]

1) Consistency
All self contradicting statements are false. Thus if a scenario is self contradicting (careful, there might be an unknown explanation) then it is likely an imposed fiction (dream, hallucination, having the wrong premises).

2) Deviation from expectation
Merely checking for inconsistencies can readily fail if the imposed fiction is self consistent. However you might have vague recollections of normality. If you are comparing 2 mutually exclusive possible realities (the imposed fiction vs recollections / reality vs false memories), then likely one of those is false.

3) Security
If you die in reality you die in the imposed fiction. As such trying to remain alive in both realities is a good way to try to stay alive in the real reality.

Don't you mean, "If you die in the imposed fiction you might die in reality"?

[Bohandas]

Do you consider yourself creative enough to have come up with that? If I had a false memory like that, I would start looking for mystical/sci-fi explanations, because I'm not much of a storyteller.

Part of it sounds like it may be a misremembering of the scene where Vader's flag ship loses control and crashes into the Death Star after the navigation deck is rammed by a rebel starfighter and destroyed.

[Telonius]

Not always. I remembered a fake ending to Return of the Jedi for several years, for example.

Similar thing happened to me, confused the heck out of me for a while. Then I turned 10 and rented Spaceballs. Turned out I'd seen a trailer of it somewhere and young-child me couldn't distinguish the two of them.

Come to think of it, that probably explains a whole lot. :smallbiggrin:

[Yuki Akuma]

If you think to yourself "am I hallucinating this?", you probably are not hallucinating it.

[Bohandas]

Don't you mean, "If you die in the imposed fiction you might die in reality"?
Probably not. That doesn't make a lick of sense.

[Donnadogsoth]

Probably not. That doesn't make a lick of sense.

People experience fear in bad dreams don't they? If it's just a dream why feel fear?

[Tyndmyr]

If you believe yourself to be dreaming, etc, flip a lightswitch.

Generally, they won't work, or won't work right.

I suppose if your power goes out at the same time aliens invade, you might have some confusion, but I'll consider that a low probability fear.

[Icewraith]

Don't you mean, "If you die in the imposed fiction you might die in reality"?

I've already falsified that one, personally. Several times. Still not a pleasant experience, but so far dying in my dreams just results in me waking up or having a different dream.

The bit of Golentan's false memory regarding torpedoes makes me wonder if he added in a dash of episode I.
@Golentan,
Had you seen episode I before you realized the memory was false? Do remember about when you generated the false memory?

[Donnadogsoth]

I've already falsified that one, personally. Several times. Still not a pleasant experience, but so far dying in my dreams just results in me waking up or having a different dream.

Did you die in a lucid dream? If not, you have no reason whilst in the dream not to take the dream's dangers serious. So with any situation.

[Icewraith]

Did you die in a lucid dream? If not, you have no reason whilst in the dream not to take the dream's dangers serious. So with any situation.

Uh, no? You've got it exactly backwards. With lucid dreams you realize you're dreaming, therefore you recognize nothing is actually threatening you. However, lucid dreaming is ANY dream where you realize you're dreaming, and so you may not be able to take control of the dream.

In normal dreams you feel fear when presented with fearful things, because since you don't realize you're dreaming, you treat it as reality.

Furthermore, as I stated before, dying in dreams I have found to be ... ...unpleasant. It's still something to be avoided.

Fortunately I don't have to deal with Golentan's level of issues. Since I merely suffer from PTSD flashbacks (although flashbacks don't have to be of things that actually happened) - and even then, therapy seems to be helping tremendously- when things get to a certain intensity, my body starts making the actual physical motion I'm attempting in the flashback and I snap out of it. Yeah, maybe I'm halfway through the process of punching my monitor, or random bystanders notice I suddenly look like I'm about to attack something- so I look like a total nutcase, when I am in fact, only slightly a nutcase and undergoing treatment- but I do snap out of it.

[Bohandas]

I've already falsified that one, personally. Several times. Still not a pleasant experience, but so far dying in my dreams just results in me waking up or having a different dream.

Same here, only I spent the rest of the night dreaming that I was a ghost

[golentan]

I've already falsified that one, personally. Several times. Still not a pleasant experience, but so far dying in my dreams just results in me waking up or having a different dream.

The bit of Golentan's false memory regarding torpedoes makes me wonder if he added in a dash of episode I.
@Golentan,
Had you seen episode I before you realized the memory was false? Do remember about when you generated the false memory?

I recalled it that way when I was 10, in 1998. I went and rewatched the movies since I was really excited about the upcoming prequels, and I went "wait, did it always end like this?"

So no.

[Donnadogsoth]

Uh, no? You've got it exactly backwards. With lucid dreams you realize you're dreaming, therefore you recognize nothing is actually threatening you. However, lucid dreaming is ANY dream where you realize you're dreaming, and so you may not be able to take control of the dream.

In normal dreams you feel fear when presented with fearful things, because since you don't realize you're dreaming, you treat it as reality.

Furthermore, as I stated before, dying in dreams I have found to be ... ...unpleasant. It's still something to be avoided.

What does it matter if you can't control the dream, if you know it's all baloney?

In my experience of lucid dreaming, the dream begins to dissolve almost immediately after one makes the realisation that it's all a dream.

[goto124]

I recalled it that way when I was 10, in 1998. I went and rewatched the movies since I was really excited about the upcoming prequels, and I went "wait, did it always end like this?"

So no.

I have trouble hearing and listening to voices, and often mishear spoken words or even fail to hear anything more than "mumble jumble blah blah".

Some time ago, I read Garth Nix's Sabriel, had no idea what was happening, and misinterpreted the ending as a Deus Ex Machina because I failed to catch the necessary context beforehand. Only lately was I corrected.


What does it matter if you can't control the dream, if you know it's all baloney?

In my experience of lucid dreaming, the dream begins to dissolve almost immediately after one makes the realisation that it's all a dream.

To be honest, I don't lucid dream.

But during a dream, I don't realise it's a dream until everything's over and all is said and done.

[blunk]

In my experience of lucid dreaming, the dream begins to dissolve almost immediately after one makes the realisation that it's all a dream.Galantamine helps with that a lot. It's like having a mental lock on the dream state, though still not completely unshakeable.

[Atarax]

Find the nearest attractive woman and make a pass at her. If this is successful, it's probably a dream. If it fails, it's probably reality, but I would go streaking through town just to double check.

[OldTrees1]

Don't you mean, "If you die in the imposed fiction you might die in reality"?

No. While that might be true (although it implies the imposed fiction is not entirely a fiction), I am unable to assume that.

What I do know is that if I die in reality I die in the imposed fiction. Thus no matter which I am inclined to believe in, if I am wrong then dying in the other one would kill me in the one I falsely believed in. Thus it behooves me to try to remain alive in both such that, on the off chance that the reality I am not believing in happens to be real, I remain alive in the reality I chose to believe in.

[Donnadogsoth]

No. While that might be true (although it implies the imposed fiction is not entirely a fiction), I am unable to assume that.

What I do know is that if I die in reality I die in the imposed fiction. Thus no matter which I am inclined to believe in, if I am wrong then dying in the other one would kill me in the one I falsely believed in. Thus it behooves me to try to remain alive in both such that, on the off chance that the reality I am not believing in happens to be real, I remain alive in the reality I chose to believe in.

That sounds like a different way of saying "You never can tell, so presume you're in reality". No?

[Knaight]

That sounds like a different way of saying "You never can tell, so presume you're in reality". No?

:smallsigh:

That would be the conclusion, or more accurately part of it. A more complete conclusion would be "If you are unable to tell if you are in reality or an imposed fiction, attempting to die is a mistake, because if you are in reality then you die in reality."

[OldTrees1]

That sounds like a different way of saying "You never can tell, so presume you're in reality". No?

That is half the conclusion. The other half is "You never can tell, so presume you are also in the other reality, just to be sure".

Although rephrasing knaight's rephrasing would yield:
"If you are unable to tell if you are in reality or an imposed fiction, dying in either is a mistake, because if you die in reality then you die in the one you care about (be that reality or the imposed fiction)."

[Icewraith]

What does it matter if you can't control the dream, if you know it's all baloney?

In my experience of lucid dreaming, the dream begins to dissolve almost immediately after one makes the realisation that it's all a dream.

It matters because you apparently are fortunate enough to not have my unpleasant history with certain dreams. For instance, there was the one time I was being chased by a monster, realized I was dreaming, took control of the dream, and vaporized it with a fireball. Then the dream restarted and I still knew it was a dream but I couldn't take control of it like that anymore and couldn't wake up. I went through somewhere between three and five iterations of either killing the monster and the dream restarting with the method I'd used no longer available or being killed by the monster before I actually woke up.

Like I said, unpleasant.