Savants


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I watched a really amazing study on a girl with schizophrenia. She hated, really hated, to be left alone. They do. New research is actually linking autism to psychotic disorders. They are opposites of each other, so just as there are ASD phenomenon, there are also PSD. (ASD= autism spectrum disorder, PSD = psychotic spectrum disorder)

She had many, many, many of what others called her imaginary friends and if left alone they would tell her to hurt herself. It was very sad to see her that way, but for the most part she was accepting of her illness even for such a young age. You learn to accept being different when you have no choice. This leads to accepting a lot of things and a really expansive imagination. To be honest is she really “the crazy one”?

I would not call anyone with a mental illness crazy if they can take responsibility for getting treatment when they are able to be aware of such things. Well, it is also possible they should have the right to reject some treatments? And maybe education is more important than treatment?

But yes, they have even identified a savant syndrome in both spectrums. The person, having had part of their mind altered, funnels their energy into another area of their mind. What they find, though, is that their talent differs between PSD savants and ASD savants.

In the case of the psychotic savant, they tend to have excellent imaginations but they lack some control of them. So instead of trying to be “normal”, they learn a way to seem normal. They become very good at interacting with people in general, until their weak spot is hit of course. This sound like anyone you know?

A cousin of my husbands. He will make a joke about someone and when they make a joke back he will flip out. It can be very draining having him loose his temper every time he hears something he doesn’t like. He may have a PSD. He is not “faulty”, but he could stand to benefit from some education so he could work around his weakness.

In the case of an autistic savant, they cannot demonstrate the sensitivities of a normal person to social interactions so they cannot develop psychotic traits. In their case, their talent is with systems. If it has a cause and effect, mechanical organization, you will find an ASD savant who has it all figured out, but they will act sort of like the thing they are so fascinated with. Meaning they can’t be moved to wildly imaginative responses to situations. Sound like anyone you know?

I would say yourself. I take it as a compliment. To me, those in the middle of this spectrum seem crucified. Even a psychotic makes more sense to me than a “normal person”.

READ:  Natural Imagination of Dreams

No such thing as normal. True, there is not. It would be more accurate to say “more evenly balanced”. The blurry field of gray that is most peoples lives. To the psychotic savant, everything is mysterious and scary because it’s all meaningful. To the autistic savant, everything is mysterious and scary because little of it is meaningful. But like writing a text, at least either of those has a clear margin. What is the middle field like?

Everything meaningful, nothing scary. Oh, the word nonsense is popular with the midlanders. They like to call things fake and foolish so they don’t see everything as meaningful.

But yes, now back to the actual topic of imagination. I can move away from my autistic margin because I can imagine what other ways of functioning are like. I have all sorts of images in my head for states of feeling and inspiration. The psychotic savant, when asked, can tell you what a “normal” behaviour would be, and for a while they can even go there and live that way. But their emotions tend to take them back where they were, just as a “healthy” persons emotions tend to keep them centered. But with imagination you can go anywhere in the field. All potentials of the human mind are open to the imagination of anyone.

Empathy is imagination? Yes. The autistic tends to lack empathy, but not sympathy.

Your thoughts are welcome. Be well friends.

Travis Saunders
Dragon Intuitive

~science,mysticism,spirituality~

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One response to “Savants”

  1. Dynein Avatar
    Dynein

    Hi there! I happened to stumble across your post while looking up information about psychotic savantism. I was searching up the topic because I believe that I may be such a savant, or perhaps some “hybrid” cognitive profile as Christopher Badcock speculates George Price had.

    My imagination has always been extremely active to the point where it just doesn’t stop! As a child this condition manifested as immersive imaginary worlds. I spent hours stimulating myself with vivid fantasy. Over the years this imagination shifted toward a tireless analysis of meaning. Well, meaning isn’t really a good word for it. It’s more like I’m always geared toward finding some ulterior function in everything I encounter. Kind of like my mind is trying to create some kind of global grid, a Google of reality. My imagination has been so engaged toward toward this pursuit that when I picked up a book on metaphysics a few weeks ago, I found that I had already realized of most of the content on my own during periods where my imagination has taken hold.

    In more recent times, I have been focused on the enhancing my social skills. These skills have not developed naturally for me, and without some deception on my part, people find me bizarre and cannot understand me. My emotional cognition is very different though I have not yet been able to discern exactly how or why. I am constantly deceiving by faking emotions and reactions. I often get the feeling that other people act genuinely, where I act strategically. Even my reactions and affectations are strategic, to the extent I am able to control them. I seem to have always had some ability to make nearly anything I say sound plausible or absolutely true. Unfortunately I am so good at this that I sometimes convince myself of things that aren’t true. Though I am convinced that everything I am writing here is accurate, perhaps it is all some massive distortion of reality I have convinced myself of. This is what worries me the most because I can’t tell if I’m sane or not. I can take the most insane delusion and make it sound sane. Actually, I’ve just realized that I am probably extremely insane. What is weird though is that my insanity is not so much delusional as it is a selective construction of reality. But then again, maybe I’m wrong.

    Now if I’m a psychotic savant, I should have some mechanistic deficits, right? Well technology has always seemed intuitive to me, so I’m not so sure. I was able to figure out how to fix computers (including their hardware) on my own as a kid. But I am a pretty terrible driver (which is partly why I don’t have a license) and math gives me a hard time, so who knows. I also seem to be rather deficient in common sense. Maybe because I’m a full-blown psychotic. Anyway I need to wrap up because I’m supposed to be studying for my math quiz that’s coming up in an hour. I like your blog and maybe we can have some kind of correspondence.

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