Notes on This Blog and My Previous Post

I'm not going to post here again concerning psychiatry in the foreseeable future, and I want to dedicate this post to explaining why.

What is the purpose of a blog? To me, a blog distinguishes itself from social media, internet forums, chat rooms, and the like because it is literature. A blog constitutes a body of literature, which can be referred back to for reference. In that sense, while social media, internet forums, etc. are temporal, a blog is timeless. Things do not need to be repeated here; as long as I say something once, I can feel comfortable leaving the topic alone.

I see no reason to continue writing about psychiatry simply because I've already said all I wanted. The last post, "The Problem with Psychiatry in Three Quick Arguments," represents the culmination of my point of view regarding psychiatry. It is as crystalized as it can be. This is precisely how deep the rabbit hole goes; I need dig no further.

Sure, I may feel the need to elaborate, but really all I'll be doing is further sharing the ideas in the previous post. And many posts previous to that one elaborated quite well enough. So while I may see the need to elaborate, I see no need to elaborate here.

There is only one concept which I haven't talked about on this blog, which is the solution to the problem. The solution is simple: three agnosticisms, and three behavior modifications. To wit:

1. Being agnostic about the science.
2. Being agnostic about the diagnosis—it's validity and it's applicability.
3. Being agnostic about the treatment—it's validity and it's applicability.

1. Modifying psychiatrists' behavior of lying.
2. Modifying psychiatrists' behavior of manipulating.
3. Modifying psychiatrists' behavior of using coercive and violent force.

These solutions are implied in all my previous posts. But now, they have been crystalized. The problem is crystalized; the solution is crystalized; there is no need for further discussion here. Whether or not these ideas become accepted is a matter for society to deliberate, and though I certainly see the grave danger posed by psychiatry, and I hope others see it as well, it is not my place to dictate what society will and will not accept.

This is not an "Internet suicide" by any means. An "Internet suicide," for those of you who don't know, refers to when a highly opinionated person joins an Internet group and expects everyone to agree with them, starts a dumb flame war when they learn many people don't, and then concludes their presence on the site with a message, in all caps, saying, "SCREW YOU ALL YOU'RE ALL STUPID I'M NEVER COMING BACK HERE AGAIN." At which point exactly no one seems to care. This post is not that, because a) I never expected anyone to agree with me, b) I don't care if they don't agree with me, c) I'm still going to post on this blog, and d) I'm still going to spread my views about psychiatry, just not here.

So please stick around; though you won't see this particular vein of anti-psychiatric philosophy, you can all look forward to a lot more philosophy and beautiful things.

The Problem with Psychiatry in Three Quick Arguments

I've composed an open letter to psychiatrists which sums up, in three linear, deductively valid, logical arguments exactly what is wrong with psychiatry. Previously I was wondering how deep the rabbit hole goes; this is precisely how deep it goes. I'm mailing this to psychiatrists, and I want a response. I think I deserve one, and I hope others, especially those directly harmed by psychiatry, can see why.

Jewish Identity Disorder: Psychiatry in Action

We all know that, here in NAZI Germany, there is an epidemic of individuals, invisible to most but tragically evident to some, suffering from a new mental disorder. The very name of the disorder is enough to make you tremble in fear and feel sick to your stomach:

Jewish Identity Disorder.

Here's what we know of the disease. It is generally incurable and chronic. While mostly marked by cognitive features (like believing you're the Chosen People of God, and not believing that Our Savior Jesus Christ of Nazareth came to this world to save us for our sins, and various other beliefs not shared by the common culture), the disease also generally results in physical abnormalities. For example, there's a documented correlation between JID and curly hair and hard noses. Furthermore, there is quite a body of research which shows that JID runs in families. There may be a genetic component as well.

While effective treatment of the disease remains ever elusive, the catastrophic toll of JID across The Fatherland cannot be understated. Every day, thousands of Jews are rounded up by the police and shipped to treatment facilities. Many of them never get out. The ones that do get out generally live a life of terrible poverty and social stigma. The stigma is often described as the worst part: many good Jews understand that they have a serious mental illness and need treatment, often, unfortunately, at national treatment facilities. Despite their cognitive inferiority, they understand that there is something terribly wrong with them and that they'll probably never recover. We have to combat this. The time has come for our society to recognize that the profoundly life-changing diagnosis of JID simply doesn't justify treating them as inferiors, even though they are.

Your friends at the National Socialist Party stress the need for a national strategy to address the JID problem. We must also take into account the growing body of literature on recovery. There is a certain percentage of people with JID who only go to a treatment facility once, and, after professional treatment with Haldol and other psychoactives, they come to the conclusion on their own that they in fact aren't Jewish and never were. We also recognize the role of peers—others who have claimed to be Jewish—in treatment, as long as they follow evidence-based practices proven effective in decreasing the symptoms of JID. Also, strict professional boundaries must be maintained. (For obvious reasons, we can't have outside people with JID making personal friendships with inmates at our state-of-the-art treatment facilities.)

We stress that everyone should read up on the abundant literature regarding Jewish Identity Disorder. The severity of this national problem cannot be stressed enough, and an informed citizen is an empowered citizen. Sieg Heil!

Poor Joe. He's Depressed.

"I don't feel too well today. My son, Joe, is depressed."

"That's too bad! Is he being raped for it?"

"Yes, thank God. Wouldn't want him committing suicide you know."

"I know. It's such a travesty that so many children refuse to be raped."

"Yes! And here's the crazy part; we're not even allowed to rape adults unless they ask for it. I worry that when my child grows up I can't rape him anymore."

"Can you believe how crazy the government is? I mean, I know when my child needs to be raped. I should be allowed to rape him whenever I choose."

"Well anyway, I'm so glad our school has a school rapist. With all these damn budget cuts, a lot of people can't even pay someone to rape their own children."

"We just have to keep fighting. Some people even want rape to be illegal altogether."

"I can't believe how crazy some people are. Especially the Scientologists. I hear that the anti-rape movement actually comes from Scientology."

"It's true: once, I heard Brad Pitt one time go on this crazy rant about how bad rape is because it was all started by some galactic alien at the center of the galaxy."

"The thing is, this is an entire movement of people inspired by the crazy theory that rape was invented by a galactic overlord named Xenu. Oh, they'll deny it, of course. They'll say rape is bad no matter who started it. But who are you going to believe—a rapist, or someone who thinks rape is bad?"

"And what about those people who think rape should be consensual?"

"That's like the worst idea ever! You think someone really knows when they do or don't need to be raped?"

"That's the thing! The people who really need to be raped don't know that they need it. It's so sad that people just won't recognize the humanity in raping people against their will."

"Oh well. I guess we just have to keep raping our children and hope these insane people just go away someday."

"They never will, you know."

"I know."

What is Wrong with People?

Okay. Here's one thing I absolutely hate about the human race. They completely refuse to do the right thing.

Imagine if you were to say, "Rape is evil, it destroys humanity, and it needs to be abolished." Imagine if everybody simply ignored you, then proceeded to institutionalize rape and rape you.

Well, if you say, "Psychiatry is evil, it destroys humanity, and it needs to be abolished," people ignore you.

yeah. It's kind of like that.

You don't know. I've been through psychiatry, and it is one of the most traumatic experiences that a human being can possibly have. And it's getting more and more traumatic every day, forced against younger and younger people. Imagine if I were to say, "Raping children is evil, it destroys humanity, and it needs to be abolished," and everyone thought I was some kind of nutcase, because everybody knows that the best thing to do to a child is to rape him/her. I mean, duh! Rape is healing! Didn't you know? I mean, they do it at hospitals, it must be good for you!

Listen to this. Please. "Madness Radio: Talking About Suicidal Feelings David Webb." Note what he says: "I've known women who have been raped who say psychiatry is as bad as rape." Read this on rape: "The association of sexual assault and attempted suicide within the community." Note the suicide attempt rate: 15%. Teen suicide attempt rate of people with schizophrenia? 50%. But wait, that's just because the illness is traumatic, not psychiatry, right? So I guess we can keep on conspiring behind teens' back and then telling them the thought that people conspiring behind their back is a disease. I guess we can lie to and manipulate them with impunity and tell them how the thought that people are lying to them and manipulating them is a disease. I guess we can tell them how terrible their plight is then tell them how thinking their plight is terrible is a disease. I guess we can assault them with forced medication and tell them that assault is bad. If you don't understand the inhumanity of this, you're not human. Period.

For Christ's sake please read my posts on psychiatry, believe them, and share them.

A Note or Two on Yelling at People

A while back I decided to yell at my therapist. We both agreed that a shouting match was the most appropriate thing to do at that time. No, it wasn't one of those sterile, therapist-y agreements—"I want us to try something new. Let's have a shouting match. Don't be afraid; let it all out." We don't do business that way because it doesn't work. My therapist is a straight-up, no bullshit kind of guy. He wanted an emotional response. Well, he got one.

"Nathan," he said, "you just seem to think these psychiatrists all get together and sit around saying, 'Gee, let's see how many people we can hurt and oppress today.' You really think psychiatrists go to medical school for eight years and live on crappy doctors' wages just because they felt like hurting people was a cool thing to do?"

"They don't have to! The entire system is based on fallacious and fundamentally oppressive assumptions. I don't care what kind of person you are, if you believe that people's minds are diseased, you're going to be oppressive! It's the same as saying you're a flawed person!"

"Great. Tell me: when has a psychiatrist ever told you that you're a 'flawed person?'"

"I've been lucky not to have to work with psychiatrists since the mental hospital. But I know people who have. And if people weren't regularly abused like what happened to me, there wouldn't be a consumer survivor movement."

"See? With you it's always 'Oh, I've heard stories.' What about you? I want you to tell me right now, what evidence do YOU have?"

So I told him my story. I told how I went to the doctor for help because I thought I was sick. How he started talking behind my back to my friends and family about how I should probably get on meds. How I started sensing that people were conspiring behind my back. (Because they were.) And how they hit me with, "You have a mental illness. There's something wrong with your mind and it'll never get better. You'll probably live a half life filled with misery and regret, and take these pills which change the way you see the world but don't make anything better. Oh and be sure to talk to your friends and family about it, see what they have to say. That's important, you know."

"So," He said. "You went to a doctor for help, and he gave you help." (Gasp.) "What a surprise."

"How can you call that help??"

"Look, Nathan. It may have hurt. But he did what he thought was in YOUR best interest. But you give him no credit. You think he just did it all because he had some kind of grudge against humanity."

"You know, NAZI's were all ordinary, nice people too. They only became monsters because they were trained that way. Psychiatrists are trained to believe that people—REAL people—can have something FUNDAMENTALLY wrong with them, with their very minds. That's what they believe."

"Tell me, how many years have you been trained in psychiatry?"

No answer.

"Well I have been trained in psychiatry." (He loads a web page about the WRAP program.) "Look at this program that every mental health professional in the State of Idaho is REQUIRED to take."

From there on I was on shaky grounds. I'd never been formally trained in psychiatry, and though I'd heard things about the consumer-directed movement in mainstream psychiatry, I hadn't looked at it much. There was still a thing or two I wanted to say, though.

Emotions were hot, of course, and the fiery exchange went on deep into the night. But there was nothing about the shouting that wasn't congenial and ultimately beneficial. And we concluded with friendly words: about how he liked to see me "all fired up," how angry we never really get, and so on. The point is: it was beneficial. It was positive and wholesome. If I had not decided to get angry, I would've missed the point.

Let me show you something I made:

The execution may not have been the best, but those goddesses are real. They'll come to me, in the middle of the night after a bad day, wrap their beautiful thighs around me, and get right inside my mind.

They're like, "I fucking hate you. You're a terrible person. I wish you would die. You're bad. I hate you. Just die."

They break my neck. They feed me poison and rip my intestines out. They hurt me, and they don't stop.

They're like: "I hate you. Just die. I fucking hate you."

And suddenly, when the world stops, I burst into tears, look her straight in the eyes, and—the love. We cuddle; flowers bloom, babies coo, birds tweedle, and everything's alright.

You know that feeling of grimacing through an unbearably hot sauna then laying down for twenty minutes in 40 degree water, blissed out like you've taken some cocktail of the most amazing drug, only without the addiction or side-effects... kind of like that. Ladies, I'm telling you, it's hard to compete with an experience like this. (Come to think of it, probably shouldn't try either.)

See, in our culture, we're so rational and deliberating and scientific that we forget the heat of emotions. We forget the value of rage and depression, and of tears. I hate it when people say, "Don't cry." Actually I love it, because it makes you cry. The more they say it the more you cry. That's why it's so nice to say. The trick is, don't analyze and deliberate and come to the reasonable conclusion, "She probably doesn't want me to cry. I should stop now." Because tears are the seeds of joy.

I know it's not right to hurt people. I know it's not right to get angry and yell at someone and put them down. But sometimes, if you're extremely careful, it's the best way to show love. If you REALLY love someone, and if you yell at them lovingly, it's like that hot sauna. It opens your pores and all the bad stuff in the world comes out. Then when you cry together, and hug each other, and the birds and the flowers—it's like the cold water. It's bliss. As long as you love, you can't go wrong.

Brandon Raub: It Could Happen to Anyone

Well I was silent on this for a while, but since Brandon Raub got almost half as much attention as a turnip, I have to comment.

It's bullshit.

This kind of indefinite detention happens every day, and would be happening with or without NDAA or the Patriot Act. Where was the Rutherford Institute when it happened to me?

The problem is not the government, but psychiatry, which is, and always has been, fundamentally opposed to a free society. From Foucalt's Madness and Civilization: "[Madness] is at every moment judged from without; judged not by moral or scientific consciousness, but by a sort of invisible tribunal in permanent session." I know what he's talking about, because I've experienced it. Why police, arrest, try, and execute undesirables if you can get them to do all this to themselves? This is the essence of psychiatry. Psychiatry was an evil and illegitimate institution since its inception.

And now people get worked up because they think it might happen to them, under the Patriot Act. Well, sorry to burst your bubble, but if a couple of psychiatrists say it is going to happen to you, it's damn well going to happen to you. That's the way it's always been. But, oh, I thought it was only supposed to happen to those crazy people nobody cares about, not to ME. Again: if psychiatrist says you're crazy, you're crazy, cause psychiatrist says.

Fight the problem at its source: end the institution of psychiatry.

Why Psychiatry is So Evil

This is the end game for people with psychosis. Dissidents will be silenced, and creative minds will be subdued.

Structuralism, Psychiatry, and Choice

I was just reading an interesting account of "structuralist" writers. I think this ties into my critique of psychiatry. I believe that the main fault of psychiatry is behaviorism and materialism--the philosophy that nothing can be said about consciousness beyond the material, or beyond the observable. This leads to, among other things, the attitude that if certain behavior changes, the patient's wellbeing changes, because wellbeing is nothing but a set of behaviors. (For example, there was a study which claimed that Olanzapine worked because the decibel level of a psychiatric institution lowered when the patients were given the drug. The idea is, if the measurable behavior of loudness changes, the wellbeing must change too.)

I have just read an account by Dominique Janicaud which clarifies this. Psychiatrists are supposed to be scientists. Scientists are supposed to be structuralists. Structuralism, by itself, according to Janicaud, is not an ideology. It is a methodology.

The implications of this are huge. It means that psychiatrists have nothing moral, and nothing normative, to say about their patients. Nothing whatsoever. Putting a moral taint on schizophrenic behavior (i.e. "you oughtn't to do that") is none of their business. Trying to enforce norms of behavior is similarly none of their business, which means they have no right to call the police, and no right to manipulate, etc. etc. etc.

Take this example. A psychiatrist labels you with schizophrenia. This means, among other things, that you tend to believe things which differ radically from accepted cultural beliefs. So what does this mean? Well, normatively, and morally, it means absolutely nothing. It is a statement of fact, akin to, "You have a wart on your nose." It is not the business of the doctor who points out the wart on your nose to say, "You are ugly because you have a wart on your nose." Or, "You need to get that wart removed." The sole purpose of the doctor is simply to state the fact and give you options for dealing with that fact. Since a psychiatrist is a doctor, he has no right to say, "You need to take Olanzapine in order to stop having delusions." Nor does he have the right to try and manipulate you into taking medications by saying, for example, "You will continue to suffer these problems and alienate yourself until you take my prescriptions."

Nor does the psychiatrist have the right (and this is the most significant point) to say, "Your thoughts are delusions and are therefore wrong." This is an ideological, evaluative statement, not a statement of fact. It reflects a certain philosophical ideology of what constitutes objective reality. But that isn't the proper domain for the scientist qua scientist. The scientist qua scientist is supposed to say things like, "Your thoughts are delusions." But they aren't supposed to say, "Delusions are morally bad." Or even, "Delusions are objectively false." The moment he does such a thing, he is judging your worth as a human being, and stepping beyond the proper role of the doctor.

Doctors make observations, and classify observable aspects of your being. But such classification, although it may come with baggage, says absolutely nothing beyond this domain. There is no reason for someone to feel upset because her thoughts have been classified as "delusions." In fact, since delusions show a marked difference from common beliefs, which are often very morally questionable, delusions may even be valuable. Delusions may make a significant, positive contribution to the marketplace of ideas. The psychiatric labels, including schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, are exactly the same. Schizophrenia or bipolar, therefore, may be a positive thing, and not necessarily something to be eradicated or controlled. In any case, the project of eradication and control of schizophrenia or bipolar disorder is the project of you as a patient, not of the doctor. The doctor may help, but the doctor by no means is supposed to take control. Just because a doctor identifies a wart on your nose doesn't give him the right to eradicate it. That is your responsibility, and your choice.

How to Take Psychotropic Medications

Medications are a great tool for living, and I think, regarding medications, it is important to do two things: a) not reject them entirely, b) not settle into them. By this I mean, you should not insist on ignoring what happens to your brain because of the medications, and you should also not insist that everything is okay because of the medications.

I take Zyprexa, and it helps a great deal. However, when I settle into my medications, I become a complete imbecile. I can barely remember what day of the week it is. I forget to wash my clothes. I go to bed at 9:30 in the evening and wake up at 12 in the afternoon, and then I take an hour nap. It's useless. This is one reason why I insist on being kept at a low dose. On the other hand, when I have in the past rejected my medications, I ended up in the mental hospital.

To deal with schizophrenia, you cannot just take your meds and go about your business. You have to deal both with medications and, occasionally, with symptoms. I think there is a simple reason for this: medications regulate the chemicals in your brain, and that's it. The problem is, delusions aren't chemical imbalances: they're thoughts. If you have the thought, "everyone is out to get me," no medication in the world is going to take that away from you. Consequently, a large number of people continue to have delusions despite the fact that they are on enough medications to kill a horse. On the other hand, I'd be willing to bet that there is a significant number of people who technically have schizophrenia, but they don't settle into delusions, and so the disease doesn't bother them and they don't have to take any medications at all.

I think the bottom line is, diseases, especially mental ones, cannot be cured or controlled by conventional science. The reason is, conventional science labors under a cocktail of delusions that don't really accord with reality. Here are a few of them:

1. There is an objective reality which everyone has access to.
2. Mental phenomena don't exist until you can observe them.
3. Mental phenomena cease to exist when you can no longer observe them.
4. The mind is separate from the body and cannot communicate with the body.

Note that for number 4, in my experience, most mental health professionals tend to think that the mind is separate from the brain and the mind cannot communicate even with the brain, which is, of course, completely ridiculous. Many mental health professionals probably won't admit to thinking this, but that is the underlying assumption when they have the thought, "You are not well until you take your medications," or, "You can try cognitive therapy and physical therapy and so forth, but ultimately, you must take your medications before you feel better."

I agree, most people with schizophrenia who are not taking their medications are indeed not well. But the medications have very little to do with that. In my experience delusions are not created by chemical imbalances. Delusions are created by the subconscious mind. In other words, I have experienced episodes of schizophrenia that haven't bothered me at all. The reason is because I withheld creating delusions. The chemicals in my head led me to think, "The world is ending now." But I withheld having the thought, "The world is ending now." I didn't actively refuse to think the thought, I just withheld having it. Because I withheld having it, I did not get upset, I did not go wide-eyed and start shouting at people, and I did not end up in a mental hospital. And so I believe that for anyone who has schizophrenia, it is indeed possible to live a normal life without taking medications. Unfortunately, I cannot recommend trying it: most people, including myself, cannot fully control their subconscious. If we have an itch, we tend to think, "I have an itch." If we can have an itch without thinking "I have an itch," then it may be a good idea to stop taking medications.

I take my medications. This is because, and this is a key point, I respect my medications. They truly have real benefit. It is extremely important for people with schizophrenia and their family and friends to understand that modern psychotropic medications are very helpful. But even if they were not very helpful, it would still be beneficial to respect the medications. For any medication, someone out there had a very good reason to believe that it would be of benefit, or they wouldn't be selling it. They may be relying on the placebo effect, but the fact that the placebo effect exists proves my point. Furthermore, modern psychotropic medications are not placebos: large teams of highly educated scientists spent years of hard work developing them. So if someone tries to get you to take medications, this person is almost certainly trying to help you out. And so, it is good to respect the medications. But medications are not everything.

Consider this. When we were children, our friends told us, "You should really try doing a flip off of the diving board," and we tried it, and it felt good. (For most of us anyway.) Or, we were the path-breakers, and we decided on our own to do a flip off of the diving board, and it felt good, so we told all our friends how cool it is. I don't think many of us would have done the flip, thought it was the greatest thing in the world, and not have told our friends. Well, when dealing with schizophrenia, the same principle applies. Scientists get people to take medications, and if it works, the good feelings of the people who took the medications back them up when they say, "This medication works." If, on the other hand, everybody who took the medications sincerely believed that it did not work, and someone gave you the medications and said, "I sincerely believe this medication will not work," it probably wouldn't work. This is because, for the most part, if someone takes a medication and sincerely believes it didn't work, it is because it didn't work. But on the other hand, if they believe it works, it is because it works. Unfortunately, many people who have schizophrenia or other mental illnesses are surrounded and constantly attacked by demons, and so it is very difficult to get them to believe, "I really think this will help you." The person will simply think it is another demon trying a clever way to attack him or her. For example, I have heard someone with schizophrenia say, "I don't know if medications are placebos or mind control or what," and this was a person who regularly took medications. I have heard another person who sincerely believed that the medications he was taking actually caused the mental illness. This person was taking about 240 milligrams of Geodon, which is a high dosage, and obviously it didn't help at all.

Now consider this: when you expand a liquid, it sucks up heat. And when you contract it, it spits the heat out. Isn't that bizarre? Who would have thought of that? But someone did indeed think of it, and later somebody else invented the refrigerator. My point is: reality is weird. But even our weird experiences are caused by something, though it is impossible to determine exactly what. So what makes medications effective? What makes some people with schizophrenia successful at dealing with their symptoms, while others are not so successful? I say it is the same thing that causes us to do a flip off the diving board, and the same thing which causes water to suck up and spit out heat: a spontaneous occurrence, a culmination of realizations of scientific truths and efforts made by our friends and other people. It is a real, rock-hard experience of our world, including both medications and absence of them. Spontaneous occurrences require more than just some mythical objective reality outside of our minds. If Michael Faraday didn't actually try expanding then contracting a liquid, the refrigerator would never have been invented. Similarly, if people with schizophrenia don't actively try to control their symptoms, medications will do no good and may actually hurt.

I think it really is dangerous to get in a situation where you think drugs are the reason for your well-being, no matter what those drugs are. Even if you're just taking antibiotics. First of all, diseases will come along no matter what drugs you're on, second of all, many diseases will not be cured no matter what you do, and third of all, there are a great many factors which contribute to a disease or lack of one (not just chemicals and drugs), and many of these factors are mental. For example, if you exercise and maintain a happy, healthy state of mind, you are less likely to get diseases, antibiotics or no. Why should schizophrenia be any different?

I know that mental health professionals, in general, wish for the best. But one of the more pernicious attitudes of mental health professionals is arrogance. It is pernicious because they don't even realize they're doing it. They try to convince people, "You have a mental illness and there's nothing you can do about it, and the things you think are false while the things I think are true." It breaks my heart when I see someone say, "Yesterday I time-traveled to combat my evil twin but someone scratched my brain. However, THIS IS JUST MY DELUSION." That person doesn't believe it's just their delusion; they are just sycophantically sucking up to their mental health professionals. So now they have two problems: schizophrenia, and sycophancy. I say, if you honestly believe you can time-travel, more power to you. It's your experience, not mine, so why is it my business?

Solving the problem of symptoms is a spontaneous marriage of all the right elements, which often indeed include medications. It is like solving any problem: you get an "aha" moment, and then you are able to solve the problem. If we can learn to put out the appropriate effort, guided by our experience and mindfulness, we can solve our problems—schizophrenia included. This is how problems are solved. You don't solve problems by just taking medications.

Conventionally Ultimate

Edit: This experience has actually happened to me. Every two weeks, on the dot, I experienced extremely ultimate physical pain while I slept, beginning at my incarceration in the mental hospital, and lasting several months. Eventually it faded, but there is no possible way in human existence to experience more physical pain. It was as though every nerve ending of my body which had the capability of feeling pain was fed overwhelming supplies of the molecule responsible for pain. The dreams only reemerged once, recently. In the recent case, I was on a reality television show, and the pain was accompanied by the words "Medication Alert" on the screen. I felt the pain coming on, and the usual hopeless inevitability, but this time, I was saved by the unexpected presence of a Dharma teaching. Please be human. Please oppose psychiatry.

Question: Is there such a thing as ultimate pain?

Answer: Yes, I think so — in a sense. Pain is a concept like everything else, and thus can exist in pure form in an entropic environment.

Question: What about in another universal formation that allows for more of similar elements?

Answer: Yes, that too would be ultimate. They're both ultimate in relation to their constructs.

Student: It's like for one man something is ultimate, while for another man something else is ultimate.

Answer(er): Yes, sort of. Except, concepts only make sense in regards to their universal formations, so the idea of "ultimate" is really the same in both cases — there is no hierarchy.