What I don't get is that they keep lauding Sandra for playing this strong female role, but I thought she was portrayed as this meek little girl that barely escaped by sheer luck and was on the verge of giving up at every step and needed to hallucinate about the big strong strapping manstronaut helping her get through it.

I just don't get it..in no way was she a badass in this movie I thought.

Don't worry I totally agree. They tried a bunch of stuff cliche symbolism, character growth, but it didn't really mesh up with the plot of the movie. She was suicidal, but finds the will to go on through a space hallucination/talking with some rando Korean (dafuq)? What I gathered from the movie is that we shouldn't try and explore space since "gravity" will pull us back. We should just stay down on earth (since that's what Sandra Bullock spends the entire movie trying to get back to). But then they had George Clooney ask Sandra Bullock to enjoy the scenery, which she never does, which is a confusing message. I guess he was trying to say all the beauty we know is on Earth. This movie tried so so hard to be a "classic" space movie that dove into humanity, blah blah blah, bs bs bs. If anything this is a very anti space exploration movie.

Compare that to the rich symbolism of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Which juxtaposes the beginnings of humanity with where it is now, and asks what is the limit of humanity? Are we confined to Earth? It was really a movie of rebirth and redefining what humanity is and what we're capable of. Also the main character was a bad ass. Not only did he out smart the homicidal computer (which killed everyone except him). He continued his mission!

2001 and Gravity couldn't be more different.

Moving this video to hallucinated's personal queue. It failed to receive enough votes to get sifted up to the front page within 2 days.

Atypical antipsychotics like Seroquel and Zyprexa actually have a pretty good record on controlling hallucinations and delusions like this, with success rates around 60% (meaning that if they try them all, 60% of victims will find a med that controls these symptoms). The side effects can be awful, and the fact that finding which works for you is a matter of trial and error make the drugs almost as bad as the problem they treat. Almost.


The only thing worse than the drugs is no treatment at all...nobody should have to live with that kind of terror.

To me, the clustering of these cases is the interesting point. It suggests that there may be some environmental trigger to be found in the region.

The same location is used outside the Elysium/hallucination sequences. I think he's using this shot just because it happens to have a better view of the wheat.

Regarding criticism that this is nitpicking - I think it's a bit of fun and an opportunity for a history lesson, not an argument that the movie is bad because it uses historically inaccurate roads.

Great comment! You raised many interesting points.

One important thing to note that the modern human mind is essentially like an advanced piece of software which runs on antiquated hardware (sort of like running Skyrim on an N64). As many as 7% (though I don't currently have a source for this at hand) of the general population are estimated to experience auditory hallucinations, and surprisingly enough, most of those people aren't psychotically structured. This is why auditory hallucinations are seen as a secondary, rather than primary, symptom of schizophrenia.

Rather, what is actually happening is that the antiquated hardware, for whatever reason, is showing its faults. The primitive responses which tend to stay dormant for most people are finding their way to the surface.

In other words, the truth of schizophrenia is that it isn't so much an illness as it is a regression to a more primitive version of the human mind. And as both you an Eleanor pointed out, this can have both pros and cons. Another example of a broken system which can produce contextually positive results is eidetic memory, which causes a person to be unable to forget.

And this is also something that I find to be quite interesting, because what it means is that mental illnesses are, in fact, contextual illnesses. A schizophrenic person is essentially "sick" because he/she has a bug in his/her software and as a result is unable to download patches from the rest of society. Go back 3000 years and it is entirely possible that auditory hallucination would have been the norm.

The reason for the stigma being so harmful is that it simply focuses on the wrong thing. It takes a secondary symptom, i.e. hearing voices, and makes it seem like the actual disease. In truth, the auditory hallucination is just an externalized version of a process which is actually internal. Where most of us simply have thoughts, the schizophrenic might instead hear a voice. To turn stigmatize those auditory hallucinations is to potentially cripple the sufferer's ability to perform basic maintenance on themselves.

This was amazing!

Many mental 'illnesses' can lead to sensory hallucinations, and it's likely that everyone knows someone with some such condition. There are neuroscientific reasons for these hallucinations, where sensory information is cross-linking with different portions of the brain. A person experiencing this is certainly abnormal, though the result can be harnessed as advantageous for a person to gain superhuman powers. A person who hallucinates halos of color around numbers gains an extra pneumonic for remembering them, a person who perceives a halo of color around people gains insight towards some of their own hidden feelings toward that person.

Many of us have problems dealing with traumatic events, or finding a healthy way to emotionally cope with problems. Some of us find healthy ways, and many of us don't, though it's an internal struggle for all of us. In her case, her condition let's her have an EXTERNAL struggle with her problems, which she uses as a tool to help her cope with otherwise unmanageable emotional issues.

Kudos to her for helping to remove some of the stigma for some of these mental disorders! I wish she could expand her horizon to people with other disorders, to help them achieve the same level of understanding and benefit.

No, they actually believe these things are happening to them. Its more of a hallucination. on the other hand, some of the ones than can see after being blind, and can "miraculously" get up and walk out of a wheelchair? their planted actors.

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Your video, Eye - Optical illusion that causes natural hallucination, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

This is more like an acid trip

http://videosift.com/video/Eye-Optical-illusion-that-causes-natural-hallucination

Tags for this video have been changed from 'sleep, deprivcation, coffee, cats, hallucination' to 'sleep, deprivation, coffee, cats, hallucination' - edited by xxovercastxx

Hmm... funny, a couple posts ago, you were arguing against Empiricism... and yet, you can't offer up anything that isn't Empiricist, or suffer from the same logical problems that Empiricism has.

I argued against empiricism being the only route to truth, but I didn't say that you couldn't find any truth through empirical means. You would however have no way to confirm it except through God.

"Truth" isn't a democracy... it doesn't matter how many people do or don't believe in a God. (Though I argue that in this country, the demonization of the non-religious scares people into continuing to go to church, despite their belief... though I say that through self experience, as it's hard to poll about that). The "truth" is that you'll never be able to use Science or Philosophy argue for or against the very abstract idea of whether there is a God or not.

I apologize if you were demonized. I love you and God loves you. It doesn't anger me that you're an atheist; I hope that you come to know who God is, and my heart aches for you, but it's your choice.

There are only two ways you can know truth: Either you are omnipotent or an omnipotent being reveals it to you.

One can, certainly, use logic to determine that the bible is self-contradictory, and biblical scholars (and believers) have determined that not a single book in the bible is the "original"... they've all been modified well after it had already been proclaimed to be the "Word of God". There is utterly no logic as to how a perfect being could have such a shoddy and terrible track record with his followers. It certainly doesn't make sense that he could create wars where his followers kill each other (see any and all European Wars.).

The bible is the most well attested book in ancient history. There is manuscript evidence goes back to the late 1st century, and the manuscripts agree with eachother 99.5 percent of the time. It hasn't been modified.

The bible never claims Christians will be perfect; it really says the opposite. Jesus predicts in Matthew 24 that Christians will fall into a massive apostasy and that there will be many wars, especially in the last days.

The truth is that all science and philosophy points to Christianity being bullshit. And you've already pointed out the holes in the only possible philosophical arguments that could allow you to maintain belief while being truthful to yourself.

Only God can prove Himself to anyone, and faith is a gift from God. What I've pointed out, really, is that atheists have no possible route to the truth.



God works by personal revelation; I couldn't prove He exists to you. You could hopefully see the evidence of His existence working in my life, but it takes His Spirit changing your heart and opening your eyes for you to realize that He is there.

And honestly, if you think that someone praying, and then seeing a piece of Toast with Jesus' image on it, or some mold in their bathroom in HIS image is proof enough to devote your life to that sham... well, you really don't have any sort of a grasp on what philosophy is about.

Philosophy is about a search for the truth, and when I searched for the truth, God revealed Himself to me.

But unlike you, I have truly examined the logic of my situation. I know exactly what would convince me of a super-natural power... it's exactly what would convince me of Aliens or Telepathy. A personal experience that can be independently verified by people I trust, and cannot be explained by hallucinations, slight-of-hand or illusions.

That is ALL it takes. It should be the smallest of things for an omnipotent being... after all, he certainly was never shy with appearances or miracles, according to the bible...

But alas, there remains nothing, no shred of evidence... for Jesus or for Telepathy, or for Aliens.... though I imagine that the Aliens at least have a good reason for not making their presence known.

It's no secret what God can do. If you really wanted to know Him, you would know Him already. The reason people don't come to God is because they don't want to change their life and live for Him. Would you lay down everything in your life to know God? If not, it explains why you don't know Him yet.

Hmm... funny, a couple posts ago, you were arguing against Empiricism... and yet, you can't offer up anything that isn't Empiricist, or suffer from the same logical problems that Empiricism has.

"Truth" isn't a democracy... it doesn't matter how many people do or don't believe in a God. (Though I argue that in this country, the demonization of the non-religious scares people into continuing to go to church, despite their belief... though I say that through self experience, as it's hard to poll about that). The "truth" is that you'll never be able to use Science or Philosophy argue for or against the very abstract idea of whether there is a God or not.

One can, certainly, use logic to determine that the bible is self-contradictory, and biblical scholars (and believers) have determined that not a single book in the bible is the "original"... they've all been modified well after it had already been proclaimed to be the "Word of God". There is utterly no logic as to how a perfect being could have such a shoddy and terrible track record with his followers. It certainly doesn't make sense that he could create wars where his followers kill each other (see any and all European Wars.).

The truth is that all science and philosophy points to Christianity being bullshit. And you've already pointed out the holes in the only possible philosophical arguments that could allow you to maintain belief while being truthful to yourself.


And honestly, if you think that someone praying, and then seeing a piece of Toast with Jesus' image on it, or some mold in their bathroom in HIS image is proof enough to devote your life to that sham... well, you really don't have any sort of a grasp on what philosophy is about.

You have no "proof" but one book written by hundreds of people over hundreds of years, translated into so many different versions... and despite the revisions, it's not possible to get through the first chapter without having MAJOR inconsistencies.

But unlike you, I have truly examined the logic of my situation. I know exactly what would convince me of a super-natural power... it's exactly what would convince me of Aliens or Telepathy. A personal experience that can be independently verified by people I trust, and cannot be explained by hallucinations, slight-of-hand or illusions.

That is ALL it takes. It should be the smallest of things for an omnipotent being... after all, he certainly was never shy with appearances or miracles, according to the bible...

But alas, there remains nothing, no shred of evidence... for Jesus or for Telepathy, or for Aliens.... though I imagine that the Aliens at least have a good reason for not making their presence known.

I have no reason to doubt your sincerety, I'm willing to believe you've had really wierd and powerful experiences on this drug, experiences that might seem more real than the shared experience we refer to as reality. But however powerful and convincing such experiences might be, they are stil trips and hallucinations. they might be so powerful that you cant believe they are, but there is no reason to think otherwise. Our brains are fallible machines that are rather easily tricked, and this can be done by everything from chemicals to religion to a simple optical illusion. And just because it is a "trick" iow our brains being manipulated to experience things that arent happening in reality, doesnt mean it cant have a major effect on peoples life, ie: give people a new perspective on things. But it is not an "astounding mystery" as such, but of course it would be interesting to research the exact interactions that it causes in our brains, and how exactly it works.

One big tell that these trips are trips, is that they almost always include pop-sciency/cultural stuff of the time. In earlier times it involved exotic or mythical animals, in the 50s or 60s or 70s it was aliens and UFOs and stuff like that, and now its quantum physics and speed of light etc. This is a pretty solid sign that we are dealing with references from our own brain, it is in other words not external or new knowledge that's being obtained or discovered in the trip.