flight of ideas.

Psychology professors always tell the same anecdote, while studying each of the different diseases, you will think that you can be diagnosed with said disease. That you'll experience, an "Ooooh. I have that. I experience that. I must totally have X disorder." That, and: "Wait until you get home and tell people you're studying psychology. People will ask you if you're diagnosing them right now." The second is much more popular.

And it never happened to me.

As a psychology major in undergrad, I really did study up on the different mental disorders, especially the extreme ones since I had a strong interest in severe mental disorders. I was taking an Abnormal Psych class at Berkeley one of my summers, because I enjoyed psych that much, and was deep into minutae of the extreme disorders.

When I was studying schizophrenia and it's many forms, one of the clear symptoms is flight of ideas. Where your mind races and thoughts aren't cohesive and just jump about without any linear fashion or form. For some reason I was like, "Wow. I totally have that. Where my mind will just jump all around and not necessarily make sense when jumping to a new thought." I was convinced this was an early sign of schizophrenia and that in a year or two I would have full-blown schizophrenia. So far I've managed to pass through the peak years for 'outbreak' if you will, though I'm not going to rule that out yet.

I didn't realize that I think often people really do have flight of ideas. And that was I was talking about wasn't really flight of ideas. It did make me feel better though when watcing a Wanda Sykes stand-up, who fucking rocks by the way, and she discussed not being able to fall asleep and the flight of ideas that keep you up from falling back asleep. The routine was hilarious, with her thoughts at one point touching upon whether she had her high school yearbook still, and where in the hell would it be? And I finally was like, oh, it's not just me! Awesome. This stupid thing keeps other people up at night too.

Today on Huffington Post Larry David, yes that Larry David, posts about a recent flight of ideas night where he is trying to fall asleep, and how the scary Republicans are keeping him awake. It's pretty funny, including this little snippet during one part to give you a taste:

"You’re giving him what he wants! If he keeps us all up, we’ll be too tired to
fight them. That’s their strategy, and you’re playing right into their hands. We
have to start keeping them up. But how? The only things that bothers them enough
to keep them up are fetuses. They love that fetus. The fetus and Jesus. Sounds
like a comedy team. “Ladies and gentlemen, give a warm welcome to Fetus and
Jesus…”

You'll have to read the post to find out about who he is talking about.

Oh, and a song I've recently discovered that takes a few listen's to appreciate is Elected's "Greetings in Braille." Which is thankfully available for free download at the website. Their other songs are pretty awesome too, but I adore "Greetings in Braille."