The human mind has many
protection failsafes built in. For example, if a
sound or
scent is continuously present, the mind will "
tune it out," so to speak. It will gradually become less and less noticable, until it is
difficult or
impossible to distinguish it from the rest of the environment even through
concerted effort.
When reality becomes too much for the
conscious mind to handle, it must
shut down or change its
perspective. Some people
faint when confronted with an overload of the
mental processes.
Shock is an accepted
medical condition, and affects those confronted by
trauma, even when they have been physically unaffected.
Adrenaline accounts for a good part of this, but the rest is the mind's reaction, attempting to fit whatever it just saw into its previous
grasp of reality.
An excellent example of someone's mind twisting to fit his or her
surroundings acceptably into his or her conscious state is
Dorothy Gilman's
The Yellow Wallpaper. Gilman writes of a woman in the late
19th century, the narrator of the first-person short story. The
narrator, who is never explicitly named, has been diagnosed with "
melancholia," the generic designation for all mental conditions of females (Her actual condition is likely
post-partum depression, unknown at that time). The prescription given by her husband, a physician, is for a "
rest cure," i.e., she must do absolutely nothing considered
taxing. The narrator is a writer, and has now been forbidden to write or even do her wifely duties such as getting out of bed and entertaining. As her muscles
atrophy and
ennui sets in, she develops a fascination with the wallpaper in the room to which she is confined. She attributes
maliciousness and other
personifications to the patterns in the paper, burning off the steam, as it were, of a normal, active mind and imagination forced to do absolutely nothing.
She exhibits more and more
irrational behaviors, as her subconscious frantically attempts to twist the situation into something it can handle. Not surprisingly, many of these strange and insane behaviors have to do with escape: she sees a woman inside the wallpaper, trying to get out, et cetera. The mind needs occupation and
stimuli; experiments have been carried out with isolation and
sensory deprivation chambers wherein the subjects have reported increasing irrationality. The mind will twist into a form of either supplying its own stimulation, or deteriorate so far that such is no longer required for
normal function, as said function has ceased.
The narrator of the story develops a type of
split personality at the end, which is again a
protective mechanism, as is seen in many
abuse cases. Some victims of abuse wall themselves off from their abusers and perform a complete split, in which case some
comfort and protection can be derived from the thought, "That's not
me. That's happening to
this other person.
No one can touch me." The victim disregards the strangeness that this other person should be in his or her body, much as the mind disregards a continuous tone or odor.
Not being an
expert on the subject, but having read many books, this is the theory that insanity is just another
coping mechanism. Perhaps a rather
drastic one, but a last-ditch effort to preserve the function of the body and hopefully the mind.
It hath come to my attention that the title is a quotation from the book,
VALIS (Thanks,
dTaylorSingletary) I've never read it and had never heard of it before now. (Read: the reason I hadn't attributed the quote and had twisted the topic around to what made sense to me) Perhaps I shall go read... and update with the significance to the book.