~ 2 ~
ParanoidHuman.Com
EmpressIsDying.com for more info about Bryan Basamanowicz
Twitter @BJBasamanowicz
Have a nice day!
~ 3 ~
The Social Imagination Project – TSIP.org
Handbook for the High-Functioning Paranoiac © 2012 by Bryan Basamanowicz
All rights reserved. Printed and bound in Canada. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author / publisher.
~ 4 ~
Featured Excerpts
Hello,
This document was created as a free upload for Scribd. I will be sharing two chapters from my book, Handbook for the High Functioning Paranoiac.
The two chapters shared here are:
What Extreme Paranoia Looks Like
&
The Science of Paranoia
For more information about this book and to purchase the complete edition, please visit www.ParanoidHuman.com.
The contents of the complete edition are posted at the end of this document.
Thanks for reading and enjoy.
Bryan
~ 5 ~
What Extreme Paranoia Looks Like
That’s Bubba in the back with me, Barbara is driving, and
Johnny-Mac’s sitting up front. We’re heading to the Tower
Records store in Macon, Georgia, all of us stoned out of our
minds. I don’t get out as much as my friends do, hence, I don’t
smoke pot as much. I don’t usually enjoy smoking. Too
intense. The depths of my paranoia know no limits. Yet,
ironically, I find it hard to turn down an offer to smoke, even
when I know I’m
in for a rough
time. The smell of
marijuana—it’s so
complex and
penetrating, like I
can smell it in my
bones—triggers some kind of psycho-masochistic craving. I want
it, like a young soldier wants the battlefield. To be tested by
it, to have it—in a way terrifying and all its own— reveal more
of me to myself. Perhaps a bit of peer pressure goes into the
The smell of marijuana—it’s so complex and penetrating, like I can smell it in my bones—triggers a kind of psycho-masochistic craving. I want it like a young soldier wants the battlefield...
~ 6 ~
equation as well. Not that my friends would think less of me if I
declined, but, as any smoker will tell you, paranoiac or not,
marijuana unlocks a communal, tribal kind of group spirit. I
don’t want to be left out.
I feel left out. The backseat of Barbara’s car is hot and
cramped, moist with the nagging scent of pot. Barbara’s telling
Johnny-Mac about her recent report card. “Straight A’s… And I
smoke weed! How badass is that?” She seems so happy about it,
so prideful, and stoned, and driving. Gotta be dangerous. No
way would I ever want to drive right now, my mind squirming
like it is. I wonder if Barbara is experiencing the same thing.
Maybe she’s only driving because she doesn’t want to look like
she’s afraid, like I am. Maybe she doesn’t want me and
Johnny-Mac and Bubba to think she’s afraid, so she’s going to
stay driving even though she doesn’t want to be. Is it my fault
she’s driving? Do I have a responsibility here? Should I be the
one to tell her to pull the car over? I really want out of the car.
Maybe this situation, this moment, is exactly what my mom and
my step dad have been trying to protect me from.
~ 7 ~
I stay silent. Barbara turns her stereo up. Gangster-
rap. It’s vengeful and threatening, its message aimed at me,
point-blank. You should have known this was going to happen,
that your time would come and you’d go down. I glance over at
Bubba. Like me, he hasn’t been saying much as of late. His
eyes are animated though, darting, assimilating, puzzle-
solving. Out of nowhere he says, “Ahhh, hah!” I want to ask
him what the hell he’s talking about. But my mouth won’t
move. My vocal
chords won’t
vibrate. No need to
ask anyhow. I
already know. He’s
figured out what I’ve
already figured out,
that we’re all
fucked. Barbara and Johnny-Mac take no notice.
You see, I’m what you might call a pop-media, plug-and-
play type of paranoiac. I relate my stoned circumstances to
myths, movie plots, books, song lyrics, and, at the moment,
Gangster rap. It’s vengeful and threatening, its message aimed at me, point-blank. You should have known this was going to happen, that your time would come and you’d go down.
~ 8 ~
Partnership for A Drug Free America commercials. I speak,
softly, “Barbara, are you good to drive?” I can’t just…
“Relax, man,” Johnny-Mac says to me. “She’s going, like,
30, miles per hour.”
Barbara glowers in Johnny Mac’s direction, angling her
eyes towards the back seat. “Your friend, is he ok?”
“He’s just,” Johnny-Mac sighs. “…being Joey.”
Johnny-Mac. He must not know. Bubba though, sitting in
the back seat with me—we’re back seaters—I think
he does know. Bubba’s got his knuckles propped under his chin.
Rodin’s The Thinker. The pose, part simian, part self-aware
(but of recognized partialness). I understand now. Bubba is
Rodin’s message to me, a bridging between lower and higher
consciousness. This is why it’s called “getting high.” But this is
too much. I’ve never been this high before.
Not good.
~ 9 ~
And this is what makes the world go round, the gangster
rap says, but you’re the odd man out, always the clown. No
one but you Momma care about you now.
Of course! My mother. She’s the key, my only way out of
this mess. I’ve let her down. And now, until I honor her, until I
crawl back into her womb and ask for a redo, I’ll always be the
odd man out. The loner. Just like… Bastion from The
Neverending Story.
So sai’th the Child-like Empress: Just as he is sharing your
adventures, others are sharing his.
And just as Bastion at first refused to believe
that They could possibly be talking about him, I was now
charged with conquering my own doubt, and saving my dreams.
Was my mom’s playing of that movie when I was kid, like, some
kind of boot camp, preparing me for this moment.
He’s the only one who can save our world.
~ 10 ~
“What do I have to do?” I say aloud, recognizing my words
as Bastion’s, straight off the movie script, feeling straight off
the movie script.
Johnny-Mac turns around and looks at me, a dopey grin on
his face. “Wha… what? You ok?”
Call my name!
It’s irrefutable now. My choice is the same as Bastion’s—
murderous negligence or behavioral insanity.
Hurry, Bastion. Please. Save us!
I will save them. I must. I will believe in myself.
“ROSEMARY!!!” My mother’s name. I scream it out at the
top of my lungs. Barbara turns off the stereo and slows the
vehicle.
I don’t know what exactly I expected to happen, perhaps
that the world would soon dissolve away, that I’d live out the
rest of my days cruising around Fantasia on the pink back of
~ 11 ~
Falcor, the luck dragon. But all that happens is I hear Barbara
tell Johnny-Mac that she thinks I’m suffering from
schizophrenia.
~ 12 ~
The Science of Paranoia
The active ingredients in cannabis, THC and CBD, give the drug
both “stimulant” and “depressant” properties. But Cannabis may also
be fairly classified as an hallucinogen due to its effect on memory and
time perception. These distortions may at times precipitate
experiences that are more similar in nature to those of LSD or
psilocybin (mushrooms)1.
While in India, I made a series of video documentaries of myself
under the influence of cannabis. The purpose was to provide myself an
opportunity to review and contextualize my paranoia with the benefit
of a sober mind, a kind of self consultation. One thing I noticed was
that certain synchronistic (coincidental) events or experiences— small
pockets of order that manifested as highly fated phenomena while
stoned, as if they were being intentionally sequenced by some inter-
dimensional architect—didn’t seem as seamless and razor sharp under
the light of sobriety. For instance, I took some video footage of myself 1 McKim, William A. Drugs and Behavior: An introduction to Behavioral Pharmacology (5th Edition). Prentice Hall. p. 400.
~ 13 ~
brain-numbingly high in a dance club in Goa. I would come up with
some bizarre thought and would take out my camera and comment on
it for posterity. I had to shout over the music, but that was fine. I was
there with my friends and working on an important project. I didn’t
care if it looked a bit
odd. What was odd
was the fact that every
time I took out my
camera and began to
talk, the music
drastically changed. On
cue, it got dramatically
faster, or slower, its
texture would transform suddenly into a completely different sound,
as if I was directing it somehow. For a time I thought the DJ was
amusing herself by fucking with me, initiating these alterations every
time she saw me take my camera out and begin to talk. Maybe she
knew I was high (everyone always knows, right?). But the next day,
when I reviewed the footage, the synchronicity, though perceptible,
didn’t appear as uncannily sharp.. There may have been a tenuous
I didn’t care if it looked a bit odd. What was odd was the fact that every time I took out my camera and began to talk, the music drastically changed. On cue, it got dramatically faster, or slower, its texture would transform suddenly into a completely different sound, as if I was directing it somehow.
~ 14 ~
relationship between my behavior and that of the music, but it was
much more of a hazy relationship than the on-cue and seamless
action-response link I’d discerned in the heat and intoxication of the
moment.
The science of such perceptual distortions can be explained by an
overstimulation of a part of the brain called the basolateral amygdala2.
2 "Why Pot Smokers Are Paranoid.” Time Healthland, April 6, 2011. Retrieved July 14, 2012
~ 15 ~
Located just to the front of the hippocampus, the basolateral
amygdala regulates fear and learning. In a rat study in the University
of Western Ontario in London, it was found that THC’s interaction with
this part of the brain was largely responsible for the cannabis user’s
experience of acute paranoia3. Think of the basolateral amygdala as a
bridge-building tool connecting experience to emotional responses.
I.e., this is the part of the brain that governs how one learns to fear
certain things. A hot stove for instance, once it burns your hand, your
basolateral amygdala builds a bridge, an aversive association that will
discourage repetition of such behavior. Marijuana is said to heighten
perceptual sensitivity; it’s one of the features of the drug that non-
paranoid smokers enjoy. But heightened sensitivity in the brain’s fear-
response mechanism, for the paranoid smoker, means they encounter
a new susceptibility to fear. Hence, they learn how to become afraid
of things that wouldn’t trigger fear in the normal mind4. An ambulance
siren for example, for the paranoid smoker, may take on an ominous
quality. The paranoiac may wax philosophical and make various
skewed associations, perhaps recalling a television drama they’d
3 See note 6 4 See note 6
~ 16 ~
watched the previous night, or, if they’re of literary persuasion, they
may recall the John Donne poem, For Whom the Bell Tolls, where
Donne argues that man is never an island unto himself but always
piece to a larger “continent.” The ambulance siren may thus become a
frightening symbol of the metaphysical truth of shared destiny—
Therefore, send not to know For whom the bell tolls
It tolls for thee
…and to a tripped-out basolateral amygdala, a philosophical truth can
land in the mind with visceral impact.
17th century poems, movies, television, shows, lyrics from a song,
a wayward glance from a stranger, any variety of events may set into
motion the gears of paranoia. The human imagination, when it
becomes unbound, needs little in the way of raw material to construct
complex fantasies and delusions. For the true paranoiac, virtually any
imaginative thread may bind together an otherwise improbable fear-
stimulus with the immediate circumstances or thoughts of the
paranoiac. In a larger scope, it can be said that this perceived limitless
~ 17 ~
of associative potential is what proves so discomfiting. As the writer
Norman Mailer put it:
“One's condition on marijuana is always existential. One can feel the importance of each moment and how it is changing one. One feels one's being, one becomes aware of the enormous apparatus of nothingness -- the hum of a hi-fi set, the emptiness of a pointless interruption, one becomes aware of the war between each of us, how the nothingness in each of us seeks to attack the being of others, how our being in turn is attacked by the nothingness in others.”
In a recent human study conducted in London, there seems to be
evidence of a type of zero-sum trade-off between normal perceptions
and paranoid ones. As summarized in the Philadelphia Inquirer:
Ingesting THC brought about irregular activity in two regions of the brain (the striatum and the lateral prefrontal cortex) that are key to the way people perceive their surroundings. THC seemed to boost the brain's responses to otherwise insignificant stimuli while reducing response to
~ 18 ~
what would typically be seen as significant or salient5.
Scientists have thus far been able to identify several of the
component parts of the paranoid high— THC , the basolateral
amygdala, the striatum, and the
lateral pre-frontal cortex— but
the puzzle remains incomplete.
We know that THC can expand
the range by which the brain
cognizes fears. But why is it that
some cannabis users vividly
experience and psychologically
react to these fears while others
seem completely unaffected by
them? Are people who “get paranoid” suffering from various deep-
seated traumas, or are they, in fact, gifted in a way, with a unique
intellectual and imaginative capacity? Can cannabis-induced anxieties
be confronted and overcome in a productive manner? Should they be
5 “Paranoid or Placid.” Philadelphia Inquirer, January 6, 2012. Retrieved July 14, 2012
We know that THC can expand the range by which the brain may cognize fears. But why is it that some cannabis users vividly experience and psychologically react to these fears while others seem completely unaffected by them?
~ 19 ~
confronted and overcome? Can their productive exploration in a
therapeutic setting precipitate an improvement in self-confidence,
awareness, and overall quality of life? Hard science, as of yet, has no
conclusive answer for these questions6.
The pursuit of mental
health often involves calibrating
one’s fears to suit one’s need
for survival and the pursuit of
one’s goals. But if we are visited
by strange fears, in whatever
form or fashion, there must be
some semiotic root, something
that we’d, perhaps, prefer not to look at directly, choosing instead to
image such fears by way of elaborately rendered imaginative
sensations or narratives. If birds make you paranoid, dogs barking,
strangers whispering in the subway, television shows or movies that
seem to be built around your life, the bible… whatever it is that
triggers the paranoid reaction, I believe we might do well to 6 “Scientists Are Learning How Weed Causes Paranoia.” Wired Science, January 16, 2008. Retrieved July 14, 2012
…whatever it is that sets your paranoid gears into motion, I believe we might do well to confront and
learn from, rather than flee, such phenomena
~ 20 ~
acknowledge, explore, and learn from, rather than flee, such
phenomena7. The argument I’m posing is that it may prove a worthy
exercise to creatively and carefully explore our distended, cannabis-
induced fears. We may, by reverse-engineering certain fears, discover
new insights into the self and the world we live in. In the following
chapters I will provide a rough outline for how this may be achieved.
Why do I think I’m going to have a heart attack?
Before concluding our brief abstract on the science behind
paranoia, I want to address one of the most frequently cited traumas I
encounter—the racing heart-rate. While the empirical data on the
subject couldn’t be more clear—no one has ever suffered any kind of
cardiac trauma as a result of ingesting cannabis at any dosage-level8—
so many people report the traumatic perceptual experience of the
heart racing, seemingly beyond control.
7 This of course comes with the caveat that one should learn to separate actionable paranoias from chemically-induced ones. Most otherwise mentally healthy paranoiacs have no problem doing this. 8 “Marijuana Smoking Doesn’t Kill You.” WebMD Health News, September 18, 2003. Retrieved July 14, 2012
~ 21 ~
While the inner-workings of psychological paranoia may continue
to elude science, the increase of heart rate is easy to explain. THC
smoothes out and relaxes the muscles in the arteries that drive the
flow of blood. This relaxation creates an increase in the diameter of
the arteries (vasodilatation). Blood pressure, in turn, decreases, and
the heart naturally compensates by beating faster. Vasodilatation is
why the eyes redden. Blood is flowing through more channels and
becomes more widely distributed throughout the body9. This is not a
bad or dangerous phenomenon in itself, but when one’s inner
anxieties are running amok, it’s quite easy for the hyper-stimulated
basolateral-amygdala to use this somatic anomaly to render fear-
response. In reality, this increase in heart rate is natural and poses no
threat to your health or well-being.
9 Iverson, Leslie. The Science of Marijuana. London: Oxford University Press, 2000.
~ 22 ~
Contents ( Complete Edition)
Foreword/About the Author:……………………………………………
What Extreme Paranoia Looks Like ……………………………….
The Science of Paranoia………………………………………………….
Why do I think I’m going to have a heart attack?.........
It Makes Me Paranoid, So Why Bother?............................
Greater comfort and enjoyment in social environments where cannabis is present………………………………………………..
Ability to consider cannabis as an alternative medicine to treat mental and physical illness………………………………………
Ability to access, learn from, and creatively apply new dimensions of consciousness..………………………………………….Error! Bookmark not defined.
Ability to use cannabis as a safer and less expensive alternative to alcohol and other drugs……………………………..
The Social Taboo and Stigma of Paranoia……………………….
Paranoia Management Coaching: Critical Operating Principals
What Makes a Good Paranoia Management Coach? ...........
~ 23 ~
How it Works: Some Nuts and Bolts of Paranoia Management Coaching ...............................................................................
Strategy #1 - Understand, internalize, and accept that one’s experience using cannabis, just like any other experience in life, is temporary..………………………………….……Error! Bookmark not defined.
Strategy #2 – Cultivate a “Non-Adversarial” mindset towards paranoia…………………………………………………………….
Strategy #3 - Maintain control over your dosage …………
Strategy #4 – Embrace the opportunity for unique thinking and insight into the self……………………………………………………
Strategy #5 – Quietly but sincerely credit yourself for confronting your fears..……………………………………………………
Limits and Precautions.…………………………………………………..
Legal……………………………………………………………………………..
Age……………………………………………………………………………….
Cannabis use and schizophrenia, psychosis etc……………….
Appendix A— Tongue-in-Cheek Listing of the Top 13 Paranoia Triggers ................................................................................
Appendix B— Two Adventures in Paranoia ..........................
~ 24 ~
An Adventure in Negative Paranoia—“Sneezing Paralysis and Yawning Dysmorphia”………………………………………………
An Adventure in Positive Paranoia—“I *heart* Italians”.
Appendix C — The Extremes (Why Adolescents Should Abstain From Cannabis Use)…………………………………..........
For more information about this book and to purchase the complete edition, please visit www.ParanoidHuman.com