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There are tropes commonly used in cosmic horror works that boil down to the following idea. A human mind when faced with something utterly incomprehensible may break into insanity and never get back to sanity.

For sure, this is just works of fiction and most likely they have exaggerated something that may actually happen in the reality. For example, if a person learns about some big dangers that may happen in the future, it may cause an extreme anxiety in them, which can cause them to be unable to live a normal live or behave in normal ways. Yet, that may very well depend on the persons' predisposition, and some other person learning about the very same fact may react in much less caring way.

Hence, my question is the following. Do our minds indeed have a common mechanism that will cause most of humans lose sanity when faced with some information way hard for it to comprehend?

To be more precise, by insanity I do not mean any particular mental illness, but rather a set of behaviors that do not allow a person to sustain themselves, be a part of the society and overall reduce their chances of survival.

Ideally, examples would comprise

  • a revelation: a new piece of information that becomes available to a person
  • a reaction: once relevation sinks in (matter of less than a day) a person goes insane with no chance of recovery

I guess a proper search would start with the effects that an immediate (psychological only) stress may have on a human mind, but I was not able to find anything as drastic.

SBF
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    Welcome SBF. We're required to show the results of our own attempt to answer when posting and include references. Might I suggest taking a look at (the decline associated with) The death of a spouse (Psychology Today) to kick-off your researches. – Jiminy Cricket. Jun 01 '23 at 11:02
  • @JiminyCricket. thanks! I'll do a reading, yet from what I've quickly glanced at, it seems more of an extreme stress situation which may take time to show stronger effects, or can affect different people in different ways. I have done searching in google related to my queries, but fortunately have not found any examples. Let me comment on this in the question. – SBF Jun 01 '23 at 11:07
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    Then there's also: PTSD, hypervigilance and aversion to ambiguity to check-out. – Jiminy Cricket. Jun 01 '23 at 11:13
  • i think you are asking not about all "mads" but about shizophrenia. – άνθρωπος Jun 02 '23 at 14:13
  • @άνθρωπος not necessarily. I’ve specifically mentioned what I do mean by insanity, so any kind that fits would constitute a series of examples – SBF Jun 02 '23 at 17:39
  • "I’ve specifically mentioned what I do mean by insanity" - where? – άνθρωπος Jun 02 '23 at 19:27
  • @άνθρωπος here To be more precise, by insanity I do not mean any particular mental illness, but rather a set of behaviors that do not allow a person to sustain themselves, be a part of the society and overall reduce their chances of survival. – SBF Jun 02 '23 at 19:43
  • @SBF what does it sense, can you explain on direct examples? – άνθρωπος Jun 02 '23 at 20:05
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    The phenomenon in question could be classified as information hazard. For certain individuals, certain ideas can be troublesome to handle. But generally such vulnerabilities are idiosyncratic, in that certain background factors may be required, such as ignorance of how to resolve a given dilemma, or inability to face emotionally significant repressions. – Michael Jun 04 '23 at 15:00
  • @SBF id though about, and i think that people go mad if they are think a lot with a "wrong way of reflection", thay got a problem with logic loop and can't to beyond it frame. But they are continue thinking, that make thinking process as reflex. When thinking process have wide area and it is reflex, without result cus logic loop - a subject get a nervous exhaustion and huge distress for nervous system that became to psychosis stance one time. Long time at psychosis stance being destruct the nervous composition and neurones are also can be damaged or may die. – άνθρωπος Jun 06 '23 at 16:56
  • Do not think a lot, dumb brain can't go mad. – άνθρωπος Jun 06 '23 at 16:57
  • @άνθρωπος thanks a lot, that's along the lines I thought of that, but how professional is your opinion? :) – SBF Jun 06 '23 at 18:40
  • totally is not professional) – άνθρωπος Jun 06 '23 at 19:10
  • and it is not an opinion, it is an intersubjective experience, probably, with some specific arguments from science knowledge: logic, philosophy, psychology, neurophisiology~... – άνθρωπος Jun 06 '23 at 19:24
  • @άνθρωπος could you elaborate? – SBF Jun 06 '23 at 19:26
  • What exactly i have to elaborate? – άνθρωπος Jun 06 '23 at 19:27

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