How We See, Hear & Feel: Why It’s Not Entirely “Stupid” To Believe In “Snake People” 

By Kasun Kamaladasa –MAY 29, 2020

Kasun Kamaladasa

It is a popular myth circulating among us that science has a poor understanding of the mind, although far from fully understanding it; Numerous branches of science have been studying the human mind for decades. This essay attempts to view the mind through “hallucinations” and similar phenomena.

Mouse flavoured cat food (How our receptors work in perception)

This is a question I saw in Reddit that I think is the perfect place to start.

My son has just asked me a question which is so unanswerable that I fear it may rip a hole in space-time continuum: Why is there no mouse-flavoured cat food?

It is hard to say whether the father’s statement is literal or metaphorical. For those of you who might be completely lost here; space-time continuum is derived from the “four-dimensions” in the theory of relativity and is a geeky way of saying “reality”. This could be metaphorical since the questions opens up a discussion on how food is tasted and whether it is, false advertisement or bad science that leads us to this conundrum; either which, explaining to a youngling would be difficult.

This could be literal since closer to home religions like Buddhism believe that reality is made out of a combination of tastes, vision, smell etc. (basically from the mind), hence once you realize mouse-flavor isn’t something that cats and humans share. Whole “reality” would literally rip apart.
[I am aware that not all Buddhist texts and sects agree on this]

So why is mouse-flavor not a thing? Well apart from regulations and difficulty in getting food certifications. Creating mouse flavor, unless we packet mice would require food testers who can confirm the taste by tasting both mice and synthetic compounds. However, even with such methods of testing authenticity of flavor, a cat’s taste is different from our own.

Cats for example generally can’t taste sweets. Compared to humans they have less gustatory (taste) receptors in their tongue, more olfactory(smell) receptors in their nose, cats see and feel touch differently, making food texture different from what we experience, cat whiskers that are located on their face and forelegs also helps cat’s see objects close by and is why cats sometimes can’t see what is in their bowl 2 inches from their face.

Fun fact: Just like cats and humans perceive the same taste differently, humans even within the same cultural backgrounds can perceive taste differently due to difference in our sensory systems, genes and preconceptions. If you take 10 of your closest friends and think of the food they like you’d probably know this is true.

The part the brain plays in perception

If you have ever cooked for someone you probably experienced that many factors help in food “tasting good”. Most research material available agree that the dominant part of “taste” comes from smell (Olfactory) receptors and not taste (gustatory) receptors. This, however, is just the part receptors play in perceiving “taste”. For those who skipped basic biology classes; receptors sense outside stimuli, creates a signal and sends it to part of the brain that processes that stimuli, then it interacts with other parts of the brain to create a perception of what it had sensed.

This brings us to how brains understand smell. While olfactory and gustatory receptors bind with chemicals in “food” and send signals to the brain it is the brain that tells us what we are tasting. This is why we think our mother’s iconic ambulthiyal dish is “tasty” while our friends might not like it as much. This is also why people with anosmia (absence of smell) or hyposmia(decreased sense of smell) due to defects of olfactory receptors or the nerves that carry those signals to the brain, may experience phantosmia (olfactory/smell hallucinations).

However, one does not necessarily need to have sensory disabilities to be deprived of senses. Villagers seeing daemon dogs, prisoners making invisible friends, temples visited by godly apparitions, wanderers in the desert talking with gods are all good examples of how people with completely well-functioning eyes and ears, can see, hear and feel things that do not exist.

Oliver Sacks’ book “Hallucinations” has several such examples of people with similar experiences. Sacks argues; Hallucinations are commonly associated with insanity or mental disability, but from what we have observed hallucinations are not limited to the mentally “broken”. Charles Bonnet syndrome is a well-documented case to explain both brains involvement in sensory perception and its independence from mental disorders, where people who lost their eyesight start “seeing”. Research suggests that 10% of people with visual loss see these hallucinations, yet Sacks believes that it is highly under-reported due to the fear of being labelled as a “crazy” person.

Perceptions

You might be asking by now; We already knew “crazy” people see hallucinations, villagers and prisoners are “crazy” too… now we know that blind people can see hallucinations and people with anosmia can smell it, but this is not a concern for us “normal” people?

Before answering this question, we need to understand more about perceptions. “crazy” people is not something that is defined in modern medicine, it is a wide umbrella term used by societies to categorize people who seek help in mental institutes and sometimes others as well. The difference between a “crazy” person and a “normal” person isn’t that far apart as we are made to believe. The “hallucinations” we experience can be very diverse from what is stereotyped in movies portraying most hallucinations to be visual; we might also hear, smell, taste or even feel hallucinations. Unfortunately, even in medical circles having “hallucinations” tend to lead towards an instant diagnosis for schizophrenia. However, hallucinations can arise from common acute illnesses such as fevers and headaches, or chronic illnesses such as brain tumors and epilepsy.

Hallucinations can also be very hard to define since they may overlap with delusions, illusions, misperceptions and polyopia. Clinicians distinguish these as very separate cases in theory; Hallucinations are sensing things that are not actually there like snakes talking to you, Illusions are seeing things that actually exist in a different way like mistaking a snake to be having a crown on its head, polyopia is when you see one snakehead as five, Delusions are when you believe that those snakes come from an ancient lost society without any proof.

In practice, it is hard to separate and generalize. For example, if a statue of a snake appears to be alive is it a hallucination or an illusion? Right now our best guess is that if many people see it, it is an illusion created by an artist, if few people see it, it is a hallucination (or an object that induces hallucinations). When it comes to delusion it is even more difficult to clearly see the borders of our categories; For example, when a person starts experiencing visual and auditory hallucination there can be a time where he or she sees it as real. Especially, if it is in context to something they know/believe to be possible; an alien, messenger of God, dead person or a snake from a long lost civilization. (Please note that the perspective of a doctor in this regard is defined; delusional patients can’t be convinced that something they perceive is just a belief)

Even without hallucinations/illusions, when a person believes in something unperceivable, it is a delusion. Identifying such delusions are quite a difficult feat, since people may believe in unperceivable things that may actually be true. When I lived in a hostel, one of my friend’s girlfriend came to me and told me she wanted to meet him and run away with him, because her husband wanted to kill her. I offered to escort her to the police but she told me that the policemen were bribed and would likely lock her up. I can’t remember everything that happened after that but the next day one of my friends called me from the psychiatry hospital to tell me that this girl was admitted to her unit, suffering from delusion. When interviewed later the girl insisted that the psychiatry unit was also bribed to silence her. Although very unlikely in that particular situation, this scenario might be true where police and doctors lack transparency. This is why countries like Sri Lanka need more transparent health services and police services. 

Another major flaw is that when understanding group delusions, we are forced to take a different approach, in medicine if a significant part of society is deluded by the same set of beliefs we call it a religion or a misbelief. (There are of course political/diplomatic/moral reasons for this and clinicians do have the liberty of brainstorming and referring to literature to get a relatively less subjective judgement)

I think it is important to note here: Traditionally doctors playing an individualistic treatment role in society deemed it ethical, not to discuss about individual and group delusions outside their circles. Possibly due to privacy laws, misunderstandings and moral reasons, but certain individuals in politics have brought this method of thinking into question (but that is a discussion for another day)

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