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Scientific Psychosis

A rare psychotic break where the language, concepts, and authority of science become the fabric of a delusional system. The individual may believe they have single-handedly solved a grand unified theory, that they are receiving transmissions from a future scientific utopia, or that they are being persecuted by "the establishment" for their revolutionary discoveries. Their speech is a garbled pastiche of technical jargon, and their grandiosity is rooted in a distorted vision of scientific progress. It is the pathological end-state of scientism, where the mantle of science replaces the self.
Example: A failed PhD candidate becomes convinced they have derived a "Theory of Conscious Quantum Gravity" from interpreting the static on AM radio. They write hundreds of pages of equations mixing real terms with invented ones, and believe the CIA is monitoring them to steal the "truth." They stand outside university physics departments, yelling about "suppressed eigenfunctions." This is scientific psychosis: their identity and sanity have been consumed by a desperate, fractured narrative of scientific heroism and persecution.
by Dumu The Void January 27, 2026
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