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kx250rider
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19 Sep 2010, 11:01 am

I don't personally see any similarities at all between symptoms of Autism/Asperger's and Alzheimer's. Although I don't know much of anything about the physical causes for Alzheimer's, I have lived with two Alzheimer's people from normal to the end. It's a terrible progressive disease with entirely different symptoms from mine (Asperger's). With Alzheimer's, the short-term memory is the main problem. They remember things from decades ago, but not where their bedroom is, or what they're supposed to do with a can of soup in the kitchen. In the saddest cases, they don't remember their husbands or wives. God help me I don't want to ever be like that.

Charles



Claradoon
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19 Sep 2010, 10:14 pm

kx250rider wrote:
I don't personally see any similarities at all between symptoms of Autism/Asperger's and Alzheimer's. Although I don't know much of anything about the physical causes for Alzheimer's, I have lived with two Alzheimer's people from normal to the end. It's a terrible progressive disease with entirely different symptoms from mine (Asperger's). With Alzheimer's, the short-term memory is the main problem. They remember things from decades ago, but not where their bedroom is, or what they're supposed to do with a can of soup in the kitchen. In the saddest cases, they don't remember their husbands or wives. God help me I don't want to ever be like that.

Charles

We saw that with Mom and I agree, it's horrible. But I don't know if I've got my idea across. I am not saying these conditions are connected. I am suggesting that there is an intangible element common to many conditions. This intangible is a change in perception so profound as to render a person unable to function in consensus reality. I have been fighting consensus reality all my life. For one thing, anybody who is odd or weird gets isolated very fast, which is guaranteed to make them odder, unhappier, more demanding, etc.

Why do people say that Alzheimer's is terminal? When Mom had it, she kept her physical health until everything began shutting down when she was 89. I don't know what the death certificate gives as cause of death, but I really don't think it was Alzheimer's.

I'm thinking of the conclusions that people leap to regarding me with my Asperger's, and how foolish I now know they are. If it wasn't for WrongPlanet, I'd still be sitting here thinking I'm a total waste of space, a defective person. I thank WP for that. Could we extend that kind of thinking?

How about Aldous Huxley's Doors of Perception? It gets belittled as some old guy tripping. But seriously, he was a brilliant man and for the duration of that episode he could not function in consensus reality but he did leave a record of what he was experiencing - a complete change of perception, which I think probably squares with quantum theory. How many realities are there? Even science admits there's more than one. So do we accommodate people who have a body in this reality and a mind in another? Or should we just lock them up?



Fizzgiz
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19 Sep 2010, 10:43 pm

Hmmmm. I see what you mean. Food for thought, and I'm going to sleep now. I shall digest this and post in the AM. Nice discussion. :wink:



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19 Sep 2010, 11:06 pm

Here's Huxley's Doors of Perception

http://www.blessedbeme.com/Aldous_Huxle ... eption.pdf

To those who might say, "We already know about being high" I would answer, Please look at it as two parallel realities - this is what Huxley has given us. Not an account of being high, but an account dictated high and transposed to consensus reality.