The ideas presented so far represent an analysis of my own experience as a schizophrenic. But insofar as different personalities will be affected by the disease in different ways, this may not be a valid explanation for the paranoid beliefs of other schizophrenics. Does it have any explanatory value for schizophrenic symptoms that are found, to varying degrees, in all schizophrenics? I think, at least to some degree, it does.

There is a question on standard psychological evaluations, which are used to test all personalities, healthy or mentally ill, which asks the subject the meaning of a socially used metaphor, such as "A rolling stone gathers no moss", "People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones." If the subject cannot comprehend the metaphorical meaning, the meaning that is "suggested" whenever someone uses these phrases, and can only understand the literal meanings of the words, this is evidence of schizophrenia.

Of course, a psychiatrist would not expect someone from another culture (supposing even his native language was English) to understand what the metaphorical meaning would be, since that one may not have heard these phrases in a social context. He would not have had the interaction with others that "suggested" their meaning based purely upon "impressions" and not the meanings of the words. A schizophrenic, in my hypothesis, is less adept at comprehending accurate "impressions" of interpersonal interaction, which get meaning across as much as the meanings of words. So whenever someone uses one of these phrases, he is not as adept at comprehending a suggested meaning, or interpreting them in the context of such interaction. The social conceptual framework lacks "reality" to him, in the sense that, though he may understand cognitively some of its concepts (like the narrator in Camus’s The Stranger) this conceptual framework will not infuse reality with meaning, by being a mechanism for interpretation of sensations. Thus he would lack the tools necessary to interpret such interpersonal interaction, and understand what people mean. This is a possible explanation for why, many schizophrenics, when asked what, "People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones," means, can only resort to what the words actually mean, and say, "They will break their houses if they throw stones."

Another common symptom of schizophrenia is the inability to feel pleasure to the degree that the rest of society can. This is a medical condition called "anhedonia" that is common in, but not limited to, schizophrenia. This also can be partially explained in terms of my hypothesis, but the explanation is not quite obvious, so let me examine the hypothesis further.

Simply being not as subject to finding meaning in what the culture at large finds meaning in, and therefore not being able to feel socially constructed pleasure to the degree that others do, is not a satisfactory explanation. Would not the schizophrenic, if he creates his own paranoid worldview, also create particular things in it that give him pleasure? Simply not being as subject to the psychological, perceptual results of socialization would not explain an incapacity to feel pleasure.

Part of my thesis is that the schizophrenic has lost the psychological means to interpret his perceptions in a social (or personal) context. The result is that he assigns meaning to experiences that comes from his own subjective psychology. But if each sensation lacks a certain framework with which to interpret it, so that it appears to him less "familiar" and "normal" and "ordinary" as it does to the rest of society, this may lead to less pleasure found in sensations.

When one tries an unfamiliar food, perhaps a food the look and smell of which is unfamiliar, the first bite is not normally a very pleasurable one. One does not know what sorts of sensations will come—whether pleasurable or painful—and so one has to pause and interpret this sensation with less of a framework to go on. One lacks the "familiarity" that comes from that food being in a conceptual category of being "liked" or "disliked". The sensation is new, and the mind has to work to develop a conception of it, whether it will be a "liked" or a "disliked" food, and all the variations in between. Thus, the first bite, if it ends up being a "liked" food, will not be as pleasurable as all the bites to follow, or nearly as pleasurable as when the food is eaten when one knows what to expect, and positively is in a state of desire for that particular food.

I would suggest that a possible psychological explanation of anhedonia in schizophrenics is that even when their experiences are such that a normal mind with those experiences would be able to render sensations familiar, a schizophrenic mind is in the state, to a degree, of each sensation being completely "new" with no conceptual framework with which to interpret it. A schizophrenic, just as he does not know cognitive interpretations of what experiences "mean", does not have a conceptual framework that would render sensations "familiar". Unfamiliar sensations, whether they are sensations that give others familiar with them pleasure or pain, tend to be less pleasurable merely by virtue of being unfamiliar. Even an orgasm, if one occurred to a 30-year-old man who for some reason had never had one, or heard of one, would appear extremely distressing if one suddenly occurred by no cause, with no social context to tell him it was expected or ordinary. Thus, along with the inability to see the meaning of his sensations and experiences, based upon past experience, comes the inability to interpret those sensations in a way that makes them "familiar", put into conceptual context, and interpretable.

The hypotheses I have presented has much explanatory value in distortions both of thought and emotion, something most neurologists consider completely different aspects of the disease. The lack of the ability to render experiences "familiar" with a conceptual context, will lead the schizophrenic to impose meaning on his everyday experience due to his own subjective nature, and thus he will see his experience as evidence for the reality of his fantasies. At the same time, the inability to render pleasurable sensations familiar through a conceptual context will make each sensation for the schizophrenic seem "new" and "unfamiliar", thus decreasing the possibility of finding pleasure in them.

While I have based my analysis of the schizophrenic illness upon nothing more than my personal experience of it, perhaps this is just what psychiatry needs. No amount of data about brain chemistry can tell us what it is like for the individual living with a particular brain disease, except through his personal testimony. I hope to have offered such testimony in this essay, and though I can be sure my analysis is accurate in my case, it will be up to the psychiatrists to decide to what degree my experience as a schizophrenic can be considered universal schizophrenic experience.