How often have you noticed that your pet stared into the corner of the room and stared at an invisible creature? There are a lot of requests on the Internet about this. People began to often observe the unreasonable behavior of their pets, justifying this with a vision of the other world. Many have decided that this is because animals can see ghosts or poltergeists. But if you appeal to reason, and consider this issue from the point of view of medicine, then hallucinations in both humans and animals can be a clear sign of such an ailment as schizophrenia. Many scientists began to study the physiology of nervous activity in animals. For this, a huge amount of research was carried out, but it was not possible to get to the truth.
What we have learned so far about schizophrenia in animals
In the course of various studies, many questions have arisen related to the occurrence of schizophrenia in animals. At first glance, this disease is unique to humans and simply cannot disturb animals. Everything is written off on the characteristics of the character, breed or temperament of the pet. Everyone is used to dividing any animals into good and evil. Aggressiveness is justified by specificity, upbringing or special genes. But let’s not forget that if you look closely at the behavior of some animals, you can reveal a huge number of signs of schizophrenia. These include:
- Unreasonable bouts of aggression.
- Hallucinations.
- Emotional indifference.
- Sharp mood swings.
- Lack of response to any actions of the owner.
Agree, at least once, but you observed the above features in the behavior of the pets around you. Of course, it is impossible to say with certainty that they have any deviations in the psyche, but it also does not make sense to exclude this.
True or myth?
Animals can experience different emotions just like people. They rejoice when we return home and miss when we have to leave them alone. They are able to become attached to people and are amenable to education. But in order to answer the question of whether they are prone to schizophrenia, it is worth asking whether there are mental disorders in animals in principle.
Research does not really give concrete results, and various signs of schizophrenia are simply written off as behavioral problems. There is even such a profession as a zoopsychologist. But at the same time, it is not possible to confidently deny or confirm schizophrenia in pets. At a certain period, very unpleasant experiments were carried out in the United States, which caused non-existent images and sounds in animals under the influence of drugs. Specialists tried, as it were, to artificially induce schizophrenia in them, but at the same time, the degree of its manifestation differed significantly from people. Let’s hope that this disease remains only a myth and such a fate will bypass our pets.