h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

how do i go insane?

Are you just trying to feign an insanity of some sort, or are you expecting to end up that way? Eg as per:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colditz_%28TV_series%29

It depends on what you mean by insane of course, but if you are meaning clinical, state sanctioned insanity then you could get yourself locked up in a secure unit and be forced to take psych. meds. That will probably change your biochemistry and sense of self enough that you will be considered insane. Or you could traumatise yourself somehow and then take lots of psychedelic drugs.

Neither are guaranteed of course.

look i was contemplating using a carrot as an offensive weapon earlier!
i am already quite mad but i want to become well and truly insane ok?

Well, not really. What you want is to pretend that you are mad, which is a different thing entirely.

This is the area that the phrase "Catch 22" came from and is actually true. In the Korean war the only way to get out of the marines was by being declared insane, however it was said that only an insane person would actually want to be in marines so if you wanted to get out you must be sane!

Contemplating using a carrot as an offensive weapon is not mad but merely a use of imagination.

What might help us understand what you are trying to achieve is by telling us what do you mean by 'insanity' and why do you want to achieve that state?

Become religious, then at least some of us will consider you insane

too late i am already christian and whats more i do beleive in god. i have a personal relationship with him. he loves me unconditionaly and nothing will ever change that.

You still haven't told us whether you wish to be locked up or simply wish to seem mad to your friends.

The best way to become mad is to try and imagine what it would be like to exist as a consciousness but not in any physical sense, to know that there were others like you, but not to be able to sense them or communicate. Imagine nothing, and I mean nothing. No body, no world, no air, no people, NOTHING. Go on, just try. Hard isn't it. When you actually manage it you will go mad.

If you only want to seem mad, then stick two pencils up your nose, walk up to your friends and say: "wibble".


And I'd just like to add that carrots do make very good offensive weapons if you aim for the eyes.

"i do beleive in god. i have a personal relationship with him. he loves me unconditionaly and nothing will ever change that."

It sounds like you are doing a great job already!

You could visit the total perspective vortex if you still fancy yourself sane already!

Another good way to drive yourself mad is to voluntarily put yourself through a few week's Chinese water torture.