Talk:Hypervigilance

Rewrite

An old version of this article had many unsourced claims, and the sources used were of dubious quality. I have pared down the article and made what statements I could from the reliable sources available, and requested help with expansion. Feedback is welcome. Whatever404 (talk) 11:19, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

I removed source 4 because it was a duplicate of source 3, source 5 because it was an economic article that did not mention the condition, and identical sources 6 and 7 because their text was copied from an older version of this wiki article. I also removed the external link because it was the same as source 3.Ueli-PLS (talk) 06:18, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

The older version was better, though I don't have the sources to back up the statements in the older version. It would be good at someone with a proper background could see how much of that they can source. --Pleasantville (talk) 22:42, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

The lead section does not go into much detail on why hypervigilance occurs, as well as lacks a cohesive flow, so I am considering editing it and including more up-to-date, reliable sources to back it up. Changes include adding more detail to the definition and it's underlying causes. Annanoel84 (talk) 23:48, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

Causes

According to the article, "Hypervigilance is a symptom of Posttraumatic stress disorder." Does this mean PTSD is the only cause of hypervigilance, or are there others? --Chealer (talk) 07:33, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

This article seems to put forward the most extream symptoms of hypervigilence. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.53.147.16 (talk) 02:05, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

The page for Narcissistic Personality Disorder links here by way of the "hypervigilant" sub-type of NPD, but it seems like that's a totally different thing. I think we need a Hypervigilance disambiguation page. 98.237.252.162 (talk) 04:17, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Agreed with the above concerns regarding hyper-vigilance:

• It is NEVER delusional and not always (often?) debilitating.
• I wish I had a searchable DSM but I believe that hypervigilance is found, as a criteria, ONLY in PTSD. Mind you, it, alone, is not sufficient to diagnose PTSD... sometimes, hypervigilance is an appropriate and potentially life-saving reaction to circumstances.

* The description of hypervigilance in the article on Narcissistic PD is widely different from the DSM description-- perhaps "hypersensitive" was intended in that article, based upon the description used.

I am not certain that the phrase "symptom of..." is the best choice; but better (I think) would be "a possible diagnostic criteria for... ."--cregil (talk) 21:42, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

Article develpment

This article is using very light sources.

I am not the person to write content for this article, but surly someone can suggest a good source textbook? In a few minutes, these:

Besides PTSD and generalized anxiety disorders... There is research connecting hypervigilance as a (non-diagnostic) symptom of Borderline Personality Disorder:

• http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S000579670600163X
• http://guilfordjournals.com/doi/abs/10.1521/pedi.2000.14.4.366?journalCode=pedi

With OCD:

• http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/%28SICI%291522-7154%281996%292:3%3C123::AID-ANXI3%3E3.0.CO;2-Q/abstract

Concerning the perception that H-V person have sixth-sense type "super-powers":

• http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S000579670400124X

Toss me good title on the subject and I'll help, but have no means of determing a mainstream source without assistance. cregil (talk) 22:08, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

"sixth-sense type super-powers"

(per what cregil said .. I couldn't read his linked article and the abstract didn't mention anything about sixth sense etc) I have possible explanation why there's not much info on this:

I definitely have this vigilance thing when it comes to things I get anxious about. Sixth-sense: If I feel certain type of bug is threatening, I often, not always, get dreams about that bug but ONLY when it is actually near my bed! While awake: This is much weaker, I can't feel it, but when the annoying bugs are hiding in the room, I somehow get drawn to find them. Unfortunately this is so weak ability that while I know there's much more bugs in the house to be found, I think they are still in eggs and I can't find them. The insect needs to be "on the hunt for food" for me to be able to find it. Theory: I have explained this in another wp-talk article but actual scientist (as opposed to psychology and doctors etc who I don't consider to be true scientists) have measured that body can act as antenna for radiation. I have a theory that this radiation is which transmits this "6th sense". I also believe it requires some sort of fight/flight/hypervigilance state that has developed over years, so most people would have this ability. Any research should be done by finding a group of people who can be first proven to be in such state vs the control group. Another issue with research is that if I would believe there to be a "safe lab setting" then that would negate the state. So research of this could only be performed in real situation, like during combat with live ammo. There is very likely classified military research, most likely from decades ago in some rotten papers in a damp basement of a bunker or place of treatment of PTSD people - but the problem with health authority figures like doctors and such is that you can't take very seriously what you haven't experienced, especially if it's the sort where extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. This is not quite but almost in that area - I say not quite because this would be provable if I installed cameras in my room and did a setup where insect would be seen going near the bed and then I'd wake up and said if I had insect dream or not - BEFORE seeing if the insect was there. That would prove beyond any doubt this. (though some wacko could argue I was cheating with some device that alarmed me about the insect or perhaps I had told someone to send the insect into the room etc ... removing these concerns would be very tricky - if I asked someone to help perform this study, that could relief the vigilance state as I felt safer as I was in controlled experiment! - the experiments of this nature only get real when the "safety is off" and that's usually forbidden by ethics code in research. And that's why if there's research, it's either done by unethical companies in private or in the kind of facilities that public would want closed if they knew what was going on. In Star Trek there was ep that related to this sort of 6th sense study that made the point of making the test subject believe there was a real danger - or was it that there was actually a real danger but they assumedly had a way to extinguish the fire - the test subject was made to think it was fire which couldn't be dealt with)

Is this really a pathology?

Or, as we like to call it, awareness. Monado (talk) 23:30, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

No. Because the normal state of awareness is characterized by the supression of baseline threat stimuli. A normally functioning and aware person will be oblivious to pedestrians involved in hit-and-run accidents, for example, as a strategy for stress avoidance. The hyper-vigilant person will be aware of the unconscious avoidance strategies of the normally aware people, and be drawn to the cause.

"Traumatic events or PTSD"

In the lead we say,

which can often be caused by traumatic events or PTSD.

I haven't consulted the source (the freely available abstract does not mention hypervigilance), but the statements seems poorly worded. I'm not a native speaker, perhaps I misinterpret, but the wording seems to me to present "traumatic events" and "PTSD" as two separate possible causes, which they are not. PTSD is caused by traumatic events. Hypervigilance may be caused by traumatic events. Perhaps hypervigilance may be said to be caused by PTSD, but I think it would be clearer to say that hypervigilance, when caused by traumatic events, may be a part of the PTSD syndrome.--Nø (talk) 11:11, 5 December 2021 (UTC)