Not necessarily. There's still a certain connection to reality, which is what makes it worse. Its a distorted reality. For example, some people experience delusions of grandeur, and believe they're the rightful heir to the throne of England or something for example. In severe cases they'll go to all lengths to prove it.

They can also have auditory hallucinations, or "hear voices". I studied this, and one explanation is that they think something, and aren't aware that it was their own thoughts, and attribute it to something/someone else. So for example, they could think "I'm hungry" but aren't aware that THEY thought it. So they look for a reason. Alien's for example. So then they believe that aliens are telling them that they're hungry, and therefore begin unusual behaviour such as tin foil hats and such like to hide from the "aliens".

I'll give a complete run-down on Schizophrenia to clear everything up:

There are many misunderstandings about schizophrenia.

Schizophrenia does not mean ‘split personality’ or a ‘Jekyll and Hyde’ character.

Schizophrenia is a complex illness affecting a person’s whole being, their moods, feelings, perceptions, thoughts, behaviour and ability to communicate. It is a severe and disabling condition. It has nothing to do with depression, although depression can occur as a result of Schizophrenia.

The main symptoms of schizophrenia are hallucinations and delusions.

Hallucinations: Perceptual disturbances that can be very frightening. A typical symptom is auditory hallucination – hearing internal voices. The voices may talk about the person themselves, warn them of dangers or give out orders.

Delusions: Disturbances of thought involving false beliefs. There are several types of delusions:

Paranoid delusions: The sufferer may believe that he or she is being persecuted or conspired against. For example, people plotting to poison or kill them.

Delusions of grandeur: The sufferer believes that he or she is a famous or very important person.

Bizarre delusions: These are delusions that do not fit in either of the above divisions. For example, belief that thoughts are planted into their head by someone else, or that other people hear one’s thoughts, or people on television are sending special messages in code.



Behavioural disturbances: These may be a reaction to terrifying hallucinations or delusions and could be social withdrawal, fear of others or peculiar mannerisms.

Disordered thinking and speech: Inability to concentrate or to sort thoughts into logical sequences, communication may be difficult and speech hard to follow.

Disturbed emotions: Unexpected emotions, for example; laughing in the ‘wrong’ places (known as inappropriate affect). Emotions may be blunted or flat.

Low motivation: The sufferer may spend entire days doing nothing, neglecting themselves and losing interest in life in general.

Note: Sufferers of schizophrenia do not always show symptoms of the illness or behave abnormally; a person may have one episode that never returns or they may be repeated. Some people may suffer continuous chronic symptoms.

There's also catatonic Schizophrenia which is an extreme form of low motivation, where the sufferer does not do anything at all. They'll just sit, or lie, and stare into space for hours, or even days at a time.

Hope it helps all the artists participating. I personally think the catatonic Schizophrenia could be an interesting one to portray.

hmm so i was quite a bit off then...
i spose the whole imaginary world thing should make doing a picture easier but it's made it all the bit harder because it has more possibilities, i'm sure i will come up with something.
I just wish i understood schizoprenia a bit more ya know
-Gazzah