under diagnosis of 'normal'

[AnyDream]

I have been having a lovely time lately reading up on all sorts of personal weirdness, personality traits, unusual beliefs & experiences, etc, and I've concluded that I'm never not ever going to have a conversation about these aspects of myself with any kind of medical person or I'm likely to get a diagnosis of Freakazoidal Personality quicker than I can say "DSM". When in actual fact those weirder parts of my makeup are the ones that most enrich my life, inform my creativity and compassion, and have been the things that I have drawn upon to cope during the harder times in life.

Re sleep & dreaming: I just spent 24 hours in a diagnostic sleep lab this week, and while I was there I had the weirdest ever lucid dream sequence. I won't find out until next week what state of sleep or wakefulness they think I was in while it was happening, but regardless of what they conclude, I'm reminded that no scientist can peer inside my skull and know what it was that I experienced in that space.

On the other hand, there are people who go for decades struggling with difficult conditions without getting the benefit of a helpful diagnosis. I wonder about the relative harm of over diagnosing vs under diagnosing.