What is the nature of sanity? This is perhaps as difficult to answer as what is the nature of madness? The paradox is that one does not exist without the other and in a ying and yang fashion they possess each other.  As science gains greater insight into the functioning of the brain, it becomes apparent that each tiny cell is responsible for one aspect of consciousness or another.  This can be demonstrated by stimulating individual areas of the brain with various drugs or electric currents producing profound changes not only in motor functions but also in beliefs, emotions, and perceptions.

Should our brains produce too much or too little of one chemical or another then we may start to experience the world in an intensely different way from our neighbour.  The interpretation of this reality is often described as madness of one sort or another.  It is perhaps it’s intensity which distinguishes and draws line between sanity and madness.

This is organic madness and so for us all we walk a chemical tightrope that can at any time snap.  Then there is the other type of madness this is Reactive madness.  This happens in reaction to outside stimuli, generally exposer to experiences with which the individual for countless reasons finds themselves unable to successfully process and assimilate into their understanding of the world.  This can manifest it’s self just as organic madness as perceived madness.

Surely they are however just different ways of  interpreting a reality not shared by the majority  and as such should not be viewed as madness but as experiencing the world in a way that falls outside the understanding of a transient  majority. It is however this transiency between states of sanity and insanity by the majority which gives rise to the belief that sanity is a state which is the same for us all and that though the use of psychoactive drugs can also be achieved, This thinking serves to undermine the credibility of those who are different and who’s experiencing of the world manifests itself in the expression of beliefs and behaviours seen as contrary to the accepted norms of the majority.

So in summary sanity is the fluid accepted collective consciousness of an unstable majority at a given time and place and as such is open to cultural interpretation.