Talk:Hypergraphia

Comment 1

As a psychiatric patient of 6 years, I was always told I suffered from Depression and schizophrenia. Recently, upon meeting with my new psychiatrist, I was told what I "suffer" from might actually be Hypergraphia. Everything I've read thus far on the illness is exactly me, but I am having trouble finding in depth inormation as opposed to defination. If anyone has any info, or knows where I can get some, your help would be entirely appreciated.

• The main character of Quills (film) could be said to have Hypergraphia. -- Sy / ^(talk) 01:02, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

• Google Alice Flaherty. There's a lot of press on her or read her book about it called "The Midnight Disease."

Stub

I've made this topic a stub. The recent use of this in CSI:NY got me interested, but there is not enough information on Wikipedia.

Hope someone can expand on it

And I've added the causes of Hypergraphia too...not completely, but halfway thru. Not too free now. Can someone be so kind to help out? p/s: Add a content box at the top too.. I don't really know how to do that

Chewxy 06:40, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

The paragraph about the various parts of the brain that are involved in the act of writing is relevant, but does it really belong under the "Causes" heading?

Oh the irony. The article for Hypergraphia is a fscking stub. Excellent. :) --Kim

Experience With Medication

I was, for several years, very hypergraphic, while at the time I was taking Risperdal for my schizoaffective disorder. A few months ago, I switched to Zyprexa instead. It works better at relieving my symptoms, but I notice that I don't write much anymore.

My wife would say that's a good thing :-/ but I'm not sure I like it.

I also recently bought Alice Flaherty's book The Midnight Disease, and have read enough of it that I can recommend it to anyone wanting to know more about Hypergraphia. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by MichaelCrawford (talk • contribs) 02:21, 4 April 2007 (UTC).

Does not cite sources?

This article is interesting but cites absolutely zero references. I'm paticularly interested in knowing if this is accurate:

"Additionally schizophrenics and people with frontotemporal dementia also experience a compulsive drive to write."

What kind of schizophrenics? Is this the majority or minority?

88.111.70.96 18:47, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

I'd also be a bit concerned about the speculation about living figures; while I think it's sometimes appropriate to speculate about the pathologies of historical figures, without a source verifying a clinical diagnosis I think it's inappropriate to diagnose Bob Graham in this article.

67.51.57.35 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 17:25, 3 March 2010 (UTC).

Hothouse episode of Law & Order SVU

On Tuesday January 13th, there was a premier of an episode of Law & Order SVU called Hothouse. There is a girl in it, who due to being pushed to overachieve in college, starts taking ADHD medication without prescription. They mention one of the side effects of people who take off-prescription ADHD medication, is Hypergraphia.Violet yoshi (talk) 12:17, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Surrealism

Citations should be found for allegations of hypergraphia being used to criticize or suppress surrealism in light of Andre Breton's statement that there is no subject about which one should refuse to speak and write voluminously, and in light of surrealist automatism. --Daniel C. Boyer (talk) 18:40, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Historical examples

Is it possible that Joseph Smith, founder and Prophet of the LDS Church, experienced hypergraphia while composing the Book of Mormon? Historical accounts of the process by which the BoM was created suggest that Joseph Smith might have been experiencing hypergraphia. The rest of Joseph's life was also typified by behaviour symptomatic of bipolar or maybe schizoaffective disorder? Impossible to diagnose the deceased of course, but interesting and Joseph Smith undoubtedly an important historical figure who has influenced millions of people worldwide.

Sourced:

Richard Bushman, *Rough Stone Rolling* (will come back with biblio)

Fawn Brodie, *No Man Knows My Name* (will come back with biblio)

Keep sweet (talk) 05:36, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Merge from graphomania suggestion

Unless I am missing something, the definitions in wikipedia are the same:

• "Hypergraphia is an overwhelming urge to write."
• "Graphomania (from Greek γραφειν — writing,[1] and μανία — insanity), also known as scribomania, refers to an obsessive impulse to write."

The only difference IMO is the second one being more hypergraphic :-) Staszek Lem (talk) 16:58, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Like with any "mania"/"phobia"/"philia", it is difficult to draw hard lines to separate habit//hobby//passion//obsession//disorder from each other. Therefore I would suggest to proceed in two steps:

1. Merge the contents.
2. See if it makes sense to create two cross-referenced articles:
   • about a mental disorder (with proper scholar/medical refs)
   • about the remaining life (with anecdotes, notable cases, etc.)

Any other opinions? Staszek Lem (talk) 16:58, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

~~From Althea Miller, Madison WI They shouldn't be merged. It's a slight difference. Graphomania seems to be connected to an illogical stream of consciousness where thoughts are random and not connected. Definitions for hypergraphia mention nothing about this, rather, merely point to one's compulsion to write. The compulsions are similar yes, but the difference between the two is important. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.104.94.242 (talk) 16:34, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose. Not the same thing. Mysterytrey talk 16:29, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose. I think "overwhelming urge" has more of a positive connotation than "obsessive impulse". Perhaps we should differentiate between the two on either page, but "obsessive impulse" brings to mind OCD. LazyBastardGuy 13:49, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Not sure. Perhaps one should see something like a content/form distinction

• -Hypergraphia: as the urge to record everything and writing is rather useful as it allows recording mental states.
• -Graphomania: as the urge to produce discourse.91.92.179.172 (talk) 17:46, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Per consensus, I am dismissing the merge at this time. It seems the key difference between graphomania and hypergraphia is a) in the second sentence of the graphomania article as of this writing, and b) in the terminology itself. Anything "-mania" suggests a certain insanity; "hyper-" just means that someone does something constantly or rapidly, sometimes both, and usually with a coherent purpose. That, at least, is my understanding, and with that I am closing this discussion with the consensus to not merge. LazyBastardGuy 19:18, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

Neuroscience Students

For my undergraduate neuroscience class, my partner and I are going to be updating this page for a final project. We will be working on it for about 2 months. If anyone wants to check out what we're doing, you can look at our sandboxes.

Hannahgrotz (talk) 18:34, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

Peer reviews from fellow classmates The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Peer Review

Peer Comment 1

Nice work on this article, a very interesting piece.

Hopefully I can offer some constructive feedback. Before I begin, a note: I'm not sure how much of this you two have written, and how much already existed.

On citing: I may be wrong, but you may be able to take out your parenthetical citations and instead just stick with the wiki citations.

On the introduction: I think you might be able to better use this space to frame the rest of the article. Perhaps allude to the structure of the article –– when I read an introduction, I'm looking to pull out the most important points and have a decent road map for the rest of the article.

More generally, I think the introduction could be written more clearly. If it's not a disorder, what is it? A symptom? Can you be more explicit?

On characteristics: You make an impressive number of interesting points. That being said, I think you could do a better job tying them together with a little more structure. I'm thinking along the lines of more explicit topic sentences for each paragraph, as well as transition sentences. Otherwise, lots of solid material here, surprisingly fun to read!

On causes: I think you could make some more solid contributions to this section. I'm not sure if it is a consequence of a dearth of material and/or research, but it seems as though you could more clearly identify a cause or number of causes.

In the introductory part of this section, you name a few possible causes, but you are lacking analysis, and in lieu just making a list. Which cause is the most probable? Have researchers come to a consensus? How do these things relate?

On temporal lobe epilepsy: It seems like this section is the meat of your research, but I'm not sure. Some good technical information here, but can you put it in better context for the reader?

On Geschwind syndrome: Maybe if you only have a sentence or two to write, you could incorporate this into another section?

On pathophysiology: This is a strong section. I think (like most writing) the language could be tightened up, and I did notice a few grammatical errors (e.g. "associated to" instead of "associated with"), but the content is otherwise presented clearly.

On famous cases: Nothing to say here; just a nice list of notables. Good work!

Overall, I offer quite a few comments, but please don't mistake me for being too harsh, just hoping to help a little! Take each with a grain of salt, feel free to dismiss any one, and/or write back in this forum if anything needs clarification! Nice work folks. Rowettb (talk) 23:35, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

Peer Comment 2

Overall, the page looks great. The images are integrated well with the textual information that is included. In reading over the page and looking into information concerning hypergraphia, I have given you some feedback that I hope will help with revisions:

In terms of citing, I think that you guys can take out the parenthetical citations and just use the wiki template for referencing sources used in the article. I think that the page might have a better "flow" in terms of understanding the information presented if the “geschwind syndrome” section were integrated with the “temporal lobe epilepsy” section/paragraph. Also, the information below the "causes" heading, especially the first block of text seems like it could be very easily worked into the "pathophysiology" section. If the "pathophysiology" section were above the "causes" section, I think the disorders associated with the condition (in the "causes" section) could be better understood in-context of the pathophysiology.

I think that adding more information about the connections between hypergraphia and bipolar disorder and hypergraphia and schizophrenia could enrich the "causes" section of the page. Also, if you wanted to tweak with the heading for the "chemical causes" section to make it more specific to the neurotransmitters dopamine and acetycholine discussed in the section, it might help readers understand the section a bit better from just reading the section heading/title.

In terms of wording suggestions, the sentence in the “temporal lobe epilepsy”, the third sentence (“In temporal lobe epilepsy patients, they may exhibit…”) could be rephrased a bit. Also, the last sentence in this section confused me a bit with the use of the term “syntax”.

Take all of my comments as helpful suggestions. It looks great! --Ephlegar (talk) 21:40, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

Peer Comment 3

So in general I think you did a great job on the page, I don't know how much exactly is yours but good work. These are some of the things I found you might want to address, and I hope my feedback can be helpful.

I feel like you need a more detailed introduction here, a more general overview of what hypergraphia is. Also I would add a sentence or two about graphomania and to how it is different to hypergraphia, because they are very similar and a distinction between the two might be helpful to have.

Regarding the characteristics section, I believe a better organization could be made. I feel like it doesn't fit into the article as well as the rest of the sections. Maybe grouping the characteristics prior to mentioning the studies. Also I wouldn't use the references in the format (Waxman and Geschwind), I would take that out and just stick with the wiki referencing style.

In the causes section I like the introductory paragraph, its a good overview, I would add a sentence or two more about writers block and hyperlexia. Also the temporal lobe epilepsy, as well as the chemical causes are very detailed and nicely done in my opinion. However I would maybe expand a bit more on the geschwind syndrome and the mood disorders, by adding a bit more information. I aware that finding research articles on some topics is hard and there might not be much information on these to expand.

I really enjoyed the last section, famous causes. I found this part very interesting and very well constructed. It gives a kind of a different dimension to the whole article as well as a interesting look into how something that you might not want to get can be used to your benefit. Can't say I wouldn't mind having hypergraphia when it comes to writing those long 7, 10 and 15 page papers.

Again, I hope my feedback helps, and great job again. Gumovnik (talk) 04:37, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

Response to Peer Reviews

Thanks to everyone for the helpful comments! We added more information to the introduction section, and moved a small part from our causes section to the introduction. We also added more structure to the Characteristics section (two sub headers) and a few introduction sentences. The Causes section underwent a lot of changes. We moved the Pathophysiology section to a subsection under Temporal Lobe Epilepsy and moved the Geschwind Syndrome subsection out of Causes and into the introduction. We also took out the intro section to Causes and replaced it with a new paragraph that incorporated/rephrased what was already there. We did not write the Famous Cases section so we let that be.

Thanks again for the feedback! --Hannahgrotz (talk) 22:13, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

Please see WP:MEDMOS#Sections; I've moved some things back where they belong, and am very glad to hear you didn't write the dismal "Famous Cases" section. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 09:51, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

Speculation removed

Please see WP:MEDMOS on notable cases. None of these say they had the condition, all is original research. Also see WP:NOT and WP:TRIVIA. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 09:48, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

The Reverend Robert Shields maintained a diary chronicling every 5 minutes of his life from 1972 until a stroke disabled him in 1997. The diary fills 81 boxes and contains approximately 37.5 million words. This gargantuan work details every minutae of Shields' life, including extensive details of his bowel movements, blood pressure, body temperature, and various medications, as well as extensive lists of the groceries he bought and their prices. Many entries consist of "I was at the keyboard of the IBM Wheelwriter, making entries for the diary."

Outsider artist and writer Henry Darger would appear to have been a case of hypergraphia, having produced what has been described as the longest novel in existence, The Story of the Vivian Girls.

American composer Alan Hovhaness is acknowledged as one of the most prolific of the 20th century and may have been affected by hypergraphia. He carried paper and pen wherever he went and is known to have composed almost every day, in shopping malls, restaurants, and even on buses. He claimed to have thrown over 1,000 of his early compositions into the fireplace in the 1940s while still a young man, and even at the time of his death, in 2000, had penned around 500 more, most of which are published.

Former United States Senator Bob Graham has maintained a meticulous account of the daily events of his life. Between 1977 and 2003, Graham filled almost 4,000 notebooks, recording such varied items as the movie he and his daughter rented on the eve of his grandchild's birth (Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, which, he noted, he rewound and returned), as well as details of strangers he'd met at airports so that he could follow up with a friendly letter. Each notebook, color-coded by season, covered two to three days. His daily entries included minutiae like his weight, clothes into which he changed, what he ate and where, as well as serious matters of state. When the company that manufactured Graham's notebooks ceased production, Graham bought up hundreds of the remaining stock. During the 2000 Presidential race, Vice President Al Gore considered Graham as a potential running mate, but campaign insiders worried Graham's habit of filling notebooks with daily minutia would be perceived by the public as eccentric. Finally, late in the selection process, Gore decided against Graham. Nevertheless, Graham maintained his notebooks were not diaries—as they contained no introspective commentary—but rather an efficient system for life management. "I would rather have more detail than less," Graham told Time magazine in 2000. "I use [the notebooks] as a working tool. I review them for calls to be made, memos to be dictated, meetings I want to follow up on and things people promise to do. I would be reticent to be too open in describing personal feelings and emotions." In the same article, an anonymous source close to Graham suspected the suicide of Graham's half-brother spurred Graham to seek control and discipline, one form of which was Graham's notebooks.

Arthur Crew Inman (1895–1963) was a reclusive and unsuccessful American poet whose 17-million word diary, extending from 1919 to 1963, is one of the longest English language diaries on record. The diary was edited by Daniel Aaron and published in 1985.

Warren Steed Jeffs, president and "prophet" of the FLDS polygamous sect, who was convicted in 2011 of aggravated sexual assault of a child, recorded every detailed aspect of his daily life in voluminous typed manuscript he referred to as "Priesthood Records." Experts described Jeffs' writings as having recorded Jeffs' "every thought." Jeffs' detailed diaries were seized by law enforcement agencies in a 2008 raid of Jeffs' Texas compound. The writings were so voluminous, they filled a 600 square foot room. The diaries were later used as evidence in criminal trials to convict several FLDS members, including Jeffs, of sexual crimes against children.

References

Who in the hell is Mendez

"Functional MRI scans of other studies suggest that rhyming behavior is produced in the left hemisphere, but Mendez proposed that hyperactive electrical activity of the right hemisphere may induce a release of writing and rhyming abilities in the left hemisphere.[3]"

The article suddenly blurts out this name without first introducing him or her. 184.57.129.13 (talk) 02:47, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

When this happens you can place a [¿who?] next to a name (or general referentiation to a party such as "some"). Sincerely, --Namlong618 (talk) 00:54, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

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