> This statement does not imply that they know the difference between their
> hallucinations and reality. Of course they jump when they feel a real
> electric shock; it's a reflex action. You might as well argue that people
> who are asleep know that they are breathing. Proof? Their lungs are working.
>
> Actually, the quoted statement supports the opposite conclusion, since the
> real and hallucinatory shocks are both refered to as "it."
>
>
>
There's a solid ten pages of examples in Merleus-Ponty's book - including
the one which you didn't address, which was more specific - as well as ten
years worth of phenomenological investigation into psychiatric and
neurological condition (unfortunately most of its in German - English texts
are very difficult to track down). The general consensus on psychotic
delusion is that they are experienced as being outside of reality-based
perceptions. This was obvious even in Freud's time. Read the classic
Freudian reference Daniel Paul Schreber's book on his own psychotic delirium
- his experiences are literally "out-of-this-world", he attributes them to
being of divine origin and is sure to point out that other men cannot
experience them. He alone experiences them because he is "special".
Another good read is RD Laing's "The Divided Self" wherein he shows that the strong split in reality encountered in psychosis marks off an absolute boundary between the outer and the inner world. The inner world - of "truth" - is closed off from the "bad" outer world. The experiences between the two are quite sharply distinguished. This is not to say that hallucinations are not experienced as "real" by the patient; it just means that to the psychotic perceptual experience is not the same as for the non-psychotic - for the psychotic perceptual experience does not have to have reference to external sources. This is why Merleua-Ponty says:
"Hallucinations are played out on a stage different from that of the perceived world, and are in a way super-imposed upon it..... The fact that a hallucination does not take place in the stable and intersubjective world means that it lacks fullness, the inner articulation which makes the real thing reside 'in itself', and act and exist by itself." (p 395)
Again, I have to stress - this is not to say that the patient doesn't experience them as "real". In fact they are more "real" for the patient than external reality (Daniel Paul Schreber refers to real people as "fleeting improvised men", which in itself says a lot about how psychotics relate to the external world). But they are not experienced in the inter-subjective or "outer" world. As Merleau-Ponty says: "They are like ghosts that inhabit the perceptual world". Don't be naive though, the patient knows well that these "ghosts" inhabit a different world from the one shared with other people.