Ideas of reference

**Ideas of reference** and **delusions of reference** describe the phenomenon of an individual experiencing innocuous events or mere coincidences and believing they have strong personal significance. It is "the notion that everything one perceives in the world relates to one's own destiny", usually in a negative and hostile manner.

In psychiatry, delusions of reference form part of the diagnostic criteria for psychotic illnesses such as schizophrenia, delusional disorder, bipolar disorder (during the elevated stages of mania), as well as schizotypal personality disorder. To a lesser extent, it can be a hallmark of paranoid personality disorder, as well as body dysmorphic disorder. Such symptoms can also be caused by intoxication, such as stimulants like methamphetamine.

## Examples

Persons with ideas of reference may experience:

* A feeling that people on television or radio are talking about or talking directly to them.
* Believing that headlines or stories in newspapers are written especially for them.
* Believing that events (even world events) have been deliberately contrived for them, or have special personal significance for them.
* Believing that the lyrics of a song are specifically about them.
* Seeing objects or events as being set up deliberately to convey a special or particular meaning to themselves.
* Believing that "somehow everyone on a passing city bus is talking about them".
* Believing that the normal function of cell phones, computers, and other electronic devices is to send secret and significant messages that only they can understand or believe.
* Thinking "that the slightest careless movement on the part of another person had great personal meaning...increased significance".
* Thinking that posts on social network websites or Internet blogs have hidden meanings pertaining to them.
* Believing that the behavior of others is in reference to an abnormal, offensive body odor, which in reality is non-existent and cannot be smelled or detected by others (see: olfactory reference syndrome).

## Delusions of reference

Ideas of reference must be distinguished from delusions of reference, which may be similar in content but are held with greater conviction. With the former, but not the latter, the person holding them may have "the *feeling* that strangers are talking about him/her, but if challenged, acknowledges that the people may be talking about something else".

From the psychoanalytic view, there may be at the same time "transitions...to delusions" from ideas of reference: "abortive ideas of reference, in the beginning of their development or, in schizotypal personalities, continuously, may remain subject to the patient's criticism...under adverse circumstances, by minimal economic shifts, however, reality testing may be lost and daydreams of this kind turn into delusions."

It has been noted that a person "rigidly controlled by his superego...readily forms *sensitive ideas of reference*. A *key experience* may occur in his life circumstances and quite suddenly these ideas become structured as delusions of reference." Within the "focus of paranoia...that man crossing his legs, that woman wearing that blouse—it can't just be accidental. It has a particular meaning, is intended to convey something.