AnonymousDecember 11, 2007 21:39 EST

The behavior known as grisi siknis can be explained by looking at the living arrangement where it happens.

Too-small single-rooms living and working situations allow the "special circumstances" for Subliminal Distraction exposure to be created.

SD was discovered when it caused mental breaks for office workers in the 1960's. The cubicle was created to deal with normal features in the physiology of human sight and the mental breaks stopped where they are correctly used.

These events happen around the world and in intensive care facilities in hospitals, ICU Psychosis.

Although designers and engineers solved the problem over forty years ago doctors, psychiatrists, and anthropologists are stumped as to the cause. In the entire history of man on the planet Earth this phenomenon was discovered only once.

No one has had the insight to realize that it's a behavior not the location that determines when the mental events happen. Deep mental investment to the point of slight dissociation while there is repeating detectable movement in peripheral vision is that behavior. Intense exposure in a compact time frame is necessary to cause symptoms.

VisionAndPsychosis.Net is a private psychology project on the Internet to investigate Subliminal Distraction.

Thomas KeoghOctober 05, 2011 19:03 EST

There is an outbreak of krisi siknis/grisi siknis right now in Waspam (Oct 2011).

The previous comment by Anonymous doesn't explain gender and age selectivity of this phenomenon.

The author of this article obviously has little experience with the area and its people (for example, March and April are statistically the driest months of the year; the airplane seats 12 not 10; the word is batu with accent on 1st syllable, not bató), but I liked his honest approach to investigation. Krisi siknis is indeed a culture-bound syndrome unrelated to poverty, but certainly related to pubescent/adolescent sexuality and worldview.
Girls (and boys) who have had krisi siknis report that attacks were preceded by intense fear. Their traditional spiritual belief system provides no defense for this other than treatment through miskitu saika. There is no traditional preventative medicine. Most church going Miskitos are still rooted in their traditions. Yet Miskito girls and boys with a strong belief in the biblical Jesus are not affected. I'm sure Miskito girls grown up in a materialist environment would not be affected either. The only preventative solutions involve changes in belief and worldview.

I believe the phenomenon has been exacerbated in modern times by the institution of school, whereby young girls who formerly became women through rites of passage (a period separation from society at first menstruation followed by reintroduction and forming families) now experience an indefinite period of adolescence as students. They dream of "superación" —entrance into the professional world through education, but they face the statistically overwhelming probability of pregnancy in a sexually promiscuous environment. Girls who become pregnant are not allowed back in secondary schools after their pregnancy, and they get left "behind" in the traditional life. High school girls are under intense pressure. The current rash of outbreaks is a result of cultural destabilization as Miskito people transition in the direction of modern global culture.