The Concept of Noise

"Noise" is a term we are using to describe a complex and distressing aspect of the bodily and cognitive experience of many very ill psychiatric patients. By "noise," we mean an internally experienced state of crowding and confusion created by a variety of stimuli, the quantity, intensity and unpredictability of which make it difficult for individuals so afflicted to tolerate and organize their experience. Attempts to do so may only add to confusion and psychotic phenomena.