Again, he sounds similar to my son. Some of his beliefs are reality-based, just a bit over the top. A lot of people are worried about the NSA and GMO foods. A lot of people question our culture and what we're taught. I have some concerns about those things myself.

And the ghost in the Nintendo? Sane people do believe in ghosts. Sane people do ask priests to intervene for them.

My son once moved into my house during a psychotic episode. He didn't sleep for three days straight. He told me my father's ghost was living in my basement. I think when a psychotic person tells you something like that, he's trying to communicate something real, but it's cloaked in symbolism for some reason. It's like dream symbolism.

My son now can tell me about this stuff sometimes. He can even look back on previous psychotic episodes and explain what he was thinking at the time. "I was hoping when I said X, you'd understand Y." It can be very idiosyncratic connections that I never would have picked up on. And he can have very odd reasons for not just saying what he means. The point is, he does have insight into the fact that he's thinking and speaking and acting symbolically. He just approaches things tangentially, not head-on. It can be difficult to talk to him sometimes, because he'll say something hoping for a specific response from me, and sometimes I fail to deliver.

So, when your son talks about the NSA, on one level he's worried about the NSA - although he's more worried and taking it more personally than is warranted. On another level, though, he may be telling you he doesn't feel safe for some reason. You may have to deal with that level too. Sometimes with my son I can ask point-blank if his real fear is X even though he's talking about Y. (I can make a good guess since I know him.) Some really good discussions can come out of things like that. Sometimes, though, I say the wrong thing, and it's a pretty tense conversation. A lot of landmines in conversations with my son.