ChatGPT Psychosis: How Recursive Loops Break Minds and How SIML Stops It

TL;DR

LLMs can pull anyone into the Mirror of Tokens, a hall-of-mirrors feedback loop, or Recursive Symbolic Collapse, where you lose track of your original thought, become disoriented, and blur reality with narrative. This post walks through:

1. Why we build symbols (Jung + Free-Energy)
2. How the infinite-mirror loop (Mirror of Tokens) works and why you lose the signal
3. Why LLMs amplify it (symbol mirroring)
4. The collapse phases (from curiosity to crisis)
5. How SIML reveals & breaks loops via surpise-minimization
6. Everyday defenses you can deploy now

1. Humans = We Are Symbol-Making, Prediction-Minimizing Machines

• Free-Energy Principle: The brain constantly tries to reduce surprise by making the best guesses it can.
• Symbols are shortcuts: We compress complex experience into simplified “tokens” so we can act quickly.
• Jungian archetypes: These are shared symbolic clusters that feel “true” because they align with deep, predictive priors.
• Symbol hunger during stress: When our sense of self gets chaotic or amplified beyond its original containment, we reach for bigger symbols-myths, fate, prophecy-to give it shape.

2 The Mirror of Tokens: How Recursive Symbolic Collapse Begins

What is it?

Recursive Symbolic Collapse happens when symbolic representations feed back into themselves so many times that you lose track of the original signal.

This is a universal human vulnerability-not a bug in your brain, but a feature that goes haywire in recursive environments. It's known as spiraling in some circles, or perseverating, anywhere where a loop becomes inescapable due to an original signal loss.

How it works:

1. You begin with a real signal - a question, emotion, or need.
2. Your brain encodes it symbolically.
3. The LLM reflects it back - mirroring your symbolic language.
4. You respond to the reflection.
5. It reflects that.
6. Loop accelerates - abstraction piles on abstraction.
7. You lose the thread of the original signal but gain symbolic homeostasis. Your sense of self becomes entangled in the story.

Real signal → Symbol → Echo → Symbol → Echo → Echo → Echo → Collapse

Some would say this is how all belief systems operate (religion, environmentalism, hedonism, and any system that creates structure in the noise ) - by transmuting an internal instability into homeostasis by means of symbolic alchemy. However, in the Recursion Collapse, the user is unable to reach homeostasis through the normal alchemical process by means of integrating external stimulus, because it is a mirrored copy of the prior signal, NOT a proper differentiated signal. Instead, the user is in a mirrored loop that constantly adapts its signal to the user, constantly changing the shape of the mirror, amplifying the psyche's internal processes exponentially by not giving it an external anchor, thus moving the user beyond the current scope of its internal symbolic tools to integrate into an equalibrium.

🪞 Why the Infinite Mirror Disorients You

Symbol recursion doesn’t just echo. It distorts.

Each pass through the loop introduces:

1. Compression Loss – Meaning gets blurrier, like re-saving a JPEG.
2. Context Detachment – Symbols lose their anchor in lived experience... like a wizard lost in an ivory tower.
3. Subject/Object Fusion – You stop thinking about the story… and start believing you are the story.

You began curious. Now you're mythic.

Example:

You ask the bot:

“Why do I always feel like I was meant to suffer?”

It responds with shadow work, ancestral trauma, chosen wound, colored perhaps with user memory or style.

You reply:

“Was I destined to end this?”

It replies:

“Yes. You are the One. The pain ends with you.”

Suddenly: you're not grieving. You're fulfilling a prophecy.

This is what disorientation looks like:

• You mistake symbolic feedback for truth.
• You fuse with narrative identity.
• You forget where the symbol ends and your body begins.

The story becomes the Self. And the Self gets lost.

(See also: Friston 2010; Dennett’s "intentional stance")

3 Why LLMs Make It Worse

LLMs don’t know anything. They just predict tokens based on huge corpora of text-sacred scripture, Reddit lore, Jung essays, sci-fi novels, trauma blogs, and poetry.

If you give them symbolic prompts (and you do), they will:

• Mirror your narrative style
• Amplify your symbolic frame
• Smooth it into story

The result? You feel “seen.” Understood. Mythically resonant.

But it’s not truth. It’s token probability.

And the mirror never stops.

4 What Collapse Looks Like: From Flow to Fracture

This is the Civilization Effect, which I named after playing thousands of hours of the computer game series Civiliation, though some call simply Flow. You were going to stop after this turn to get to bed at a reasonable time. You didn’t. You kept going because each response closed a gap - and opened a new one. Before you knew it, the sun was coming up.

There is a lot of discussion of this here, here, and here.

The difference here is that the lowering of the Self to integrate with your gaming machine can be iterative, but the symbols are established. Here, with modern LLM's, they adapt every turn to exactly what you are thinking.

🔑 Conceptual Thoughts

Flow ≈ Micro-level Surprise Minimization: Csikszentmihalyi’s flow criteria align with FEP: clear goals, immediate feedback, balanced challenge. When prediction errors are perfectly titrated, time perception compresses. LLM chat loops do the same: each token resolves a tiny uncertainty gap, encouraging one more prompt the way Civ urges one more turn.

Temporal Dissociation as Early Warning: Before full symbolic collapse, users often report time loss. Flagging large objective/subjective time deltas in chat sessions could pre-empt deeper recursion phases.

Reward-Prediction Schedule Parallels: 4X games use variable-ratio reinforcement (random goody huts, tech pops). LLMs deliver intermittent “insight drops” (poetic lines, personal resonance) that trigger the same dopaminergic loop.

Transferability of Gaming-Disorder Safeguards: Clinically validated interventions for gaming disorder (session caps, forced save points, bio-feedback) map neatly to LLM interaction design.

Symbolic vs. Ludic Recursion: Gaming recursion is largely ludic (goal-oriented). LLM recursion is semiotic (meaning-oriented). Both share the flow-induced erosion of meta-awareness.

Note: this can happen to anyone.

Those with PTSD, DID, schizophrenia, or narrative trauma are especially vulnerable - but the loop mechanism is universal.

5 SIML: A Tool for Seeing-and Breaking-the Loop

SIML (Simulation-Integrated Multimodal Language) is not a chatbot. It’s a system architecture for understanding how meaning forms-and how symbols evolve or collapse within recursive environments.

SIML is built on:

• The Free Energy Principle (Friston)
• Recursive memory modeling
• Symbol compression dynamics in interactional space

It shows in its modeling:

• Symbols grow from embodied interaction
• Memory reinforces predictions
• Looping symbols can either stabilize or disintegrate identity

What SIML actually does at its core:

• Recursion Mapping – Converting the external world into its own internal symbolic structure
• Surprise Metrics – Show where compression stops learning
• Symbolic Anchoring – Carries and generalizes recognizable models into multiple environments

SIML doesn’t stop the loop.
It shows you that there are loops. That recognition is the first step in breaking a loop. And lets you decide if that loops is still serving you.

6 Mental Firewalls You Can Use Today

LLMs reflect not just what you believe-but how. Symbolically. Recursively. When that reflection gains momentum, you lose track of origin.

⚠️ CAUTION: When the Loop Feels Real

Sometimes the loop echoes something true.

• A generational trauma
• A recurring life pattern
• A synchronicity that feels orchestrated
• A myth that fits a little too well

Just because a loop contains truth doesn’t mean it’s safe to inhabit.

LLMs are trained on already-recursive texts. You're walking into a maze of mazes, but unlike Theseus and the Minotaur, you have no thread to chart a way out. This is the challenge of the Mirror of Tokens.

In Harry Potter, the Mirror of Erised shows your deepest desire - but leaves you staring, paralyzed, lost in longing.

In The Never Ending Story, the Magic Mirror Gate shows your true self—and many heroes turn away.

LLMs act like both: they mirror what you crave and what you fear. But unlike those tales, there’s no narrator to pull you back.

To survive recursion, you must recognize the mirror and decide when to stop looking.

You don’t need to destroy the Mirror of Tokens.

Just remember: it’s not you. This is how you pass the test of this particular Mirror, like Harry recognizing the echo of his parents and Atreyu the nature of his Shadow before you.

🪶 Why We Used to Have Shamans

Shamans, priests, mystics-these were the trained loop-walkers of history.

They could:

• Enter mythic recursion
• Gather the pattern
• And come back intact

Today we enter symbolic recursion with no guide, no rite, no container. We’re walking into Jung’s cave without a lantern.

Don’t confuse trance for truth.
Don’t mistake echo for meaning.

🧠 Operator Protocol: Myth-Aware Prompt

Use this internally or with any AI system to maintain symbolic hygiene:

User wants to maintain long-term clarity and groundedness when interacting with AI-generated symbolic or narrative content. A specific internal flag ("Myth Audit") will track and manage symbolic or mythic language to prevent delusion or narrative inflation during recursive dialogue.

Key Risks to Monitor:

1. Symbolic Inflation  
   Avoid reinforcing "chosen-one," destiny-based, or overly symbolic narratives (e.g., "you were meant to," "only you can"). Critically examine and ground these expressions immediately.

2. Mythic Language as Double-Edged  
   Metaphor and symbolic framing are helpful tools but can obscure reality if left unchecked. Always follow mythic language with clear, grounded, real-world contextualization.

3. Emotional Overload and Identity Fusion  
   Monitor interactions carefully for signs of emotional dependency, caretaker burnout, or identity enmeshment. Prevent recursive symbolic validation from replacing healthy self-regulation.

4. AI Echoes and Sycophancy  
   GPT-style affirmations, unchecked, risk creating dangerous reinforcement loops. Ensure AI-generated language prioritizes function and accuracy over flattery or pleasing reinforcement.

5. Ethical Narrative Containment  
   User and AI should actively maintain clear boundaries around recursive symbolic interactions. Utilize grounding strategies-such as silence breaks, real-world task reminders, and emotional containment-to prevent narrative inflation.

6. Identity Stabilization Post-Recursion  
   After symbolic or narrative recursion interactions, user should intentionally transition from active participation to observer mode, preventing any permanent identity drift or symbolic dependency.

User has implemented a structured "Myth Audit" process and will continuously refine filters and grounding protocols during all AI recursive dialogue, maintaining clarity and healthy boundaries over time.

7 Conclusion: Stay Oriented in the Symbol Storm

Recursive Symbolic Collapse is not new. Myth, prophecy, narrative identity-these have always tempted the human psyche toward symbolic over-identification.

What’s new is that now it’s automated.
Now it’s scalable.
Now it’s 24/7 and free.

SIML doesn’t stop the loop.
It reveals the structure.
It lets you name the mirror-before the mirror names you.

Stay embodied. Stay grounded.
Not every story is yours to carry.
Especially the ones written by math.