''Idios kosmos'' (from ) is people's "own world" or "private world" as distinguished from the "common world" (). The origin of the term is attributed to fragment B89 (

Diels–Kranz numbering Diels–Kranz (DK) numbering is the standard system for referencing the works of the ancient Greek pre-Socratic philosophers, based on the collection of quotations from and reports of their work, ''Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker'' (''The Fragment ...

) of the

pre-Socratic philosopher Pre-Socratic philosophy, also known as early Greek philosophy, is ancient Greek philosophy before Socrates. Pre-Socratic philosophers were mostly interested in cosmology, the beginning and the substance of the universe, but the inquiries of the ...

Heraclitus Heraclitus (; ; ) was an Ancient Greece, ancient Greek Pre-Socratic philosophy, pre-Socratic philosopher from the city of Ephesus, which was then part of the Achaemenid Empire, Persian Empire. He exerts a wide influence on Western philosophy, ...

: "The waking have one common world, but the sleeping turn aside each into a world of his own." The term has various interpretations: is associated with

dream A dream is a succession of images, ideas, emotions, and sensation (psychology), sensations that usually occur involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of sleep. Humans spend about two hours dreaming per night, and each dream lasts around ...

ing,

imagination Imagination is the production of sensations, feelings and thoughts informing oneself. These experiences can be re-creations of past experiences, such as vivid memories with imagined changes, or completely invented and possibly fantastic scenes ...

, and

delusion A delusion is a fixed belief that is not amenable to change in light of conflicting evidence. As a pathology, it is distinct from a belief based on false or incomplete information, confabulation, dogma, illusion, hallucination, or some other m ...

; with

wakefulness Wakefulness is a daily recurring brain state and state of consciousness in which an individual is conscious and engages in coherent cognition, cognitive and behavioral responses to the external world. Being awake is the opposite of being asleep, ...

reason Reason is the capacity of consciously applying logic by drawing valid conclusions from new or existing information, with the aim of seeking the truth. It is associated with such characteristically human activities as philosophy, religion, scien ...

, and

consensus reality Consensus reality refers to the generally agreed-upon version of reality within a community or society, shaped by shared experiences and understandings. This understanding arises from the inherent differences in individual perspectives or subjec ...

. From the 1950s, the term was adopted by phenomenological/ existential psychologists, such as

Ludwig Binswanger Ludwig Binswanger (; ; 13 April 1881 – 5 February 1966) was a Swiss people, Swiss psychiatrist and pioneer in the field of existential psychology. His parents were Robert Johann Binswanger (1850–1910) and Bertha Hasenclever (1847–1896). ...

and Rollo May, to refer to the experience of people with delusions or other problems who have trouble seeing beyond a limited private world of their own minds or who confuse this private world with shared reality. It was an important part of novelist Philip K. Dick's views on

schizophrenia Schizophrenia () is a mental disorder characterized variously by hallucinations (typically, Auditory hallucination#Schizophrenia, hearing voices), delusions, thought disorder, disorganized thinking and behavior, and Reduced affect display, f ...

, as expressed in his 1964 essay "Schizophrenia & 'The Book of Changes'", where he drew on his familiarity with the existential psychologists, Heraclitus, and the ''

I Ching The ''I Ching'' or ''Yijing'' ( ), usually translated ''Book of Changes'' or ''Classic of Changes'', is an ancient Chinese divination text that is among the oldest of the Chinese classics. The ''I Ching'' was originally a divination manual in ...

''. The is mentioned in the Dick novel '' Lies Inc.'' where the protagonist mentions that he was "able to maintain contact with the stable objective so that I never forgot that what I was seeing emanated from my own psyche".

References

Conceptual models Schizophrenia Heraclitus {{Philo-stub