A being that is catatonic or experiencing the emotion of catatonia is one that is almost completely shut down and devoid of any emotional affect. The catatonic individual may have arrived at such a state for a number of reasons, physical, mental, or both.
Catatonic individuals have, for one reason or another, completely shut down and what it is like to be in such a state can only be guessed at from the outside.
A severely depressed or traumatized person may be so stricken with negative emotion that they can do no more than simply maintain homeostasis and breath.
They will not eat or move or make eye contact.
There are, perhaps, various levels of catatonia, but they are all just above death on the emotional spectrum. Perhaps a great loss or injury can cause such a state.
Perhaps the best way to describe a catatonic state in terms of emotion is a near complete lack of emotion that has been derived from a state of complete shock.
Certain minds can not handle certain stimuli or observations without nearly shutting down.
Perhaps all minds of all beings have their breaking points and no mind can withstand the electrical shutdown that may, in a physicalist understanding of the mind-body problem, lead to a catatonic state.
A blank stare and a rigid inability to move voluntarily are the outward signs of someone who is in a catatonic state.
This can also be brought about by chemicals or by certain electrical, seizure-like states in the neurons of a particular human.
What emotion is being experienced within, behind the stare and the rigid musculature is only a guess.
But, one could assume that the system has all but shut down save for the most basic functions required for the continuation of life.
The difference between a person in a vegetative state and a catatonic state is, perhaps, only in the modes by which the state was realized and the potential for coming out of such a condition.
There is little that can be said about beings who have gone into a catatonic emotional state because they are often unable to report, even when they have come out of such a state.
It is similar to a waking coma or a state of amnesia, in that, the individual may be able to perceive his or her environment but in no way process or respond to such input.
It is as if the microphone is on and the computer can register the sounds, but the speech recognition software is offline.
