Mania is bright white hot light and energy that burns itself out like certain sized stars do, in a brilliant flash that ultimately ends in destruction of organization but, in doing so, creates fireworks that are unparalleled. No one should seek mania, though, because it is often extremely tough on the mind and can lead to post-traumatic stress from the events that take place during the manic episode.
They (manic episodes) are rare even in most bipolar individuals with some never fully reaching the manic state. If harnessed, amazing creativity and productivity can be yielded from a manic phase but, more often than not, it results in hospitalization from thoughts that are completely hallucinatory and unwarranted.
Mania is the height of neural and psychological activity and connectivity. Hypomania, while mimicking many of the traits of mania, is much more subdued and productive over longer periods of time. No true mania can be maintained for very long because it completely exhausts the mind's ability to continue with such unnatural energy and drive.
Mania is not productive in any normal sense of the word "productive" because it often results in doing things that have no purpose or importance to others or to even oneself once the mania has ended. Arranging paperclips by breadth and weight may appear useful to a manic mind, but it will utterly lose the gloss of the label of "needs doing" once the manic state has ended.
How long does a manic episode last? Anywhere from minutes to hours to days, perhaps even into weeks. The more prolonged the manic state typically the more damage has been done in terms of needing rest or in terms of the ensuing mental crash.
It is an emotional state that is hardly surpassed by any other in terms of its brightness and height. It has an illusory nature, however, and it often can be so overwhelmingly bright and luminescent that it blinds the manic individual to the sobering reality of their true, non-manic selves.
Mania is unbridled energy. It is awareness of that which can not be made clear in lesser emotional conditions.
It is understanding of that which was not previously understood or at least the impression of such understanding. It is love and joy and happiness all turned up exponentially. Mania can be chemically induced or it can come about from various conditions of the mind or brain.
It can be triggered by various factors inside and outside of an individual mind. Mania is not real but a fleeting glimpse of something both hyper-real and completely forged by the manic mind.
It is genius and idiocy. It is blindness and passion. It is being aware of that which was previously unattainable and that which may not be real but, at the time of a manic period, seems clear, crisp, and flawless. Mania is often associated with a state in bipolar disorder, which was formerly referred to as manic-depression.
Mania is fleeting as no brain or mind can sustain such force and vibrance.On the other end of the manic episode is the coming depression. Like a sprinter who has completely run out of energy, the manic mind is sure to burn out and become the opposite of this brightness.
Depression awaits and will come crashing in like a million heavy anvils onto a fragile glass slipper.Mania is not real but for a brief period of hours, days, or at absolute most, weeks. Mania can lead, and often does, to a psychotic break and this is just the result of a mental engine gone into overdrive and broken.
From my own experience, manic episodes can be caused by greatly positive or negative events, the former causing a building elation and the latter producing stresses that break the normal barriers that keep my mind regular. Some medications or drugs can cause these states and are very dangerous because of it. Anti-depressants, for example, can trigger, in the manic-depressive (aka bipolar) mind, a rise towards full-blown mania.
