Ideas and delusions of reference
belief that certain gestures, environmental cues, innocuous events, comments and so forth are directed at oneself
Ideas of reference and delusions of reference describe the phenomenon of an individual experiencing innocuous events or mere coincidences and believing they have strong personal significance. It is "the notion that everything one perceives in the world relates to one's own destiny", usually in a negative and hostile manner.
In psychiatry, delusions of reference form part of the diagnostic criteria for psychotic illnesses such as schizophrenia, delusional disorder, schizoaffective disorder and bipolar disorder with mania, as well as for schizotypal personality disorder. To a lesser extent, their presence can be a hallmark of paranoid personality disorder, as well as body dysmorphic disorder. They can be found in autism during periods of intense stress. They can also be caused by intoxication, such as from stimulants like methamphetamine. Psychedelics like psilocybin have also been reported to produce ideas of reference during experiences. They are also a common side effect of cannabis in which benign innocous events are believed by the experiencing individual to be personally significant, and can be caused by high-THC cannabis, especially in sensitive individuals or high doses. These experiences are part of temporary, dose-related psychotic symptoms like paranoia, delusions, and anxiety.
Examples
Persons with ideas of reference may experience:
Believing that "somehow everyone on a passing city bus is talking about them".
“Ideas and delusions of reference” enters the record as belief that certain gestures, environmental cues, innocuous events, comments and so forth are directed at oneself. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Ideas, delusions and belief can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2215516. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Ideas and delusions of reference” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.