Today we are going to continue our discussion of megalomania disorder by focusing specifically on delusional behavior.
An overweening and excessive preoccupation with one's own importance, though it may be considered pathological, is often times a distinct symptom of delusional behavior. A delusion of grandeur, if it is a true delusion, must meet the psychiatric criteria for delusion. Whereas it is possible, in the case of megalomania, for an actually important man/woman to be preoccupied with his/her own actual importance, a person suffering from delusions of grandeur would stubbornly entertain patently false, generally fantastic and often highly complex ideas of his/her own importance, often with a supernatural bent. (like thinking they are of "the 6th sense")
Delusions of grandeur would seem to be one of the two main - and possibly connected - delusions of paranoid schizophrenia. And, it is interesting to note, delusions of grandeur, though constituting psychotic ideation, are possibly largely recreational in nature and represent irrational and compelling but not unpleasant or disturbing fantasies. (like thinking that your website has replaced the media).
What is salient in delusions of grandeur is not just that the grandiose self conception is usually fantastic but also that the ordinary and laborious channels of achievement are completely circumvented and a shortcut route is taken to a "success" which is exaggerated to the point of caricature. (like claiming to be an influential politico or the editor of a 'Review')
It is also interesting to note that delusions of persecution may be intrinsically related to - and the flip-side of - delusions of grandeur in that the very idea that one is being persecuted by a complex of conspirators involves a sense of greatly elevated self-importance. (like thinking that a large number of people are out to get you because you think you have a prominent political name).
Delusions of persecution, though generally disturbing and unpleasant - i.e. effectively different - can be seen to similarly arise from a grandiose self-conception.
