Subject Sass it sucked
Subject Fury I will respond to that. First of all your initial statement of animals does not ring true. Whereas animals do not have complex emotions to the extent of a human, they do go as far as sadness and fear. Elephants have been known to mourn the dead of their herd and to become physically depressed when their mate dies early. As for fear, everytime there is a thunderstorm my dog becomes terrified, despite never being struck by lightning or hurt in anyway from that. Just like us humans, animals have both rational and irrational fears, both of which can affect them in a negative way.
Hallucinations are had by a mind that has excess energy or is affected by some chemical imbalance in the brain. This can be caused in most brains as most have the imperfections that cause such a reaction in the mind. I can be looked at the same way you or an animal dreams while it is sleeping. Where as neither of the dreams tend to have a coherent train of thought to it, you could be eating a Sunday at a barber shop for example and a dog dreams that it is chasing something as it runs and barks slightly as it sleeps. Dreams and hallucination are still not completely understood by us yet and as such we cannot be the judges of their complex nature, nor what they are caused by and what they mean.
Self actualization is one of the things a Human strives for, the true question as to why we exist. Some believe a higher power created us, others a lucky strain of genetics and evolution. Either way, the human pysch strives for meaning in itself and struggling to find it is one of the biggest challenges we will face as a person and as society as a whole. Rather than the downword spiral you describe I believe that humans are coming closer and closer to finding out the true meaning of existence.
Once we discover such a think I believe we will begin to unlock the true potential of humanity, allowing us to expand, to truly study life and how it works, we can move towards peace, cooperation, exploration and such like that. Insanity only comes to those whose minds have nothing or have become unstable for whatever reason, lack of learning doesn't cause insanity, it causes stagnation. The human culture has stagnated before, saved not be scientific discovery, but rather into advancement of the arts. If we have such a stagnation again, I have a feeling more art will emerge, much like what happened in the Dark Ages.
Edit Damn I write that all up and everyones gone >.>