Neuroscience What's this mental state called?

[mauve]

Is there a term for a mental state where you see patterns or connections in things totally random? Like something that's a coincidence is not

 

[polymath]

Apophenia - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

That's a bit similar to paranoia, but not necessarily perceived as threatening.

 

[darkFrozenLight]

Perhaps 'delusions of self-reference' or synchronicity.

 

[Snafu in the Void]

Is there a term for a mental state where you see patterns or connections in things totally random? Like something that's a coincidence is not

I'm not sure if there is a true medical word for it, but it is certainly a prominent feature of schizophrenia, delusional psychosis, paranoia, or some types of bipolar.

It's related to the "dopamine hypothesis" of psychosis.

In a 'normal' brain, external salience causes a relative and appropriate release of dopamine, which tells our brains how important that external stimulus might be to our survival. In a malfunctioning brain, dopamine itself causes salience for no reason, leading people to believe completely mundane things or random coincidences have extraordinary significance, when in fact it means nothing.

Our brains, at it's most core process, use dopamine not as a reward tool, but as a tool to calculate prediction of reward or harm. If you have misfiring dopamine, benign objects or information will seem incredibly important to you (as if it were going to harm or reward you). If you cannot perceive direct harm or reward (such as recurring numbers in odd places), you will feel it has great importance, but cannot explain why.

This video does a good job at explaining our best understanding of it: