A 22-year-old male is brought to the psychiatric emergency department by his parents. He has been increasingly isolating in his room for 6 months, stopped attending college, and was found talking to himself. During the interview, the patient makes poor eye contact and appears internally preoccupied. When asked about his mood, he responds, 'The satellites are downloading frequencies into my cerebral cortex and the government knows about the calcium deposits.' His affect is flat throughout. He intermittently pauses mid-sentence and appears to be listening to something. The PMHNP documents on the MSE that the patient's thought process is best described as: