Hallucinations, by Oliver Sacks

[rachelmanija]

A book on hallucinations which are not caused by schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders. (It also doesn’t deal much with culturally normal hallucinations, which is too bad.) Hallucinations - sensory perceptions which occur during waking and are not based on consensus reality - are surprisingly common, and include many experiences which

Comments

[swan_tower]

I've had three or four experiences in my life of napping (it never happens at night, oddly) and thinking that I've decided to get up, but can barely move -- it's like my entire body is made of lead, and dragging myself off the couch is the hardest thing I've done in my life. Then I realize I haven't actually gotten up, so I try again, and again, and again . . . and eventually I actually wake up, and I'm fine. Not your "encased in stone," but almost certainly the same neurological experience, interpreted slightly differently.

And yeah, I agree -- I'd love to know more about the neurology behind such things.

[rachelmanija]

I have that ALL THE TIME. It's annoying but not scary. I am pretty sure it's not technically a hallucination, but a dream interpretation of being physiologically on the edge of waking, but not quite there yet.

[swan_tower]

I'd call it a hallucination, because for me at least, it's intensely sensory. I see the world around me, I feel the weight of my limbs, etc.

[rachelmanija]

If you're actually seeing the real world, you're awake and it's a hallucination. If you're dreaming that you're seeing the real world, you're asleep and it's a dream.

Only an EEG can say for sure!

[swan_tower]

Right, somewhere in there I managed to lose hold of the fact that "hallucination while asleep" = "dream." (Possibly because I almost never remember my dreams.)

Clearly I need more sleep. :-P

[telophase]

Sleep paralysis! Essentially, your brain paralyzes your body during part of the sleep cycle so you don't act out your dreams and hurt yourself, but it's a wee bit glitchy, because if you start to wake up, you sense that you're paralyzed and your dreaming brain tries to figure out why.

I get it a lot if I'm exhausted such that my body wants to do nothing but sleep but my brain is racing too much to really let go and sleep, and I experienced it yesterday after a nap I'd taken after taking migraine meds--I kept trying to call for or text my husband to ask him what we were doing for dinner, and I'd fall back into the dream-state and dream that I talked to him or that I texted him, then wake up out of it a bit and realize that not only did I not do it, I couldn't move to text or call him. Over and over again. Annoying, because I knew what was happening in the more lucid moments, and the dreams were vivid enough that I really had to stop and think if it had happened or not!