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

[klwilliams]

I have visual hallucinations in my awake moments while sleepwalking. I tend to go back and forth between the bedroom and the bathroom while asleep (often asleep for only part of the trip), and I'll see cats or more rarely other objects as I try to fill in dark spaces. Weird, but not scary.

[isabelknight]

That's fascinating! I was also really relieved to read about how common it is to hear voices - I've heard (as in, I would swear that the sound existed, not as in, I had a thought that was like someone else's voice in my head, which I also get from time to time) voices since I was a little kid, but very rarely.

Embarrassingly, right up until I was diagnosed with a mental illness that sometimes presents with auditory hallucinations (in my late 20s), I really thought they might be real. Finding out that these rare but usually funny or comforting visits were just a mis-firing of my fucked-up brain was really depressing. It's good to know that they might have been produced as a part of normal human experience rather than being further evidence of how my specific treacherous brain was trying to mess with me, if that makes sense.

[rachelmanija]

I'm glad it was heartening! I can't speak for your particular case, of course, but auditory hallucinations are quite common in people without mental illnesses, so even if you do have a mental illness, that may not be what's causing it.

Hallucinations caused by mental illness are typically threatening, frightening, or otherwise unpleasant, not funny or comforting.

[tool_of_satan]

They are called hypnogogic hallucinations and are extremely common, and the particular things I see are commonly seen, along with other stereotyped visuals.

The only hypnogogic hallucination I get with any regularity (assuming that's what it is) is a sudden bright flash of light and a faint sound - it's very similar to having an old disposable flash bulb go off in your face. I wouldn't mind it except that it tends to jolt me awake.

I can't remember ever having any other hallucinations, although it wouldn't surprise me if I did sometimes when I'm sick and I simply don't recall. I have articulated my thoughts inside my head as speech ever since I was a fairly young child, but it's always my conscious mind speaking, so I don't experience it as an auditory hallucination.

[naomikritzer]

I had never thought of migraine aura as a hallucination, but that would be one. I don't get migraines; I get aura without migraine. Which can still be very annoying. I guess despite knowing it's neurological I can't help but think of it as an eye problem rather than a brain problem

[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!