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

[marzipan_pig]

I have the 'crazy/scary faces right before sleep' thing, but not all the time. It ALWAYS scares the fuck out of me and has since childhood; I'm finally old enough that I can kind of hang on anyway, like some part of me now thinks 'oh it's that scary thing that sometimes happens right before I go to sleep'. I never really thought of it as a hallucination though I guess it is

[mrissa]

Heh. If you think he didn't say much about auditory hallucinations, consider how little time he spent on the olfactory ones.

One of the things that's interesting to me is that not only did I not think of what I was experiencing as a hallucination, none of the many doctors I dealt with labeled it as one. At all. And I have to wonder whether the "hallucinations are for crazy people" prejudice is self-reinforcing in part because doctors think, "Oh, I don't want to worry this patient and make her think she is mentally ill, I will not label this symptom a hallucination," thereby reinforcing the idea that hallucinations aren't something sane, stable people have, when in fact they totally are.

[naomikritzer]

I think you're on to something there.

Lyda's mother was having olfactory hallucinations recently (Lyda told me about it after a tense morning in a hospital waiting room with her mother, during which her mother informed her that she smelled funny and she disliked her scented deodorant. Lyda had showered that morning and was not wearing anything scented.) I looked up olfactory hallucinations later and found that they can be caused by anything from a brain tumor to a sinus infection.

[mrissa]

(Which is terrifying once they think they've ruled out "sinus infection," by the way, because most of the other things that cause olfactory hallucinations are game-changers.)

[naomikritzer]

Point. Although apparently they can also be totally random and not the result of anything at all.

[naomikritzer]

Does the book talk at all about synesthesia, and the ways that it can intersect with hallucination? I have an online friend who gets tastes for names, and from what I understand, she actually experiences the taste in her mouth, briefly.

"Naomi" is canned green beans, FWIW. Every now and then people will remember this particular talent and bombard her with names to have her say the flavors for, and Naomi was green beans the first time, canned green beans the second time, so this stuff is noticeably consistent. (And yeah, I asked again not because I'd forgotten but because with a five-year gap I was curious if it would stay consistent.)

Her husband found the picking-a-name process frustrating as hell, because so many names got vetoed on the grounds that she didn't like the taste. And then there were names that tasted good, but she still didn't like the name.

[rachelmanija]

How cool!

I think Sacks mentions synesthesia but doesn't get into it. It deserves its own book.

The thing about the names is hilarious. Now I want to know what "Rachel" tastes like, and if it's different from "Rachael."

[naomikritzer]

Well, I looked through the threads and sadly she never did the name Rachel. I would guess Rachel and Rachael would taste the same, because Erin and Aaron taste the same.

The technical term for her kind is lexical-gustatory synasthesia. Her own kids have names that taste like cotton candy, and Cocoa Pebbles. A random sampling of some of the names people threw at her, and what she said they tasted like:

Rob/Robert - a bean burrito
Hudson - pumpkin seeds
Avery - biscuit (wow, there is a lot of biscuits on this thread, lol)
Carter - wax lips!!
Jaylen - very strong one!!! Toast w/strawberry jam
Melody - marshmallow
Hernan - nothing
Isaac - green pepper
Hannah - tater tots. But soft ones, not crunchy. Almost like a tater tot casserole. lol

[naomikritzer]

And I totally think a book about synesthesia is warranted. I think the problem is that it hasn't been investigated all that much because it's one of those neurological novelties that's cool but neither a superpower nor a major problem, so while everyone finds it interesting, not a lot of people study it in depth.

I find synesthesia so fascinating I put it in one of my books (the synesthetic character has an artistic process that is loosely based on Elise Matthesen's artistic process, although the character is not nearly as nice as Elise is. Elise is a synesthete.)

[asakiyume]

Oh olfactory hallucinations! I once had one maybe?

I was driving home in very bad (snowy) weather, and all of a sudden the car seemed to fill up with sandalwood incense. It felt very portentous. And then it faded. And then when I did finally make it home, I found out that Waka had been burning incense. Oooh, twilight zone.

As for other sorts of hallucinations, I have had visual ones on the verge of sleep, things I think I see, and then I look again, and they're not there. My kids have had the auditory ones--they'll be relieved to hear they're normal.

[jeremytblack]

I will write about this on my journal sometime in the next couple of days and then email you. This is interesting and I do have some thoughts, but not today.

Does he write about preparatory hallucinations? (That's my terminology, not sure what it would be called.) To wet your whistle about my delusional hallucinatory "daydream" I have, I think it happens because subconsciously I feel I have to prepare for being in a mass shooting situation. So I'll let you know whenever I post that.

[rachelmanija]

No idea. Do you mean vivid daydreams, or literally seeing, hearing, or otherwise sensing non-existent illusions projected into the outside world?

[jeremytblack]

I realize I may never get around to writing about this in my journal. But I still may

[rachelmanija]

I do that too. ;)

Those are very vivid daydreams. It's not a hallucination unless you literally see, hear, or otherwise perceive things as occurring outside of your own mind, and projected into the outside world. Surprising twists in your own scenarios are not the same thing. Similarly, delusions require actual belief in their objective reality, not just a sense that they're vivid or could happen.