Ask MetaFilter posts tagged with hallucination

How can I forget an extremely disturbing and nightmarish hallucination/dream that I had, or at least stop being afraid of it?

Anonymous — Sat, 25 Aug 2007 09:53:38 -0800

How can I forget an extremely disturbing and nightmarish hallucination/dream that I had, or at least stop being afraid of it? I was recently at home seeing my parents. My mother was taking a nap on the living room floor, snoring loudly, and I was reading in a chair nearby. That night, I had a dream that was exactly like this and I had no idea that I was asleep. In the dream, I looked up from my book and saw that my mother's face/head was an eyeless blob covered with noses and weird ridges. She was still snoring and it was like all the nostrils covering her head were inhaling. I woke up in a panic and it took me a while to realize that it had been a dream. It scared me more than anything else I have ever seen, but I'm not sure why except that the idea is pretty psychotic.

It sounds silly, but I still feel really disturbed about it days later and it's bothering me. I wonder if anyone else has tried to get a disturbing but fantastical image out of their head, or how I could do it.

Crazy visual anomaly

phrontist — Thu, 31 May 2007 22:45:24 -0800

WTF-Filter: The left side of my visual field is being overtaken by what can only be described as... a crawling anomaly. If you imagine the sorts of random colors and shapes you see under certain circumstances with your eyes closed, or in the dark, it's like that... except there is also a feeling of movement... as though everything is sort of undulating kaliedscopically. The anomaly tracks along with my eye movement... so I can't look at it... it's always in my periphery. What would cause this, and how can I make it stop? It was making it someone difficult to read a moment ago, though it seems to have drifted a bit from the center of my visual field.

I've never done any psychotropics, haven't stared at any bright lights except my computer monitor, and haven't suffered any head injuries.

Seeing is believing?

Anonymous — Sat, 19 May 2007 20:45:14 -0800

Is it normal to see things that aren't really there? Ever since I stopped wearing contacts about three months ago, or about that time, I've been experiencing frequent visual hallucinations. These include the hair of a woman sitting on the beach continuing to blow after I paused the movie, the sun in my computer wallpaper noticeably seeming to rise, clouds in a framed picture moving about quite violently, a statue of a dog seeming to breathe, and, most disturbingly, light from various light sources seeming to shrink into the light source darkening the area around it.

Is there any reasonable expectation for this behavior? That doesn't have to do with various psychoses or the devil? How do I make it stop?

Do people with delusions ever/often recognize that?

bugbread — Tue, 15 May 2007 06:37:05 -0800

Do people suffering from delusions ever/sometimes/frequently recognize this without it being pointed out to them? This question was prompted by this thread, but isn't only about Capgras syndrome.

You often hear about people who suffer some sort of delusion: in Capgras, that people they know have been replaced by dopplegangers. In others, that there are shadow beings, or aliens, or the like. It seems like, whenever you hear about this, it's a given that the person with those delusions believes that they are real.

Is it that there is some sort of adjunct which turns off the "this doesn't make sense; perhaps I'm having delusions" thought process? Is it just that the self-recognized cases don't get much press?

Note: I'm not talking about paranoid folks who believe they're being watched/wiretapped/bugged/etc., because that is technically physically possible, so it's far easier to believe. I'm talking about situations where, normally, a person would possibly think "that isn't physically possible. Therefore, it must be a delusion. I must be seeing things which aren't really there."

Who hears voices in their heads? Why?

cortex — Sun, 06 Nov 2005 07:08:18 -0800

Voices in your head. What mental disorders are associated with this? What other phenomena? Which historical and mythical figures? I'm working on a novel, and one of my central characters is just coming to terms with the abnormality of a voice in her head. I'm looking for angles and ideas. She's going to talk to a shrink, probably have a sit down with a priest (family is Catholic), and I'm looking for other folks she might talk to and some of the things they might throw at her, along with the sorts of things she might trip across in her own research.

I want to cover everything. Psychiatry, religion, and every other phenomenology y'all can muster. Details are awesome, but jumping-off points and references are welcome and probably more than a panicked writer deserves.