Do you ever hallucinate?

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- I do mean non-drug related - I was shy to admit to my psychiatrist that I do on some occasions have some odd hallucinations. IN fact this was probably the first time I ever admitted it to anyone - professional or otherwise. Fortunately the good doctor was reasonably supportive and told me that according to studies he is familiar with around 20% of adults do have some non-drug induced hallucinations. Although only about 1% are schizophrenic. He also pointed out that just as there are people with some autistic traits but are subclinical and therefore not diagnosable with an Autism Spectrum Disorder. There are also people who have some schizophrenic traits but to a subclinical level and are therefore not diagnosable with a psychosis or schizophrenia type condition.

In my particular case - I recall a recent event when I looked in the mirror - I was wide awake and was not under the influence of any medication or intoxicant - When looking in the mirror I saw rather grotesque hairs growing out of my nose and all over my face - Well, I knew immediately that this was not empirical reality, I shook my head and blinked my eyes and it was still there. I repeated shaking my head and blinking my eyes probably three or four times before it went away. Well, It frankly did motivate me to go get a haircut that day - a task that I always dread doing.

I will also at time hear people talking when clearly no one is there - but not in intelligible voices. Since I have experienced this to some extent all my life - it does not particularly upset me. Also, I think I do have fairly strong logical faculties that inform on the difference between reality and unreality. I've also learned not to be afraid of this peculiar phenomena.

My psychiatrist - my 36 year-old, long haired, bearded, surfer, liberal democrat and Mormon Sunday School teacher psychiatrist does not feel that I am schizophrenic - but because my father was severely and profoundly schizophrenic - I have probably just inherited some of the traits - But since they are not causing me any trouble or stress - it is basically a subclinical situation. I have enough to deal with having level one Autism with an anxiety disorder.

Just curious if others experience anything similar.

My father was schizophrenic too, so I have always been sceptical about schizophrenia also.

I remember as a child I used to think that the pictures I saw in my head were schizophrenic. I used to be able to stare at patterns really closely and squint my eyes and I could pretend I was looking at a scene from another planet, and if the texture, colour was right I could manipulate the shadows or contrasts to morph into animals or little people. Which I can still do now but I don't. I think this was related to when I was stressed I would do things like this and it would calm me down.

If there is something I am unfamiliar with, like a street or building or somebody shows me a photograph, I think sometimes my mind tries to fill in the gaps and I see something else, like a distortion. It's like I can't tell which way around the picture is in the photograph. It's like I'm saying to myself that looks strange, and then "oh yeah" as the actual picture pops into view.

Ever since I was a child shadows would bend and flicker and also I can stare at a light and I can see my own pupils dilating and contracting and the light would dim and get brighter.

Sometimes I've looked at shadows and I swear there isn't a shadow there.

I think I induce some of mine because I can stare at a
Street lamp. When I look away it can create an orb in my vision, if I focus on the orb it becomes more pronounced and starts floating in front of my face, I have seen this orb in green, red, and bluish purple, although staring at lights also induces headaches.

I can be looking at a clear blue sky, and It can look like it's snowing, I get loads of sparkly stars that float around my eyes.

The other hallucination I get and this happens when I am really stressed, is when I close my eyes I see swirly patterns, shapes, colours, sometimes I have closed my eyes and normally It would be black but sometimes this has turned to sheer white. A blinding white. I can't always make out the shapes sometimes there not that pronounced and they just play around in the background.

I can lucid dream if I am really tired and I will dream before I deep sleep.

But none of this I would describe as disturbing.

I don't really see things that I know of. I do however hear things from time to time. My Dr is aware of this and he has me on Haldol.

I'm always seeing things out of the corner of my eye.

At night, things always look like they're moving while I'm struggling to sleep. That was worse as a kid as I had toys all over the floor and they always looked like they were moving. Then suddenly they'd be still when I turned on the light.

Yes, and handles moving. There´s even a page for people, who see things out of the corner of the eye, - and even theories and a mythology about the "shadow people". Some have "seen them for real and they had red eyes"! Honestly! It is a simple neurological phenomenon.

I see colours when I get shiatsu massage. Last time it was orange and green.
And once with acupuncture a vision I uses to see as a child returned. I was in my 30's then and haven't seen it since.

Once when I was 27, I woke to see what looked like the Christian Mary sitting by my bedside watching over me. Initially I thought it was a lady I knew, and I asked her what she was doing there, and she vanished. It scared me enough to keep me awake for a few hours. Strange, I'd never dabbled in religion.

I've had hypnopompic hallucinations, or something very like them. I'd sometimes realise I was asleep and wake myself up, and often, if I kept my eyes closed, I'd see very vivid, coloured pictures, just for a minute or so. The first one scared me, but after that I enjoyed them.

I don't put these things down to a disorder. It's not surprising if the brain isn't quite normal when it's just woken up.

I sometimes think I see things out of the corner of my eyes, although I got that alot more before I moved onto contact lenses. I also got that more when I was stressed or in a bad situation, like a high school classroom.

Sometimes I relive my memories in a quick burst and I am not sure if that is consider a hallucination or not. Also, I get a lot of feelings of people watching me or being around me when I am completely alone. But I would never tell my doctor since I don't want to go to jail or whatever they label the mental hospital.

I sometimes have olfactory hallucinations triggered by visual stimuli. When I was younger, that made me think computer monitors were "windows" to alternate universes. When I became older, I didn't believe that anymore and described the experience as almost smelling something, as I knew it was triggered by visual stimuli but wasn't real.

I haven't experienced other kinds of hallucinations, but when I was experiencing anxiety because of the public middle school I went to (which persisted for some time after I went to a different school), I had perceptual distortions like white noise sounding like voices and seeing stuffed animals, statues, and paintings move in the corner of my eye in a way that the real thing would. However, after I stopped having that anxiety, the perceptual distortions went away.

I sometimes heard whispers I couldn't make out when I was suffering from a psychotic depression 12 years ago.

Yes I do occasionally have the odd episode of hallucinations. It generally occurs during exam season for me.. The time I'm most stressed for some reason. It ranges from whispering, really loud blaring music to even visual hallucinations.

I remember during a Science GCSE exam, I had an auditory hallucination of Michael Jackon's "Beat It". It was so loud and it sounded like someone had speakers blaring in the exam hall - the most inconvenient hallucination I've had to date.. I've also had hallucinations of celebrities walking around whilst I am sitting an exam.

It can be an

Nothing major. Sometimes think I've left my computer playing a podcast or music at a really low volume, but when I check there isn't anything playing. It sounds like a low burble of speech or singing, but I can never make out the words. Also, when I close my eyes I often see patterns and textures, but I'm not sure if those qualify as hallucinations.

I was on a prescription drug once and saw newsprint on my toes, but when I tried to read the words they all vanished.

I'm schizophrenic. For me hallucinations make up the large majority of my current schizophrenia symptoms, but when I have relapsed severely in the past, I was very delusional, confused and had to be on 1:1 nursing for a while due to severe self harm and confusion (for example I forgot that I was supposed to eat and drink to survive).

I would never, ever take hard drugs like cocaine, LSD etc. I have enough going on in my head than to add those on top.

I have smoked marijuana on two occasions but second time had an awful experience (believe second one was a stronger type).

I have been getting quite a lot of olfactory hallucinations lately, which I am surprised by.