Was my classmate's interpretation of my fears accurate?

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Those of you who remember my posts from when I first joined this site, you may recall me talking about a chandelier. It hung in the hall of my childhood condominium, where my family lived since before I was born until we moved across the country shortly after I turned 10. I was terrified of that chandelier. Whenever I had to walk though that hall at night, like when going to the bathroom, I always looked down at the floor, so I wouldn't see it. Even during broad daylight, I often covered my eyes when walking past it.

Now, there was a boy in my class, during 1st and 2nd grade, who I got along with pretty well. I wouldn't call him a friend, but he was nice to me, and I trusted him. So when I confided to him about my fear of that chandelier, he never betrayed my trust by telling other people. (Perhaps he thought I was making it up, and just humored me.) In retrospect, I probably should have become true friends with him, rather than just classmates who talked. He might have even considered me a friend, or at least somebody who needed his kindness, and I held him at arm's length without realizing it. But my ability to make friends was almost nonexistent back then, so it's nobody's fault. Plus, that's beyond the scope of this thread.

Anyway, I clearly remember this conversation I had with him during recess one time.

Aspie1: <blah-blah-blah, chandelier, afraid, scary>
Classmate: (concerned) "That's not good! You have listenations." *
Aspie1: "What are 'listenations'?"
Classmate: "It's when you hear or see things that aren't there, things that aren't real."
Aspie1: "The chandelier is there, on the ceiling. And it scares me."
Classmate: Yes, the chandelier is there. Whatever scares you isn't there, but you see it, so it scares you."
Aspie1: (frustrated) "But all I see is the chandelier. And the ceiling around it."
Classmate: "You're seeing something else near it that's scaring you. That's what 'listenations' are. Nobody is afraid of a plain old chandelier."
Aspie1: "What could it be? All I see is the chandelier! And it's not plain, it's scary. There's nothing around it, just the ceiling."
Classmate: "I don't know. It's your chandelier. But listenations can be very scary sometimes."

What's sad is... as nonsensical as my classmate's "listenations" theory was, it sounded and felt much more plausible than anything my therapists could come up with, who I saw some years later. They said "you have an irrational phobia", which was close but no cigar. The idea that I was having some sort of hallucinations feels much more accurate to me. My family just wanted my fear to go away, without delving into what caused it, and I never told them about my conversation with that boy. I somehow feared they'd yell at me for "talking nonsense".

Today, looking back on that conversation, I can't help but wonder: What if autistic fears of harmless objects in the home really do involve hallucinations of some sort? What does everyone else think?

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* I later learned he meant "hallucinations". I don't know where he picked up the word (and misheard it). although I'm impressed he knew about it at such a young age. He just used it in conversation with me, and maybe I was the one who misheard it. The spelling "listenations" was how I imagined it when he said it. Using my aspie logic, I somehow drew a connection to "listening" to nonexistent sounds, and by extension, seeing nonexistent visuals.

I think that you should consult an appropriately-trained and licensed mental-health professional.

It doesn't seem like an hallucination to me but as Fnord said an appropriately-trained and licensed mental-health professional might shed some light on your fear of the chandelier.

It sounds like a 'Specific Phobia' to me.

You were about seven years old. Kids that age fear many things. I certainly did. I was afraid of the Moon; I couldn't look up at it.

I was beginning not to fear the dark, too. I used to fear that my father would come in with the belt, and hit me with it.

If you don't have fears as a child, you really haven't lived, in my opinion.

My screen name is actually in tribute to a kid who defended me in summer camp when I was 9 years old.

Have heard terms "second sight" for stuff like meeting your grandad out in the hollow behind the farm and having conversations with him even though he died years before. But never heard of "listenations".

Like Krafty said children of seven can be afraid of all kinds of silly stuff.

In what way were you afraid of the chandelier? Were you afraid it would fall on you? Or was it just that looking at it gave you the willies for some undefined reason?

A spiritist or natural magic practitioner would probably say you're hearing/feeling echoes, like some kind of negative energy that has attached itself to the chandelier, and you being highly sensitive are the only one who can sense it.

...Did you ever read or see any version of The Phantom Of The Opera ?

_________________
Renal kidney failure, congestive heart failure, COPD. Can't really get up from a floor position unhelped anymore:-(.
One of the walking wounded ~ SMASHED DOWN by life and age, now prevented from even expressing myself! SOB.
" Oh, no! First you have to PROVE you deserve to go away to college! " ~ My mother, 1978 (the heyday of Andy Gibb and Player). I would still like to go.
My life destroyed by Thorazine and Mellaril - and rape - and the Psychiatric/Industrial Complex. SOB:-(! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !!

So what do people think? Was my classmate right about me hallucinating in any way? I'm very much curious.

For the purpose of this thread, assume he was being kind and helpful, rather than trying to gaslight me.

I will give you my perception. Let us talk about the other side, opposite childhood. It is when people get very old and begin to lose their memory and Alzheimer's disease sets in and dementia takes hold. As my mom got old, her eyesight began to fail, her hearing was bad and her senses became dull. And she began telling wild stories. For example she called me at 2 AM and asked me to come over immediately to her house because there was a gigantic spider in her room. I dragged myself out of bed and drove an hour to get to her house. When I went into her room, I looked around and could see nothing. "Mom, where is this spider?" She looked around and after a minute she said "There, there it is on the door right behind you." I turned around almost prepared to jump at the first sign of danger. But there was no spider. I looked and looked and no spider. I said "Mom, there is no spider." She said "Yes, it is right there. You have to see it."

So did my Mom see a spider. Yes she did. Was there a spider there? No.
Both statements cannot be true. But they can. Let me explain how.

I am color blind. I see colors like everyone else but it just isn't the same colors that everyone else sees. Years ago they had TVs that had cathode ray tubes. These television generated an electron beam to produce a combination of 3 basic colors (red, green, blue) that were blended together to produce all the colors of the rainbow on the phosphor screen. These were called electron guns. In my case it is like only having 2 guns. My mind made up the third gun. It filled in the missing void.

In my Mom's case, she was not able to see very well. She saw a shadow and her mind tried to make sense of the shadow and it became in her mind a large spider.

She also did this with her hearing. She would hear one or two words and her mind filled in all the missing or distorted words in a paragraph. Therefore she came up with really wild stories.