Hallucinations and irrational fears?
I have high functioning Asperger's Syndrome, but am beginning to wonder if I'm also experiencing symptoms from other disorders. Specifically, I'm not sure whether or not a pattern of visuals I've had for a proportion of my life could be counted as hallucinations, and if so, whether there is anything I can do about it.
Mostly, it's nothing that I actually see. Something I see dark shapes, that look like small animals about the size of a cat, running across the floor out of the corner of my eye. I also think I see large fly sized shapes either flying in the air or crawling on walls but there isn't anything when I look more closely.
Also, and this is the part that I don't actually see, sometimes when I look in mirrors, I'm convinced there's somebody behind me. Or I might be brushing my teeth and not looking in the mirror and something tells me that when I look, it won't be my face, but somebody else's, or horribly disfigured in some way. When I'm on my own and about to go through a door, I sometimes feel that there'll be somebody behind it, and have to distract myself by humming or reading through text on my phone to stop being terrified. I get frightening thoughts about people being in my room at night in the dark, and sometimes have to check my reflection just to make sure that nothing's happened to my face.
Is this typical of AS sufferers, or something more?
auntblabby
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Mostly, it's nothing that I actually see. Something I see dark shapes, that look like small animals about the size of a cat, running across the floor out of the corner of my eye. I also think I see large fly sized shapes either flying in the air or crawling on walls but there isn't anything when I look more closely.
Also, and this is the part that I don't actually see, sometimes when I look in mirrors, I'm convinced there's somebody behind me. Or I might be brushing my teeth and not looking in the mirror and something tells me that when I look, it won't be my face, but somebody else's, or horribly disfigured in some way. When I'm on my own and about to go through a door, I sometimes feel that there'll be somebody behind it, and have to distract myself by humming or reading through text on my phone to stop being terrified. I get frightening thoughts about people being in my room at night in the dark, and sometimes have to check my reflection just to make sure that nothing's happened to my face.
Is this typical of AS sufferers, or something more?
Yes but I think they're mostly under my control. As child though they were out of control but since then I've learn to process what's real and what isn't. Still it's a nightmare sometimes, I was diagnosed with everything else except Schizophrenia...which I know I don't have. They mostly happen in my peripheral view now but I use to have an imaginative mind. I could swear I'd see the statue my family had of a boy holding grapes was offering them to me. They had to remove it because of the attacks I had while asleep and awake. The "awake" dreams I had seem very real and frightening. I don't tell people about them for fear of having to be heavily medicated as I have been. On a good note, if can get them under control I think "they" helped inspire me to paint.
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happymusic
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Aunt Blabby, I'd like to know more about the phenomenon. Do you know the term for it?
OP, I see stuff all the time - like things scurrying by or on the walls or in the sky, but I don't think it has anything to do with AS. Nothing I've read on AS makes references to hallucinations.
Thank you to everybody who replied to this. I'm sure I read somewhere (maybe on here, actually) that some people with AS do seem to display symptoms from delusion or thought disorders. I'm not sure whether or not it's true, but it seems to make sense. I still half believe that people can read my thoughts and therefore try very hard not to think anything that I don't want anybody to hear. But I don't consider it to be a problem because it doesn't rule my life, at least not to the same extent as a lot of my AS issues, but I do think it's interesting if it's linked to Asperger's...
The worry I get about people looking at me in the mirror or people attacking me in the night, that worries me more, but it tends to come and go in phases.
auntblabby
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Aunt Blabby, I'd like to know more about the phenomenon. Do you know the term for it?
OP, I see stuff all the time - like things scurrying by or on the walls or in the sky, but I don't think it has anything to do with AS. Nothing I've read on AS makes references to hallucinations.
i googled and i could find nothing. sorry. when one has these images upon waking, they have been referred-to as hypnagogic hallucinations.
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I have always had weird visual issues. I sometimes see this dark blob thing pacing around my bed at night, I used to see a dog sitting there, shadow people on walls... but I see static in the dark and I can trip out on it and it becomes faces or things if I focus on it. I see purple and yellow dots as well . I also have sleep problems where I get stuck in that place before sleep and see things and I have sleep paralysis issues where I see and feel things. I also see dark in waves that flash over me and it gets darker and darker at night.
I know what you mean about the mirror thing as well. I have seen people behind me who are not there. I have snakes and if I focus on the glass I can sometimes see people who are not there in the glass. Reflective surfaces mess with me if I let them. I get the whole out of the corner of my eye crap as well. From where I sit there is always someone lurking near my coat rack or right out of sight half behind the door into my living room that vanishes when I look at it. I have been like this for a long time so it really does not bother me unless I see something new.
On a funny note, I was sitting on the couch awhile ago and saw something running across a pillow on my lap. I figured it was not real, but it was real. It was a big, fat spider and I proceeded to freak out and throw the pillow and then I had to track the thing down and put it outside because it looked like if it would bite me I would need to go see a doc about it. Now I hate it when stuff like that happens.
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Yes, it's the exact same with me, only I usually see them as cats, not as dogs.
Yes, this is the exact same with me. I have a snake as well, and there's a mirror opposite his tank that reflects shadows into each other, and freaks me out when I catch reflections in them, since I'm always positive I can see things moving in them.
Mostly, it's nothing that I actually see. Something I see dark shapes, that look like small animals about the size of a cat, running across the floor out of the corner of my eye. I also think I see large fly sized shapes either flying in the air or crawling on walls but there isn't anything when I look more closely.
Also, and this is the part that I don't actually see, sometimes when I look in mirrors, I'm convinced there's somebody behind me. Or I might be brushing my teeth and not looking in the mirror and something tells me that when I look, it won't be my face, but somebody else's, or horribly disfigured in some way. When I'm on my own and about to go through a door, I sometimes feel that there'll be somebody behind it, and have to distract myself by humming or reading through text on my phone to stop being terrified. I get frightening thoughts about people being in my room at night in the dark, and sometimes have to check my reflection just to make sure that nothing's happened to my face.
Is this typical of AS sufferers, or something more?
I get the same to be honest. It sometimes really scares me. It normally happens to me when it is in the dark and when I am in my bed going to sleep or drifting in and out of sleep. I can see things emerge out of objects in the room. I hate it!! !! !! I get really startled by it a lot of the time.
I was reading that the the pineal gland contains certain hallucinogenic chemicals and that a melatonin imbalance can cause a disturbance with these hallucinogenic chemicals. I think this is the paper I read it in: http://www.securenet.net/members/aaxt/h ... ewFormat(2).pdf 'Autism viewed as a Function of Pineal Gland Malfunction'
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postpaleo
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There is a thing called optical migraines, very common around here, or more so then other people I have talked with in other places. They come in flavors, so to speak, shapes. Worth looking into, Vitamin E fixed mine, low dose, very low.
They can be scary if you don't know what they are and scary if you do. Painless and freakin predictable in my case. Good ol Vitamin E knocked mine down.
auntblabby
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They can be scary if you don't know what they are and scary if you do. Painless and freakin predictable in my case. Good ol Vitamin E knocked mine down.
i take vit e and i don't know if it reduces mine or not, IOW i still have 'em. also i have aural migraines, in which one side or the other of my hearing will go deaf only at a particular frequency, roughly 1000 cycles per second. when i get these, i find that the affected side will resonate with a "wolf tone" when i hear a sound with a 1000 cycle-per-second component to it, and this wolf tone will be a range of frequencies on either side of 1000 cycles per second with a big notch roughly at 1000 cycles. this wolf tone sounds to me like much louder tinnitus banded at midrange frequencies, riding on top of my normal tinnitus. i get these now and then, some last longer than others. i think this phenomemon is analagous to the visual disortion [scatomas or "jaggies"] of visual migraines. so far [god-willing] i have found that the best solution to both these kinds of migraines is to take a combo of aspirin [or NSAID] and caffeine and acetominiphen [tylenol] then turn out the lights and go to bed for a bit. as i fall asleep i enjoy the light show the visual migraine presents me, sort of like free entertainment. i guess one could say that is taking lemons and making lemonade out of 'em.
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