Have you ever had a hallucination? What was it like? (page 5)

Comatose

I know it doesn't make sense rebel but it wasn't the problem solving that was scary. It was this strange feeling that I was definitely losing sanity, I was on the edge and about to lose it. It was the math problem that was driving it in this case, or so it seemed at that moment. Also, I was a LOT younger and less aware of how the brain works etc.

adamah

TB said- I was slipped something at a party once when I was a teenager (maybe LSD) and for years after I would have hallucinations when I slept.

Jeffro said- Years after? Probably not associated with the drink spiking. More likely a sleep disorder.

Likely said by someone who's not aware of the well-known phenomena of "LSD flashbacks", then (notice TB said they were AWAKE when they noticed the hallucinations, AFTER being asleep).

From http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-08/fyi-can-acid-trip-really-give-you-flashbacks

"I don't think there's any question that HPPD is a genuine clinical phenomenon," says Charles Grob, a professor of psychiatry at UCLA's medical school who does research with hallucinogens.

I've experienced a fully-formed visual hallucination of multiple hooded figures wearing black robes while under a strong sedative. I later figured out the images were likely inspired by an old black-and-white movie I had seen decades before, and the images were still lingering around in my subconscious.

I've also experienced two episodes of sleep paralysis, and would be really freaked out about it, and likely would be a believer in UFO/aliens, demons, etc, if I didn't know what caused it.

Adam

stillin

I did so much acid in the sixties that I don't know which parts of the sixties were real and which were hallucinations! Well, not really. But remember how the anti-drug culture was always putting out scary rumors about the after effects of taking the various psychedelics? Well, I had a hallucination last year (how long since the sixties?) that was so acid-like that it took me by surprise.

I no longer do any of that, not for many moons now. But it's nice to know that my mind can wander out there a little without help. In this case there was no danger. Maybe it was just an anomaly.

Timothy Leary isn't dead, only changed

adamah

Stillin said-

Well, I had a hallucination last year (how long since the sixties?) that was so acid-like that it took me by surprise.

I dunno if you read the article above about flashbacks, but it's an interesting clinical question of whether the person is triggering an overpowering memory from when they were high, or if a few LSD molecules somehow survived in their bodies (perhaps having been stored in body fat, and after weight loss or via regular cellular turnover, have been liberated to re-enter the circulation and make it to the brain?). There's a well-known phenomenon of state-dependent memory, where supposedly people remember better when they're in the same chemical environment in which the memory was created (eg people who learn something while drunk supposedly perform better not while sober, but when drunk).

From the article:

And though scientists know HPPD exists, they still don't know exactly what causes it. "I've spent my life studying this problem and I don't know, is the short answer," Abraham says. "There are a number of clues--they come back to the core concept, it's an imbalance within the inhibitory circuits of the visual processing system."

However you cut it, it's pretty clear that the brain is incredibly complex, and is quite adept and willing at providing answers and explanations to stimuli all on its own, and the brain normally works at suppressing stimuli in order to prevent information overload. Remove the inhibitions, and all bets are off as to what results.

Adam

Ucantnome

In the hot summer of 1976 we were living in a large Victorian house in North London. It was a good summer I wasn't working and days were filled with a lot of late breakfasts and pub visits.

One evening in June or early July it was stifling hot we had the bookstudy at our house and afterward we went to the pub. I had a couple of strong ales and came home had a cup of tea and went to bed.

Early hours of the morning I woke up really warm and after some tossing and turning I thought I could hear voices talking so I listened. I couldn't make out what was said but i thought it was my mother and older brother talking downstairs. I thought they must be in the kitchen below me they probably couldn't sleep and had got up to have a cup of tea. I got out bed looked out the window as I could see light on the garden coming from the kitchen window. Great I thought I would join them.

I went down the hallway and down the stairs and as I got to the bottom of the stairs a chill run up my back so to speak and i peered down the downstairs hallway to the kitchen and it was very dark and quiet and I raced back up to the bedroom and looked out the window and it was very dark in the garden no light shining from the kitchen window.

Must have been the ale.

cofty

I had a fever as a child age about 4 or 5 and saw amazing things and had strange sensations. Mainly it involved cowboys and indians!

When I first heard Comfortably Numb I couldn't believe he was telling my story precisely ...

When I was a child I had a fever
My hands felt just like
Two balloons
Now I've got that feeling once again
I can't explain
You would not understand
This is not how I am

I... Have become comfortably numb

Found Sheep

All my life I have had lucid dreams on and off. They were so bad as a child that I hated to go to sleep. After understanding them they were no longer scarry. I still will walk in my sleep and wake up screaming. I sometimes have a hard time knowing if something happen or if it was just a dream. This morrning I had to check my phone because I couldn't know for sure if I called someone last night. When I was a JW I would think it was demons in the house and would find something to burn

As a nurse I see my patients hallucinate all the time. Sometimes it's do to drugs or withdrawling from, sometimes hospital dilyrium and sometimes mental illness, or sleep disorders.

stillin

My little "flashback" was so real to me that I kind of worried some others in the house. I was looking down across a golf fairway and it became a lake. There was a big drain hole on top of the lake surface and I asked how that could possibly work, on top of the water like that. I was way out there and while somebody was trying to figure out what the hell I was talking about, the real picture came back. Whew!

Every now and then somebody brings that up and it's good for another laugh.

i left my notepad on the counter at a local building supply one time. The girl gets on the loudspeaker system to call me back,"Woodstock....come back, you left your mind behind!"

THE GLADIATOR

Yeah! I dreamed I was Russell Crowe.

Ucantnome

I have thought about the incident in 1976 and the reason why the chill run up my back and i think it had to be related to an incident before. I knew where I was standing when it dawned on me nobody was there. It was F*** me i'm outta here.

But i still think it was the ale and the heat.

Have you ever had a hallucination? What was it like?

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