What if i am hallucinating

Treatment of hallucinations There are different treatment options depending on the cause of hallucinations. Living with hallucinations Everyday strategies are very helpful for coping with hallucinations. These include: Connecting with people with similar experiences. Finding a meaning and purpose in your life. Accepting that it is an aspect of your personality which makes you who you are. Understanding that many people with hallucinations live happy and successful lives.

Practical advice for family and friends Accept that the person is experiencing voices or visions. These experiences are like real perceptions and can be very puzzling and frightening.

Showing love and support will help the person to feel safe expressing their concerns to you. Encourage the person to describe their experiences. What is it like? Do they hear different voices? What do the voices say? These may account for feelings and emotions. Suggest that the person might be able to draw on their own particular strength to help them cope with or overcome the hallucinations.

The thought is terribly frightening. The idea of someone having the ability to see things that the rest of the world did not made me fearful of my aunt. What if she reacted to me in an inappropriate or unexpected way and justified her behavior due to a vision or sound that I could not access? I felt helpless, confused and scared — and I suspect these emotions are shared widely by society towards those with schizophrenia.

To an outsider, the symptoms are just too hard to understand. Years later, I still feel perplexed by exactly what it means to hallucinate, despite no longer being an outsider. I am a person with schizoaffective disorder. But I also have rampant mood swings, leaving me ecstatic for an hour, perhaps several days, followed by hours or days of feeling depressed or suicidal.

The imperfect descriptions made it incredibly difficult for me to identify as a person who hallucinates for a very long time. In my case, I experience a tunneling, narrowing of my focus and attention from reality to the hallucination.

I experience it like a camera lens focusing on its subject, where the background becomes blurrier depending on how lost in it I am. For example, if I have an abusive voice, I react as though it is my mother abusing me. Their realness to me is dependent upon my level of reacting to them as if they are real. However, I do not perceive them the same way as if my actual mother were talking to me. These experiences can occur at any time. They are uncontrollable, and only subside with medication.

They are a part of me, and I view them as natural as my left arm. My hallucinations and psychosis often occur as a result of a stressful build up. For example, my hallucinations were triggered once while on a trip. Alcohol withdrawal delirium AWD is the most serious form of alcohol withdrawal. Here are psychologists' take on it. An introvert is often thought of as a quiet, reserved, and thoughtful individual. Experts say the COVID pandemic added to the stresses of job insecurity and food shortages already felt by People of Color and young adults.

Health Conditions Discover Plan Connect. Mental Health. Medically reviewed by Timothy J. Legg, Ph. Types of hallucinations. What causes hallucinations? How are hallucinations diagnosed? How are hallucinations treated?

What can I expect in the long term? Read this next. Does Bipolar Disorder Cause Hallucinations? Function, Hallucination, and More. Philadelphia, PA: Elsevier; chap Kelly MP, Shapshak D.

Thought disorders. Updated by: Fred K. Editorial team. Common hallucinations can include: Feeling sensations in the body, such as a crawling feeling on the skin or the movement of internal organs.

Hearing sounds, such as music, footsteps, windows or doors banging. Hearing voices when no one has spoken the most common type of hallucination. These voices may be positive, negative, or neutral.