I was reminded today of reading about a harmless condition among children where they hallucinate imagined things, I think usually at night.
When I first read about it, I thought that perhaps I had this condition as a child. I remember two incidences pretty clearly, both at night. Once, I saw a treasure chest overflowing with gold and other loot floating through the air. Another time I saw the faces of “classic” monsters like Frankenstein and Dracula on my windowshades, and instead of being afraid I was having pleasant conversation with them. Both these had to have happened before I was 12 years old.
And no, I wasn’t taking any kind of drugs or anything…
I also seem to recall knowing what I was seeing wasn’t real, and not being surprised I was seeing these things, as if these were common occurrences.
I tried some web searching, with no luck. Does this ring any bells with anybody? I’d sure like to read some more about this.
No, I’m not sure I wasn’t asleep, that is certainly a possibility, especially since so much time has passed since the incidences. Hypnagogic and/or hypnopompic hallucinations are definitely possible, too.
Either way, I’m pretty sure I read about the condition, so even if I didn’t exhibit it, I’m fairly confident the condition exists.
It’s just part of being a kid. Kids don’t seperate imaginary from real as well as adults do (not that that’s a bad thing.)
You could probably find some research on it (term = “Piaget”, early psychologist in the childhood area). What we call “hallucinations” can be real to a kid.
How many kids think that Mickey Mouse is real? Believe that other cartoon characters are real? It’s just a part of psychological development. As adults, we have more experience at identifying stimuli ( “floating treasure chest”? Nah, it’s just the shadows.)
This happened once, with my brother and me, when I was about 7 years old. We had just come in from trick or treating, had scarfed some candy and we both saw (or I saw and my brother said he saw, he is a year younger than I am) images of pirates, ghosts, monsters, etc., floating in our room. It was after the lights had been turned out but not pitch dark. Neither my brother nor I had any doubt that these images were not real. [sub]What can I say? We were grounded little kids…[/sub]
Now, FWIW, this was in Seattle in about 1969-1970. Its conceivable that there were psychedelics of some sort in our candy. Cool. But I just think it was a couple of overactive imaginations playing off each other and supercharged by spirit of Halloween. A lot of it was probably power of suggestion.
The way I remember the hallucinations is that they were very clear and colorful, and likely generated 100 percent from my mind, with no help from shadows or whatever. Of course, I readily admit that it has been quite a long time, about 25 years or so, so those memories are possibly not so trustworthy.
The description I read of this condition or whatever described it as something fairly common, but not universal among children.
These sort of things are common and usually harmless in kids.
Seeing things as you are falling asleep or waking is fairly common and often of no concern. The terms for this have already been alluded to, i.e. hypnagogic/hypnapompic hallucinations.
Having imaginary playmates, conversing with the wid, etc. is part of growing up. Kids do not always do a good job of separating fact from fiction. Babies are not convinced an object will stay there if they close their eyes; seven year old kids can’t tell that the tall, skinny glass contains as much milk as the short, fat one. Some folks never learn to reason abstractly… we call these folks republicans.
As you grow older, these behaviours can become harmful. Illusions, misinterpreting things that are there, are less so than actively hallucinating. This is a sign of depression or bipolar disease or drug-induced psychosis more often than it is a sign of brief psychotic disorder, schizoaffective disorder, schizophreniform disorder or schizophrenia… which still affects nearly 1% of the population and often appears in the late teens-early 20s.
To be more clear: the “condition” or whatever I read about, while considered harmless, was NOT universal among children, and not just the general imaginative nature of children.
I feel it was not hypnagogic/hypnapompic hallucinations as well, since I’m pretty sure it was described as something only young children experience and always or almost always grow out of. To my knowledge, hypnagogic/hypnapompic hallucinations occur in adults as well (in fact, I think I had one a few months ago, where a shadow in my bedroom became a gargoyle. At least, I hope it was a hallucination… And shut up, I said I don’t do drugs, dammit!)
But I’m curious if you were aware that it was not real. That’s the distinction. Did you scream and run out of the room, or did you roll over and say “damn gargoyles in my room again?”
I too as a kid once had a “vision” or whatever you want to call it. I was in bed and was around 5 years old and I distinctly remember being awaked in the night and seeing an angel floating in my room. It was above the foot of the bed about 5 feet in the air and I caught it floating across the room very slowly. It was radiant and smallish but it didn’t seem to notice me looking at it. I remember being so scared that I quickly hid under the covers until I fell asleep because I was too fearful to look out again. I seem to recall fearfully telling my mother about the angel before I had breakfast the next morning. She kind of blew it off and I went about my business. A small part of me somehow feels that this was a real incident and not a “vivid dream”.
Was it real? I dont’ know…as an adult (even though I kind of want to believe it) I think I MUST have dreamed this and I have inadvertantly exaggerated the dream into a real account over time. Who knows after 30 years? It’s funny how your memory can befuddle you on something that you once thought was so significant in your childhood.
Dale, the “gargoyle” thing was a lot less scary than it sounds, it really was just a thin shadow of a light-fixture’s stem above an air conditioner vent. I knew it was the shadow that I see every night, but this time it clearly unfurled wings. I remember this image as being very unmistakably wings being opened, but I still knew it was only my tired mind playing tricks. I just went to sleep unphased.
I think it was in a Dr. Salk, the neurologist, book called “Anthropologist on Mars”, in the chapter on the rare cases of blind people who have their sight restored at an advanced age and the difficulties they experience, that Dr. Salk says something about how it takes a normal human the first fourteen or fifteen years of their life to master the use of their eyesight.
Perhaps a young child can modify the visual stimulus received by underdeveloped or unpracticed eyes to see what they want to see, or are influenced to see. Faces in curtains or clouds, an angel to a five year old…
Very interesting idea about the visual stimulus being modified, Al. But I should re-iterate that I remember these hallucinations as being free of any kind of “helper” stimulus such as shadows or drapes. The treasure chest was floating in the middle of the room, and the monster faces were on blank window-shades, literally white slates as if put there for a kid to paint on them with his mind.
Al, that makes sense to me. When I was a child, my mother had my room in a Raggedy Ann and Andy theme. At night, when I would go to bed, I could swear that the pictures of the two on my wall would dance. It wasn’t scary really, but it was slightly disturbing.
I would also have hallucinations. One I distinctly remember involved a huge butterfly. I think part of that was because as a small child I was terrified of butterflies. I was sure they could sting you like a bee.
Now, I write fiction. Sometimes I wonder if my hallucinations as a child somehow mesh with the fact that I still have a vivid imagination in my 30’s.
Anecdotal tale: I had some very funky hallucinations-- in light, no shadows or anything, when I had fevers when I was 5 or 6-- extremely realistic-- for example, my sister’s Snoopy and Peanuts bedsheets floating across the room to smother me. Not the “imagination” kind of hallucinations, or clever optical illusion, but the full blown indifferentiatable-from-reality type. I started screaming and my parents came in and popped some baby aspirin into me and everything calmed down in a couple of minutes.
Revtim, I don’t know what caused it but I had “visions” as a young child too. They mostly occurred in the semi-dark of evening when I would see fairies and elves dancing and flying. Sometimes I would see them in my room and sometimes I could see them out the window. I don’t remember being scared, just really quiet because I didn’t think I was suppose to be seeing them.
i have two very vivid recollections from childhood. one involved seeing the Empirer from Star Wars in my chimney. both myself and my younger brother saw this. at the time, we had a glow in the dark doll, er- action figure, in the house.
the second was also seen by myself and my younger brother. a few of our Brittanicas were missing from the shelf. we very vividly saw a hand come out of the gap and gesture one night, during dinner. creepy.
i never knew what to make of these. thank you, revtim.
I was an eight year old Catholic kid. I think it was Easter Week and I had been in church practically every day. Lying in bed one warm night just before falling asleep, the Agnus Dei melody we sang during Mass was going through my mind, over and over.
Then I heard a choir singing it externally to me; it seemed to be coming in the open window from the house next door (where our Jewish neighbors lived). I knew cognitively that there couldn’t really be people there singing the Agnus Dei, but it sounded absolutely clear, real, and external, just as it sounded during Mass. It sounded so real I was convinced I was really hearing it. That was the only time in my life I got such a realistic hallucination.