# Hallucinations -- how "real" are they? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 12, 2009, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hallucinations-how-real-are-they/496189 "2009-05-12T17:37:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Swallowed\_My\_Cellphone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9d8465/32.png) [@Swallowed\_My\_Cellphone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Swallowed_My_Cellphone)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2009, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hallucinations-how-real-are-they/496189/41 "2009-05-13T14:45:21Z")
> [@LaurentZidane](#): > > I had an experience when I was around 13. I awoke in the middle of the night to get a glass of water. Everyone was in bed. I walked down the hallway, noticing that the living room tv was on (seeing flashes of light hitting the walls, you know?) and the living room chair was rocking. I walked out to say hello to my mother, but she wasn’t in the chair, it was just rocking, and I fell into it. I got scared, sat down on the couch nearby. I looked up at the tv and it was flashing bright vivid colors. I thought “that isn’t right” and got up to look closer. I pressed my face against the tv and the colors slowly faded out (the power was never on) and I realized I was in complete darkness in the living room. I made a panic run for my room and quickly went back to sleep. They’re heeeeeeeere. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2009, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hallucinations-how-real-are-they/496189/42 "2009-05-13T16:18:50Z")
Most recreational substances that are dubbed “hallucinogens” are really not - generally they provide interesting visual distortions, but subjectively the user can make the distinction between what’s real and what is an effect of the drug. Belladonna alkaloids are something else again. The user may have a conversation with someone that is not there, and the subjective experience is a solid and “real” seeming as a dream. (Or reality.) ---
**Author:** ![NoJustice](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecb155/32.png) [@NoJustice](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NoJustice)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2009, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hallucinations-how-real-are-they/496189/43 "2009-05-13T22:10:29Z")
One thing I think many here haven’t considered is the fact that the human mind just isn’t smart enough to create a convincing hallucination of a person. It’s just too complex. Particularly in the way people move. There are too many subtleties which would give away a false image from a real one. In order to mistake a hallucinated image for a real one, the other functions of the brain must be significantly impaired such that you are unable to notice how the image you are seeing looks… not quite right. I suspect if a normal mind were to see such an image, not only would it be unconvincing… it wouldn’t even be noticed. It would just be recognized as imaginary and dismissed without even enough awareness to remember seeing it to begin with. > [@njtt](#): > > There is actualy a medical name for this: Exploding Head Syndrome! > > I used to get it myself sometimes. Despite the name, it is actually quite harmless. > > See [Exploding head syndrome – Mind Hacks](http://www.mindhacks.com/blog/2009/05/exploding_head_syndr.html) I’m pretty sure exploding head syndrome only happens when you are falling asleep. I used to get it every night… I had to listen to music to get to sleep otherwise I would get woken up by this sudden, _really_ loud… umm sound. I knew it wasn’t a real sound but it still woke me up. Years later, having apparently outgrown the effect, I came across the term exploding head syndrome, and, noting that it is sometimes experienced as a physical sensation of explosion _inside_ the head, I realized that _I STILL EXPERIENCE IT!_ It’s just changed from a sound to a physical feeling. I had assumed that it was something like my neck cracking as the muscles relaxed or something like that. Since I woke up unharmed the morning after the first time I noticed it, I knew it couldn’t really something physically happening in my head every night, so I wasn’t bothered enough by it to worry. 🙂 As for hearing explosions at other times… Something odd happened when I played Star Wars Battlefront for the first time. I spent almost a whole day playing, then for weeks afterwards, I would occasionally hear blaster fire outside my window! Each time, I would be momentarily startled and confused, but would realize in that same instant that I couldn’t possibly have heard what I thought I did. I think it was the result of some kind of mental short-cut. While playing the game, I was struggling to maintain situational awareness with a lot of things going on at once, so I created simpler ways of sorting out the sounds that I was hearing… then afterwards, a sound would only have to have a certain similarity to the blaster fire for my mind to jump to the conclusion that that’s what I heard. I imagine it would be quite unnerving if it hadn’t been a sound so easily recognized as fictional. I wonder how many of the symptoms of PTSD are actually unrelated to the stress, and just something similar to this effect. -on preview- Larry Mudd, just because a person knows what they’re seeing isn’t real doesn’t mean they aren’t hallucinating. I think you may be confusing hallucination with delusion. ---
**Author:** ![Eats\_Crayons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/278dde/32.png) [@Eats\_Crayons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eats_Crayons)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2009, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hallucinations-how-real-are-they/496189/44 "2009-05-14T01:20:18Z")
> [@KGS](#): > > What for? If he’s able to distinguish these “explosions” from reality, and they don’t impact his life in any negative way, what’s the problem? To rule out any physiological issue such as a tumor or brain damage. If his physical health is fine, then no worries. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2009, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hallucinations-how-real-are-they/496189/45 "2009-05-14T01:41:49Z")
I’ve had minor hallucinations from high fevers, and bad ones [from taking ambien](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=175197). They’ve been pretty real. Even when your brain tells you that it’s impossible, they **still** seem like they’re as real as anything else in the room. It’s a lot like what being the skeptic in a horror movie must be, not being able to believe in what you can clearly see and hear. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2009, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hallucinations-how-real-are-they/496189/46 "2009-05-14T01:55:42Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > Of course, House did quite quickly figure out that his experience was a hallucination. What made the whole thing so unreal was that the hallucination persisted and was just as vivid and realistic after he realized this. Also there was the fact that everything else around him appeared perfectly normal (usually there will be a lot of other weirdness and confusion in your perception when you are hallucinating), and, despite the fact that we were told that he hadn’t slept for days, House showed very few other signs of being groggy or intellectually impaired. Yes, in reality maybe you could have a hallucination of a person who hangs around and talks to you, but only if there was a lot of other weirdness going on in your mind at the same time. I don’t have any problem believing this, especially if the hallucinations do turn out to be because of his drug addiction, not a psychotic break. Read the thread I linked - we knew exactly why we were hallucinating, but that didn’t “break the spell” because knowing what we were seeing wasn’t real didn’t get the ambien out of our system any more than knowing Amber wasn’t real would get the vicodin out of his. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2009, 6:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hallucinations-how-real-are-they/496189/47 "2009-05-14T06:05:46Z")
OK, perhaps the second sentence of the passage you quote was an overstatement. Hallucinations _can_ persist after you recognize that they are hallucinations. (Those of Charles Bonnet syndrome very often do.) I stand by the rest though. It was unrealistic because we were given the impression that House’s perception was not otherwise impaired (everything else appeared normal), and his intellect only appeared to be fairly trivially impaired. ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2009, 7:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hallucinations-how-real-are-they/496189/48 "2009-05-14T07:37:28Z")
I had hallucinations as a result of medication that I was taking. All three involved seeing animals on my bed. The most frightening of these was a crow. My husband reminded me that it was because of the medicine. I believed him and I told him so. But I begged him not to make me look at that crow. It was very real looking. The other things that I saw were a bear sitting on the bed. That did not seem so real. It looked more like a bear from a storybook. And the final thing I saw was a swarm of bees. It disappeared too quickly to look very real, but it frightened me briefly. I also hallucinated more vaguely when I had pneumonia: I was watching the World Series but my husband returned home from night school to find me sitting up in bed singing the Pearl High School Fight Song from the school where I taught. My fever was 104 degrees. The game was in Montreal and I think it was snowing. It looked so nice and cool there. This may have been my imagination, but sometimes I think they sang “The Happy Wanderer.” And Warren Cromarty. That’s the only player I can remember. ---
**Author:** ![Lanzy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/74df32/32.png) [@Lanzy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lanzy)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2009, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hallucinations-how-real-are-they/496189/49 "2009-05-14T17:40:21Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > There is actualy a medical name for this: Exploding Head Syndrome! > > I used to get it myself sometimes. Despite the name, it is actually quite harmless. > > See [Exploding head syndrome – Mind Hacks](http://www.mindhacks.com/blog/2009/05/exploding_head_syndr.html) Now this is quite helpful, thanks! And to others, no it really doesn’t impact my life as I can pretty readily tell it isn’t real. Nope, wasn’t a joke, but I now see why you might think so. The real explosion I refer to was during the 9/11 Pentagon one, where I worked. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2009, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hallucinations-how-real-are-they/496189/50 "2009-06-09T23:40:38Z")
> [@NoJustice](#): > > Larry Mudd, just because a person knows what they’re seeing isn’t real doesn’t mean they aren’t hallucinating. I think you may be confusing hallucination with delusion. (With apologies for the late response) No, I’m just using the strict psychological definition of hallucination. The perceptions that people have when taking LSD, peyote, psilocybin, large amounts of MDMA, etc are rarely “true hallucinations,” usually they are pseudohallucinatory or illusionary images. Strictly speaking, a hallucination is indistinguishable from reality. An inexperienced person who accidentally ingests LSD is not in the same predicament as a genuinely psychotic person at all, at all. ---
**Author:** ![outlierrn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/outlierrn/32/3005_2.png) [@outlierrn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/outlierrn)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2009, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hallucinations-how-real-are-they/496189/51 "2009-06-10T01:01:37Z")
Your basic relativity, if the observer is inside the malfuctioning sensor array they’re real, if the observer is outside, they’re not [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hallucinations-how-real-are-they/496189.md?page=2)