If I’m a passenger in a car, I can sit back, relax and listen…the road noise turns into music; I can change the music by starting to think about a different tune and the road noise carries it on for me.
That sounds like classic migraine aura - I too get this, but without the headaches (usually). Have you ever been checked for migraine?
I’ve done shrooms a couple of times and the only hallucinations I’ve had, where seeing a blanket that I could have sworn where breething and a couple of walls that wheren’t as straight as they ought to be.
Other than that I’ve just had a great time with lots of funny thoughts, well except the time I thought I where going to die from spasmz…
Lack-of-sleep hallucinations? Oh yeah.
I sometimes go a little manic when I’ve got a “project”, and sleep is impossible. Back when I was learning 3D Studio, I went without sleeping for a couple of days. I’d try to sleep, but would just lie there in bed thinking about ways and means, realize I couldn’t sleep, and get back at it.
I was working on making a model of an alien, and trying to work out the textures. Eventually, when I’d render the fella, (a still, mind you,) he’d be doing this little wavy dance – kind of like a hawaiin “hula” dance. When it wouldn’t stop doing that, I took advantage of the situation to watch a f*d up movie that a friend had loaned me. Free hallucinations! Whee! (The movie was also necessary to stop thinking about 3D Studio and go to sleep.) It was pretty weird, though.
As for induced hallucinations, although in my youth I indulged in “hallucinogenic” substances on a practically quotidian basis, on reflection I realize that I only really hallucinated once. (All those other times were “visual anomolies” or some such thing – I knew that they didn’t have any objective reality.) The exception was after taking a home-made extract of scopalamine and atropine. My limbs began to feel very heavy, which suggested to me that I may have misjudged the dosage. The Merck medical manual suggested a cold shower, so I jumped in there. While I was in there, a woman came in and pulled back the shower curtain. I said, “Uh… excuse me?” and tried to cover up as best I could. She said nothing and kept looking at me with this intense worried look on her face, until I said “I’m okay. I’m just taking a shower.” Still saying nothing, she turned and left. I got dressed, came out of the bathroom, and then had a long, totally casual conversation with my maternal grandmother. (She died long before I was born.) My housemate came home, and found me engaged in an animated conversation with someone who wasn’t there. He couldn’t get my attention at all. It was like he wasn’t there. The whole thing was indistinguishable from reality-- not wobbly around the edges, funky looking, or anything. When you can’t tell that what you’re seeing isn’t real-- that’s when you’re hallucinating. And it’s not fun.
Less alarmingly, (I think,) and back on the topic of just weird visual effects, when I exert myself, (especially heavy lifting,) I sometimes see hundreds of floating white points. Like little stars.
Marching men on Melba toast. On a staticy tv screen (back when tv stations actually went off the air late at night). And I saw a rather neanderthal-looking friend turn into a werewolf once. Oh, and what I thought to be a hallucination turned out to be real. Guys with pink top hats and tails working at the Regency Hyatt in Rosemont, IL.
I had an LSD induced halucination of leprechauns in the room I was in. I’ll have to agree with others though, they were by no means real looking, and I was actively encouraging the hallucination (It was a pretty good one) and the longer it continued, the better/more detailed it bacame. Had I chosen to, I could have turned the halucination of with my brain. As it happened, a buddy opened the door and let more light in, and ::::zzzip:::: off the little guys went, never to return.
My fever induced halucinations as a kid were always one of two things. Either the room became really long and narrow, or a large round stone was rolling towards me (Think Indiana Jones, only this was 10 years before the movie)
I constantly hear my mother calling me in music. Often on the edge of sleep, I’ll hear people talking.
If I hear bagpipes live, I hear them for weeks afterwards. If I hear them on TV or on the radio, I don’t.
A song that doesn’t exist - I got a Bonnie Raitt tape and was listening to it for the first time when my car died - I immediately jumped out and started pushing toward a service station a couple of hundred feet up the road. Anyway, out of nowhere three people started helping me push the car, while Bonnie Raitt sang this song - I didn’t know it wasn’t a real song at them time, having just gotten the tape.
This was not drug-induced, nor sleep-deprivation-induced. I don’t know what caused it.
Mushroom induced:
I sat and watched my friends wall melt away, paint layer by paint layer until I just the beams. And there this time alien fetus shows up and it starting to talk to me but I was the only one who could hear it. I ended up starring at the wall for a good 3 hours.
I also saw a little stickman running around on the carpet, then the carpet melted away and turned into water.
I kept thinking someone was touching my shoulder throughout the whole “trip”. And I couldn’t stop shaking for about 6 hours because I was so cold. My other friend,who was sober at the time, thought I was having a seizure.
I saw my friend’s hair turn from blue to purple, pink, yellow, orange, black, white, brown, green, red, etc.
Ecstasy induced:
This one time, I kept hearing and dancing to a song in my head. I still to this day have no idea where I’ve heard it. Other music was playing but I kept dancing to this song in my head that wouldn’t leave.
Another time was in a warehouse and I was laying on the floor and looking up at the ceiling and seeing people climbing around on the pipes.
Anothet time, I went for a walk by myself at 7 am and in every car I saw my friend Doug was driving it.
After driving for 22 straight hours and it being in the wee hours of the morning, I thought I saw Ed Sullivan standing by a palm tree in the median strip. However I was just outside St. Louis Mo. and there are no palm trees within hundreds of miles from there. This gave me the clue that Ed probably wasn’t real either.
hijack
Ranchoth, you’re weird, but i like you 
i’d just seen jurassic park, so it was the T-rex from the movie.
sorry this wasn’t more interesting.
your regular hallucenogenic programming has now been resumed.
I’ve had many hallucinations from LSD and mushrooms, most very good and amusing, but the most interesting one was from crystal meth and the lack of sleep it caused. I didnt’ sleep for a week and a half other than maybe a nap for an hour every two days. I lost my job because i didnt’ know what day it was. I didn’t even know you could hallucinate aurally, but everything was talking to or about me; the t.v. radio, people on the street. I thought someone was trying to kill me. I started sleeping with knives and yelling “come and get me! mutha*****”
About a year later i ended up being institutionalized. The strange thing is, I overheard some fellow “psycho’s” describing their experiences with crystal, and there were many hallucinations that were exactly the same as mine. And now my best friend is going through it. Government conspiracy? who knows…
I occasionally get hallucinations when I wake up in the middle of the night. I guess I’m not really awake and am still dreaming somehow. Usually, it’s something distressing like a monster clinging to the ceiling over my bed about to drop onto me and then I fidn myself standing in the doorway. So I guess it’s kinda a waking dream/ hallucination/sleep walking combo.
On really long road trips without sleep (which I now avoid as excessively dangerous, pull over and take a nap, it won’t cost you that much time), I used to occasionally see things moving in the road which would cause me to jerk the wheel dangerously. How I survived my 20s, I’ll never know…
I did use to experiment with acid as a youth. The hallucination that bothered me for years was when I decided to go driving in the countryside by myself while tripping. I was passing fields of corn and the movie, Children of the Corn, had just come out so I got progressively more freaked out as I drove. And then an ambulence came zooming past me with the lights blazing but no siren. And I saw these yellow diamond roadway signs that said “Fog Smoke”. I had never seen a sign like this and was sure for years that I had completely imagined them. Then, 7 years later, I see another “Fog Smoke” sign completely sober and the whole experience came rushing back…
I would get very similar visual disturbances when I had severe migraines, it is quite common for migraine to be associated with strange visual effects (‘aura’), for me it was always as if I was looking down a tunnel of black and white zig-zags, followed by the headache, dizziness, nausea, vomiting, dislike of bright light and feelings of anxiety. Fortunately I haven’t had an attack for about 4 years now.
Anyway, about two years ago some friends and I decided to see who could stay awake for the longest. After about 48 hours or so I saw a flock of sheep running along the corridor. At that point I gave up and went to sleep, winning wasn’t so important that I wanted to see imaginary farmyard animals.
I have visual trail-like hallucinations every once in a while, usually out of the corner of my eye. Also, I’ll hear things in my head like a single shout or phone ring, when in reality neither has taken place.
I’m probably slooowly going insane…
I was reading a page on poisonous plants the other day. Atropine and scopalamine are the active toxins in belladonna, more often known as Deadly Nightshade. You’re a braver man than I, if you were fooling around with that.
Fun Fact: Atropine is also used to counteract nerve agents. Of course, atropine by itself will kill you, so you have to immediately follow up with an antidote. And The Rock aside, you do not, not, NOT inject it into your chest.
Anyway, on to the hallucinations. I’ve never taken hallucinogenic drugs myself. However, I do often get those “edge of sleep” hallucinations. I was studying the other day on my work-related courses (which, incidentally, are the strongest sleep aids you can get without a prescription). I hit the edge of sleep, and my book began to look like a webpage, complete with a wandering “I-beam” style cursor.
I’ve had occaisonal self-hypnotic hallucinations. Back when I was but a wee Monster, we had this painting on the wall, depicting two boys fishing. I remember staring at it for an extended period of time, and the boys in the picture started moving around, baiting their hooks and casting them into the water.
More recently, I was in the middle of a marathon Breath of Fire II session with my now-ex-step-brother. He had taken over and was in the whale, while I tried to get a quick nap. Now, when you’re in the whale in BoFII, the music is very repetitive. Eventually, the music kind of shifted into an electronic voice singing “Rubber baby buggy bumpers, rubber baby buggy bumpers, rubber baby buggy bumpers, rubber baby buggy bumpers” over and over again. I was ever so grateful when he finally got out of that damn whale.
I am always out of it late at night, especially when I haven’t had much sleep. One night after watching a horror movie, I decided to taunt my reflection in the bathroom mirror. (Just for the thrill, mirrors late at night when I am tired after a horror movie kind of spook me a little) I watched the mirror intently for a while to see if my reflection was doing anything I was not doing. Suddenly my double jumped up against the glass of the mirror with a loud metallic bang… scared the crap out of me. I had slipped between reality and dream. Mirror 1, Me 0, I nervously went to bed. Last time I do that… but I dare anyone else to try…
When I have fever + late at night/out of it, I tend to hear voices and see people I know hanging around my bed.
Once I was reading a thread on SDMB and suddenly everything was italicized.
I’m prone to hynogogic hallucinations, which usually involve demonic miniature Mrs. Rochester-ish creatures glaring at me from the corner or trying to crawl in bed with me. Not fun. Why can’t I see leprechauns? Another time, under the influence of some organic substance or other, a tattoo on my then-boyfriend’s leg started doing a very rude dance and sticking its tongue out at me.
So I slapped it, hard.
Did I mention he had just gotten it done the day before?
note…anybody reading this who is stupid enough to want to try glue sniffing because I made it sound fun is a complete and total dumbass. Its twenty years later and I STILL worry about what the long term ramifacations <sp?> are from what I did.
Back around 83 or so, , a couple of friends and I used to sniff Ross’ Rubber cement. A lot of it, over a period of about six months. we didn’t just huff it from a paper bag either, no, we were much more inventive than that. One of us came up with this big rubber bag with a face sized opening that you could stick your face into and just leave it there. No hands! Then, we’d take turns, passing the bag over to the next guy while you kicked back and enjoyed the sights. You ALWAYS hallucinate when you sniff glue. Ususally, its just perceptual hallucinations. Backround noise becomes the sound of a tiny machine in your head going r-r-r-r-r-r-r. THe world takes on an eerie glow, and you see something like the Langoliers out of Stephen Kings Short Story. Sometimes though, you see some truly crazy shit. Once, when we were sniffing glue under an underpass, my friend Todd saw a huge blue bird with a long tail running down the highway being chased by little red guys with bows and arrows.
Every time we siffed glue at my friend Jerry’s house we would listen to either “In-A-Gadda-Di-Vida” or Uriah Heeps “The Magicians Birthday” (Keep in mind, all three of us were punkers, and we hated that kind of music, but those two songs seemed to be made for tripping on glue.
The Drum solo on the Iron Butterfly song would always take me on some kind of a trip out of this world, but the guitar solo, hell the whole song, on Magicians Birthday would take me out of the universe.
Once I had just taken my face out of the bag, when I looked at this record…an AC/DC record with the yellow ATCO label, leaning up against the speaker. Well, all of a sudden, the yellow ATCO label turned into a big mouth with bigger teeth. It went RROOAARRRR…and came flying at my face. I covered my eyes and started screaming like a little girl. When I took my hands off my eyes, and the glue buzz started fading (it only lasts for a few minutes), we all had a good laugh and went back to huffing.
Another time, and again, during the guitar solo to “Magicians Birthday” (in fact, all three of these stories take place during said guitar solo). I hallucinated that I was a kindergarten aged kid in a sandbox, and my buddies were there too kindergarden aged as well. This wasn’t just a run of the mill hallucination. I WAS a kindergarten aged little boy. I remember getting sand in my mouth, and spitting it out, while the hallucination-Jerry was saying “Hey, why are you spitting in my room?” At that point, I came out of it with the real life Jerry shaking me on the shoulder looking quite annoyed, saying “Dude…knock it the fuck off” 
I had spit about three or four nice sized glue loogies all about his room.
One of the last times I huffed, I saw a really profound hallucination, that I really cant explain, but AFAICR It had something to with with the meaning of life. I stood up to tell everybody about it, put my finger in the air and said “I know!” “Know what?” says they… “Umm…” I said, and scratched my head. I couldn’t remember what I saw. I just know I saw something. To this day, I still wonder what it was.
I won’t even try to explain the time that I kept shifting into the body of a parallel universe me every time I took my face out of the bag.
PS-I’m beat, and the baby just got up from his nap, so I’m just gonna go ahead and hit submit without proof-reading. I’m just sayin’, ya know 'cause I don’t wanna have to post one of those “Oops, I hit ‘Submit’ By mistake” posts.
I’ve only had two hallucinations that made any impact on me. I share with most of the other posters occaisional hypnogogic (sp) hallucinations, where you hear or see something just as you’re falling asleep or waking up. But those don’t count, to my mind.
The first ‘real’ hallucination I had was while I was in boot camp, and was due to extended sleep deprivation. I’m something of a control freak, and so to give myself the illusion that I had some kind of control over my life at that time, I started a challenge with a friend to see which of us could to the most consecutive days of watch-standing. Because we were asking to go onto the watchbill, most of the time we ended up being put onto the midwatch matches, either 0-2, or 2-4 AM, which meant by the end of our little contest we’d both gone at least 20 days without a full night’s sleep. (I was winning, being one day ahead. When Neck heard what I was doing he wanted to try, too.) Anyways, our last midnight watch was the roving patrol around the base. We were walking the route along the road, and I saw, I don’t know how better to explain this, the crosswalk painted on the road get up and walk across itself.
I turned to Neck, just as he asked me, “Did you see that?”
“You mean the crosswalk?”
“Yeah.”
We were silent a few minutes. Then I said in a kinda shaky voice. “Okay, tomorrow we tell Pete (our watch section leader) we’re done with our challenge. No more mid-watches.”
“Hell, yeah.”
Of course there was a good side to this, Pete had been after us to stop being so silly, anyways. And after that point we never stood any kind of watch for the rest of boot camp.
The other time was when I was in the hospital, and had asked for some anxiety meds, after being told that my insurance might not cover the stay. I was given a lowish dose of a common anti-histamine, Visterol (generic name hydroxozene): 50 mg. The off white walls of the ward I was on turned purple, man. The nurses on the ward were VERY concerned about that reaction.
Acid induced: You name it.
Migraine: wierd this - I never got any pain just lots of zig-zaggy patterns. A couple of times (this was back at school) I had to leave class because the zig-zags covered the central part of my visual field and I couldn’t see to read or write.
On Ecstacy: Beraking down a sound system - pick up a black speaker cabinet - it turns itself inside out looks like a hole in space!