Does the person imagine something and believes it is there? Or is the sight somehow impaired and the person figure out what he is seeing?
If a person who does acid knows about the drug’s hallucigenic effects, can they still be freaked out?
This is the kind of question that gets answered in year 3 of medical school.
Hallucination- a perception without a stimulus
Illusion- a misperceived stimulus
I feel as though I can give a pretty good answer about this. I have hallucinated quite a few times in the last 5 years.
I like to call hallucinating ‘reverse vision’.
With normal vision you look at something and the message goes from your eyes to your brain where your brain interprets what it is you are looking at (as you can imagine this happens quite quickly). When I hallucinate its like my brain is telling my eyes what to see, and somehow you can see what you are thinking as clear as day.
I have hallucinated on LSD as well as MDMA. For me the most vivid where on LSD, but the most realistic were on MDMA. Part of the reason for this is the fact that your pupils are extremely dilated when under the influence of both these drugs, thus allowing more light to enter your pupils than would normally occur, which changes your perception of the things you see.
I find I also hallucinate quite a lot when I am sleep deprived (either naturally or from the use of drugs). After 6 nights with no sleep (trust me don’t ever do it, its nasty) I found that I was hallucinating everywhere I looked, in both day and night time (you normally hallucinate more at night). Sleep deprivation also dilates the pupils.
One can still get a little freaked out about your hallucinations, even though you know they aren’t real. I was once watching a spider crawl on my roof for about an hour one morning after a night out. The spider was as big as a cat and so detailed I could see the hairs on its legs blowing in the wind. When it crawled above me I got a little bit worried that it was going to drop on me, luckily my g/f was there to tell me there was nothing on the roof.
I also had Jawas (those little creatures out of Star Wars) with umbrellas run straight through my car and me once when I was a passenger, which also freaked me out a fair bit because they were travelling right through me.
Even though these things can freak you out, in your mind you know they cant possibly be real. It also helps if you are in a safe environment with people you trust.
I have also had shared hallucinations where myself and another person have shared the same hallucination at the same time. I am yet to figure out how this happens, but both times it has happened I have thought it was quite freaky.
Wow! If having shared hallucinations is posible, then it has to exist some kind of mental connection, or (the scariest explanation) another type of reality which both (or many) are sighting at.
I can’t find another explanation for that.
I think drug-induced hallucinations are fairly harmless because the person seeing these images, usually has enough since left in their brain to know, what they are seeing is a result of the drug they took. But if the hallucinations are scary enough, and persist for what is perceived to be a long time, I can see that person “freaking out”. Just think about walking around with your friends and suddenly they all turn into vampires, or aliens that have come to take you away.
Now, non-drug-induced hallucinations can be scary, because you are of “sound mind and body” and you have just seen something that can’t be explained (i.e. ghost sightings).
Hallucinations on a higher level can become delusions. This is when things get really scary, when you perceive a hallucination, or other fabricated thought, to be reality.
I’ve had two experiences with hallucinations, one direct and one indirect.
The first experience occurred when I lost a large quantity of blood suddenly due to taking large doses of NSAIDS (Ibuprophen, advil, Naproxyn, etc.) for years, for arthritis. They came on gradually, for example, in the beginning, when I looked at the ceiling it was in three-D and different shades; at the end, in the hospital, I didn’t have them when my eyes were open, but when I shut my eyes, there were full-color, very detailed, very life-like images, a fashion show, a circus. I could zoom in on anything; and I was able to imagine any possible invention, and the detailed plans appeared before me, even something like a time machine. I thought at that point I was going to be rich once this was over. The thing that pissed me off the most was that the nurses and the doctor acted like I was a figging nut case when I mentioned the visions. And, the fact that I couldn’t sleep, of course, because there was no way to get away from “seeing” things. By the third day I felt like I was going to go over this line into insanity and never come back. Fortunately, the blood transfusions started to work and I was okay in a week or so. But, I’ll never forgive the doctor for his treatment of me.
My dad died of Parkinson’s but for the last 1-2 years he had very real hallucinations and you absolutely could not convince him they weren’t there. He saw families with children in the bedroom, and men standing behind the couch, and he even told me in secret that my 80-year-old mother was bringing men into the house for sex because he had seen them. He was a poor farm boy and grew up during the depression. It seemed the fears he had all his life were what came to the fore. The men were there to take his job, for example. I was so broken-hearted sometimes because I could see the fear in his eyes and all I could do was reassure him he had the power to tell them to go away and they had to leave. I told him over and over they couldn’t hurt him. But, after my experience I knew how real it was to him.
this is a hallucination.
I hallucinate music when I’m on a bus ride–cheaper than a radio.
Yes, I really do “hear” it. It’s not a unique ability.
My entire reason for trekking into psychadelic drugs was to experience hallucinations. I’ve tried LSD and Ketamine in large quantities when I was in my mid 20’s, and let me tell you…it works. I saw things I can not even begin to describe without robbing the experience of its magic. The vast majority of hallucinations were patterns and colors. Extremely vivid, bright, unheard of colors and shapes all spiraling around in the most unimaginable ways. I traveled through tunnels of light and shape at very high speeds. Everything pulsed in time to the music which itself became shapes and colors, bending and weaving with a complexity I had no idea even existed. It left me with a very heavy feeling of “there’s something more to the universe,” persistant even until today. I felt then and still feel that the experiences allowed me to see the works of God from a different persepctive giving me greater understanding of the universe and its purpose. Frustrating because I still have no answers I can put into words about life, the universe, and everything (to borrow a phrase), but instead am left with a deeper appreciation for the underlying order of all things which these drugs can help certain people experience. Yes, they really do expand your mind and take the visual and auditory part of yourself with them.
That said, there are many dangers to consider as well. People really have thrown themselves off of buildings, had terrible psychological reactions, and other horrors too terrible to name. Caution, safety, and common sense help.
wow. how much acid have u done at once? my mom did 8 at once in the 60’s. that’s one thing i’ll NEVER do. i don’t know what she was(n’t) thinking.
Hallucinations can be AUDIO. In my younger days I used to work overnights and I had two jobs. One job I got off on Friday at 7am and started my other on Friday at 12 noon till 10pm. That was the only bad overlapping day. By the time I had done this for a year I use to distinctly HEAR things before I fell asleep for the night. This was the only time I HEARD this. I assume it was a lack of sleep.
Of course it can be audio. It must be a perception of a fake stimulus, therefore if it’s sensorial, it can be visual or auditive. But what about the other senses? Smell, tact, taste…
I see nobody followed my early questioning: if a hallucination is shared by two or more people, isn’t a prove that mind connection can be for real or, in the other hand, a drug-induced shared sight of another kind of reality?
Otherwise, how can you explain a shared hallucination?
Shared hallucinations – IANAE, but it seems to me that it’s probably a result of making suggestions to someone who is especially susceptible to them. Or two people making the suggestions to each other.
“Dude, do you see that giant purple french horn? It’s right there, look!”
“Whuh? Oh… hey, yeah… Kind of floating?”
“Yeah! Whoa, trippy!”
Tell a random stranger not to think of a pink giraffe. And hey, presto, you’re suddenly both thinking of the same thing at the same time. Paranormal activity not included, consult a physician before attempting.
Hallucinations may be:
Visual (usually organically caused or drug/alcohol caused)
Auditory (one of the main symptoms of ‘schizophrenia’)
Gustatory (taste- usually organic)
Olfactory (smell- organic or psychotic)
Tactile (touch- often drug induced)
Proprioceptive (e.g. fake limbs after amputation possibly, or other misperceptions about the size and shape of ones body)
may be others but I have forgotten.
And to repeat the above, to be a true hallucination it must be of a source not connected with a perception in the real world- it must be generated by the appropriate part of the brain sui generis- of itself.
Just a slight hijack,but is it possible for a person to be “immune” to hallucinogenics?
I hallucinate at much higher doses than nearly everyone else i’ve talked to,and sometimes not at all.
I also seem to stay the most connected to reality,even though i didn’t want to 
I’ve only had a few open eye experiences,red DNA-esque molecules spinning,a gravity defying pool of water on the ceiling.
I’ve experienced audio hallucinations - lying in bed, usually. I’ve heard music (a particular song) coming from around my computer, but upon closer inspection, I can’t find where it’s coming from. I also once heard quite loud, distant music coming from next to my house. I assumed it was a neighbour’s party, until I stuck my head out of the window and it was deathly quiet. Yet as soon as I brought my head back in I heard the music again. It was probably just because it was so quiet in my room, that my brain felt it had to create its own noise, but still rather unsettling.
Bongmaster, I’d love to experience the things you describe. Although I really don’t want to take LSD. So I guess I’ll have to stick with this regular, boring reality.
yeah, i’ve heard music in the rain on a tin roof before… pretty awesome… and other times, i make my own background music in my head.
Well, the nature of “reality” itself can be called into question. Remember Semmelweis? He’s that 19th Century doctor who told everyone there were little bugs all over us called “germs”, and it was a good idea for doctors to wash their hands between performing an autopsy and doing surgery on a living patient. Nobody believed him, and everyone laughed at his ideas. I mean, come on. “TINY LITTLE BUGS YOU CAN’T EVEN SEE? How can those POSSIBLY kill you, even if they really existed??” Poor Ignaz went insane, and ultimately cut his finger with a dirty knife, which got infected with sepsis and killed him. So, in a way, his own “delusional” reality killed him.
Of course, “germs” are accepted as empirical fact these days, although their discovery is often mis-attributed to Lister and/or Pasteur. Ah, well.
I thought I was hallucinating that the thread title had “an” before the word “hallucination” instead of “a”. That just couldn’t be; everybody knows that you use “a” before a consonant like h and “an” before a vowel. I blinked, rubbed my eyes, and told myself the hallucination would vanish the next time I looked at it. But it was still there. I hope there is nothing wrong with my mind; probably it’s a defect in my video card, monitor, or browser sofnordtware.