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In one of the previous articles, we already talked about hallucinations. This problem one way or another can affect anyone who has experienced severe stress and needs qualified psychological help. However, hallucinations can be a consequence or concomitant symptom of much more severe and dangerous conditions for a person, such as schizophrenia. All hallucinations are conditionally divided into five main types associated with the work of our senses. How do they differ from each other and how to timely recognize an alarming symptom in yourself and others?
Are the eyes the mirror of the soul?
It so happened in the course of the evolution of mankind that people perceive most of the information with their eyes. However, is what we see always related to reality? Let’s look at the most common types of visual hallucinations:
- Photopsies are called elementary visual visions, such as sudden sparks, flashes of light, or colored stripes.
- Visual hallucinations can be macrooptical and microoptical, when the patient sees objects in unusual sizes for them.
- Visions can be mobile or stable, which fits them perfectly into the overall context of what is happening.
- Patients may experience single, multiple, and even scene-like hallucinations.
- While falling asleep, a person may be haunted by hypnogagic images, and upon awakening, by hypnopompic ones.
Whose voice is this?
Remember, one of the most common patterns in many horror films is the character who commits crimes under the influence of certain voices in his head? So, with auditory hallucinations, the matter is not limited to voices alone. This type of violation implies the presence of:
- Akoasmov, when noises, crackles, someone’s steps and even shots are heard in the patient’s ears (a very common occurrence among people who participated in hostilities).
- Phonemes, that is, fragmentary syllables or even words of someone’s speech. There is speech, but the one who speaks is not.
- Various forms of communication with your inner «adviser» in the form of a monologue of the latter or a dialogue with yourself.
- Verbal, during which patients can hear familiar or unfamiliar speech. This, by the way, is a rather dangerous state, since such voices can not only “glow”, but also condemn, approve, threaten, accuse and even justify. And the usual “commentators” in the head, who simply state certain facts of real life, are not so terrible as imperative hallucinations that prompt the patient to perform certain actions.
In addition to vivid visual and auditory hallucinations, the patient can feel gustatory, tactile and olfactory changes in reality. Most often, they are negative and frightening in nature: a person feels the touch of insects, feels unpleasant smells and tastes.
How to recognize the presence of auditory and visual hallucinations in a person?
If you notice that the person next to you is noticeably immersed in himself, is having a meaningful dialogue with an invisible interlocutor, or freezes right in the middle of a conversation. Listening to something … It is possible that he is just used to pronouncing his own actions, has problems with memory or features of perception. But the same symptoms are characteristic of the manifestation of hallucinations. You should be wary if his verbal and non-verbal behavior noticeably does not correspond to the situation, it seems that he is observing something that others simply do not see or hear. At the same time, a person can be distracted, change the topic of conversation for no apparent reason, his gaze wanders around the interlocutor and surrounding objects …
You should not focus on this condition of the patient, but you also do not need to lose vigilance. Try to call for medical help or contact the person’s relatives, informing them of what is happening. Do not do it openly, your obvious participation may frighten the patient.