how do non drug induced Visual Hallucinations work ? what happens in the brain that makes the eyes see something that isn’t there?
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Under the effects of LSD, different parts of your brain gain access to communicate with your visual cortex, allowing your usually unconscious mental content to manifest itself in your conscious visual experience.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4855588/
“Importantly, a very strong relationship was also observed between increased V1 RSFC and decreased alpha power in occipital sensors, suggesting that as well as being commonly related to visual hallucinations, these physiological effects are closely interrelated. The increase in V1 RSFC under LSD is a particularly novel and striking finding and suggests that a far greater proportion of the brain contributes to visual processing in the LSD state than under normal conditions. This expansion of V1 RSFC may explain how normally discreet psychological functions (e.g., emotion, cognition, and indeed the other primary senses) can more readily “color” visual experience in the psychedelic state.”
When I was very very ill I descended into auditory and visual hallucinations, they gradually increased in frequency and severity over weeks until they were absolutely indistinguishable from real life. The very best way I could describe how it felt would be to compare it to my mind copy and pasting visual information and the memory of different sounds (such as lines of conversation said to me by family members at earlier times and held in my head like a sound clip on a computer) it would take a snippet of my reality or memory and basically copy and paste it all over either my sense of seeing or hearing… it was almost unbelievable at the time when I finally realized it was LITERALLY all in my head
Our eyes filter things in a way that’s useful for us to function, not necessarily a representation of what’s “really” there. Objects could be fuzzy, or less so, or whathaveyou.
You could easily have a halllucination by your eyes finding a pattern in something that is false, then the brain reinforcing that idea so you can quickly interact with it.
Oliver Sacks wrote a [great book](https://bookshop.org/p/books/hallucinations-oliver-sacks/9799237?ean=9780307947437) entitled *Hallucinations* which is just about this phenomenon.
[Read](https://www.wired.com/2017/03/book-excerpt-body-builders/#:~:text=Pat%20Fletcher%2C%20blind%20for%20more,Body%20Builders%20by%20Adam%20Piore) about Pat Fletcher, a woman who, 30 years after being blinded in an industrial explosion, discovered an audio device called vOICe which enabled her to SEE WITH HER EARS!
Energy experiences,strong vibrations,lack of oxygen and if you tried LSD or something like it mushrooms etc you can end up having flashbacks or constant vivid experiences for years if not the rest of you life after the experience.
Staying awake for long periods cant also end in people seeing things that are not real.
Remember its a sign of possible poisoning or illness when you have these experiences maybe an allergy or a deeper problem if it continues for longer than a few minutes it maybe worth going to a doctor.
I see from other comments you’re a social worker with some experience of therapy.
My eldest daughter has constant audio visual hallucinations as a result of childhood trauma, where she sees the man responsible for that trauma and he tells her to kill herself. In all other respects, she’s perfectly ‘normal’. She’s currently in hospital receiving intensive help.
From my own experience I’ve had several over the years, audio, visual and in some cases both. Nearly always directly linked to extreme fatigue.
One hallucination involved a tree in the central reservation of the motorway… I recall thinking, “that’s odd… why would a tree be growing in the central reservation?”… what didn’t occur to me as odd however, was that the tree was keeping up with me while I was driving at 70mph. 🤔
Another was a rowing boat in the middle of the road, which I swerved to avoid… my first thought being it must have fallen off a truck that was transporting it.
The first visual one I can recall was whilst on exercise in the military. Two men to a trench, I was on watch, my oppo was asleep. When I turned around, he was sat at the opposite end of the trench, cleaning his rifle. I asked him what he was doing up as he wasn’t due to take over for another hour, but he just looked at me, smiled and carried on cleaning his rifle. I walked towards him still talking to him and it was only as I reached out to touch him that he vanished… confused I went to our dug out, and sure enough, there he was, fast asleep. 😏
I used to do one that was which was pretty effective which always listed with that handbook of alternative highs like smoking the Banana skin one. Took about 10-15 mins to work.
You put on some toilet paper wrapped swimming googles and stare into a lamp and after a while you start not being able to understand your surroundings and occasionally see the shimmery floaties that you sometimes see when you stand up too quick. I’d know that I’m in my room but if I moved my hand around and felt my bed I couldn’t picture what it looked like. The dispersed light that you see tricks your brains because what you feel doesn’t associate with what you’re touching.
You’re a hairless ape and you’re easy to fool. You’ll walk down a path and see a stray rope and your first thought will be “Snake!”
Your entire visual and recognition system is based on old built in tech and then your brain, being the useful, but relatively unsophisticated pattern recognition engine that it is will associate the visual information that comes in through your photon receptors as the first thing that it’s been used to seeing.
There’s no such thing as a “non-drug induced visual hallucination.” There’s only a misperception based on visual consciousness phenomenon which you choose to believe as far out as it will take you.
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