How does the brain create hallucinations?
In: Biology
I’m not sure what exactly you are asking about, but consider this:
Everything we perceive is only created in our brain. Yes, there are primary sensory inputs, like information arriving from the eyes, skin, nose, etc., but the interpretation and creation of a reality is only happening inside the brain.
So hallucinations are those results of the brain’s daily work which do not correspond to a valid sensory input. Those could still be sensory inputs, i.e. the nerves sending the exact impulses they normally send, just without the usual cause – see phantom pain in amputees for instance, or it could be malfunctions or side effects in the sensory organs, like the shadows of our own blood vessels in our eyes being interpreted as moving objects in the sky. Or it could originate directly in the brain without any sensory input, like when we are dreaming.
The big problem is that we are only ever able to observe the end result, and there’s simply no way to know what exactly led to the perception other than technically measuring each part of the sensory chain individually and chalking up the remainder to hallucinations.
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