Not delusions(where you believe something is real that isn’t), hallucinations specifically.
In: 6
Ok so anecdotal example: when I was a teenager I was sick with something and took nyquil. After I took it I lied down in bed and I saw bugs crawling all up the walls of my room despite knowing they weren’t there, and forced myself to shut my eyes and go to sleep. Sometimes people can distinguish between “ok im clearly hallucinating” and sometimes they can’t and wind up doing crazy shit (i.e. some people take angel dust and jump off a building thinking they have wings and can fly)
Some of the memories I have are from recurring places in dreams, and I can recall those places I’ve dreamt of just as clearly as other memories I recall in “real life”
If you’re hallucinating, your brain isn’t working normally–you are seeing or hearing things that aren’t there. Depending on the circumstances of what is causing the hallucinations, it can be very convincing. Mild hallucinations, you might see things moving around abnormally. There are “trip simulation” videos on YouTube where you stare at the screen that will give you a feel of this. With extreme hallucinations, your mind is in a whole different world–“I thought I was a zipper.”
Hallucinations are something that you see/feel/hear that isn’t actually there, delusions are whether or not you believe they are real.
Because hallucinations are experiencing sensory input that doesn’t actually exist, thinking doesn’t make you see/hear/feel/etc. things that don’t exist. Not really sure how this is even a question.
Thoughts are to delusions as senses are to hallucinations. Hallucinations are an incorrect interpretation of sensory input by the parts of your brain meant to interpret the senses. Seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, or feeling something that isn’t there comes before thinking about the thing you’re sensing.
This is an outstanding question. I can’t say with any certainty that I am not hallucinating and or dreaming at any given moment. I cannot with certainity say that everyone I meet exist. I suppose we fall back onthe old I think, therefore I am. Or if you rather, I am, therefore I think.
Edit: I’m completely mad. Take everything I say with several grains of salt or sugar, to taste.
Hallucinating is like watching the television. Thinking is like watching the television without turning it on first.
Am wordy as hell go straight to the TLDR if you aren’t a fkn nerd.
I don’t think they are different from regular [not thinking] processing of sensory input. The difference – and this can be seen with brain imaging/eegs and whatnot – is that the sensory input being processed didn’t come from the sensory organs.
So when you hear a voice with your ears, they pass it to your brain and it gets soaked up into the broad processing process where you might consciously notice it, you might not, etc. My understanding is scientists have ways of tracking this impulse from ear nerves to dissipation?(for lack of a better word) into other parts of the brain.
But when a schizophrenic hallucinates (they will typically be delusional when this is happening, but delusion is a different process neurologically and my guess is it is significantly more complicated than hallucination) researchers can see brain activity consistent with processing sensory input from the ears (or eyes or nerves I assume depending on hallucination), but they cannot see brain activity consistent with sensory input from the ears. This can happen with some forms of schizophrenia for complicated and incompletely understood reasons, can happen in chemical withdrawal, can happen when chemicals that act on the brain are in ur system, sleep deprivation causes mild auditories, lots of stuff.
TLDR: senses involve your brain processing input (neurological impulses) it receives from sensory organs. Hallucinations involve your brain processing input in similar ways, but that input did not come from sensory organs.
IF you are referring to a different kind of vaguely auditory hallucination wherein you hallucinate your own internal monologue lmk and I will run my mouth theorizing about that one all damn night. But that kind seems categorically different from auditory hallucinations as they are typically understood.
EDIT: This info comes from zillions of sources about neurology I won’t remember but the major one that got me to respond to this question was a Stanford lecture from Robert somethingSky titled “Schizophrenia,” you’ll find it if you google stanford lecture schizophrenia robert” if you haven’t already seen it because the algorithm likes it. Long lecture but it’s like my answer but a) right b) well put c) thoroughly researched. Everything you don’t get from me basically lol
LI5: Our brains are making things up.
LI6: Our brains typically *process* sensory experiences caused by stimulation of sensory organs. When hallucinating, our brains *perceive* sensory experiences without sensory organ stimulation. I don’t know that the entire underlying cause has been determined, but there’s a reduction in signaling between neurons and their firing patterns are different. We’re receiving the same sensory information, we just aren’t processing it correctly.
Latest Answers