Hallucination, absence of Stimulus with qualities of real perception

Hallucination is a perception which occurs in the absence of a stimulus which has qualities of real perception. It happens when someone hears, smells, sees, taste or feels thing which does not exist beyond their mind. Hallucinations are substantial, vivid and are distinguished from the related phenomena of dreaming that is not connected to wakefulness; illusion involving distorted or misinterpreted real perceptions; imagery that does not associate with real perception.

Hallucination may occur in any sensory modality like visual, olfactory, auditory, gustatory, proprioceptive, tactile, equilibrioceptive, nociceptive, chronoceptive and thermoceptive. It is common in people with schizophrenia who experience it as hearing voices.

Hallucination with/without Mental Sickness

Hallucination may occur as a result of consuming illicit drugs or alcohol or it could be a part of mental illness like schizophrenia. Some people may experience hallucination which may not be related to a mental sickness.

It could make a person feel nervous, frightened or paranoid and hence it is important to be with people whom they can trust. Hallucination could also occur due to extreme tiredness or a recent loss of a member of a household. The typical types of hallucination include hearing voices, hallucination and sleep, drug induced hallucination and hallucination experienced by children running a high fever.

Hearing voices in the mind is one of the most common types of hallucination in schizophrenia victims where the voices could be critical, neutral or complimentary. They could give out harmful commands or may engage the person in a conversation or even make an on-going comment on the person’s actions.

Psychotic/Dementia/Hallucination

People may experience hallucination especially when they are high on illicit drugs and can also happen at the time of withdrawal from alcohol or drugs if they tend to suddenly refrain from taking them. Usually visual hallucination are drug induced but can also affect the other senses which may include abstract shapes or flashes of light or may even take the shape of an animal of a person.

Visual distortions often occur that may change the persons’ perception of the world around them. Hallucination may occur on their own or as a part of drug induced psychosis. Besides this, heavy consumption of alcohol can also lead to psychotic state, dementia and hallucination.

Hypnagogic/Hypnopompic

It is also common for people to have hallucination when they are about to fall asleep which is known as hypnagogic or when they start to wake up from their sleep, known as hypnopompic. They may hear sounds or may see things which do not exist, like moving object or images of person and may think that they have seen a ghost.

This type of hallucination is common especially in people with sleep disorder, though it is also common in people without this disorder. Hallucination in the case of children running high temperature, can be referred to the physician for treatment while at the same time encourage the patient to consume plenty of fluid to keep the temperature in control.

Few treatments are available for the various types of hallucination but abstaining from drugs, alcohol, managing stress levels, living a healthy life and plenty of sleep and relaxation could help to reduce hallucination. Hallucinations caused by mental illness, a psychologist or a psychiatrist should be consulted where treatment would be given based on their observations.