Hallucinations? (maybe little trigs)

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Registered: 10-23-2004
Hallucinations? (maybe little trigs)
5
Wed, 02-09-2005 - 8:37pm

Amanda's post brought to mind a recent experience of mine.

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Registered: 03-27-2003
Wed, 02-09-2005 - 9:10pm

Hi Morgaine, I've had experiences with hearing (or thinking I heard!) the TV or radio too...I haven't had quite the experience that you describe, but I've heard about things like that in relation to something called "hypnagogic hallucinations" or "hypnapompic hallucinations," meaning they happen when you are waking up from sleep or drowsy.

Those kinds of hallucinations are one of the common features of narcolepsy, but as far as I know, they also happen in people without narcolepsy. This is one description (in outline form) I found on the web:

"Hypnagogic hallucinations: occur during transitions between sleep and wakefulness and may accompany sleep paralysis or occur independently. Visual dreamlike hallucinations: someone standing over the bed, threatening to enter the house is common.
Differ from dreams because some awareness of the surroundings is preserved."

The website where that's from is about narcolepsy..it is: http://neuroland.com/sleep/narcolepsy.htm

Also, the inability to move when you awoke sounds a lot like sleep paralysis (which I've had a lot in the past as well), another symptom that can happen with narcolepsy but I think also happens a lot to "normal" people...it doesn't mean anything is wrong.

I'm not positive that's what you were having, of course...it does sound like maybe you could consider bringing it up with your doctor just in case. But yours is definitely not the first description of a hallucination like that that I've heard...in one of my anthropology classes in college, the prof said that these kinds of hallucinations may have been the origin for various cultures' stories about nighttime spirits that visit people's bedsides!

Hope this helps a little bit...that does sound like a very scary experience,

Rose

Edit: I did a little more searching and found a website that seems to explain it much better (at least the first section of the website), and corresponds to what you mention...here it is: http://watarts.uwaterloo.ca/~acheyne/S_P2.html




Edited 2/9/2005 9:20 pm ET ET by rosa444
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Registered: 10-23-2004
Wed, 02-09-2005 - 9:45pm

Rose,


Thanks for the great links!

Avatar for wrgrossman
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Registered: 03-31-2003
Wed, 02-09-2005 - 10:37pm

ok off the subject i know, dose anyone else here get like an electric sounding hum in their head? i have that when i am manic and my mind is raceing from focus to focus with all my seeming ly great ideas. at least they seem great until i get my head out of the clouds

Becky

 


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Avatar for babygromit
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
Thu, 02-10-2005 - 4:09am

I actually get hallucinations from Ambien. I don't take it anymore for that reason but when I was experiencing the hallucinations I did know they weren't real. I sat there thinking, "Wow, this is just not happening!" I even tried to wake up my dh to tell him I was seeing weird thing but he too would not wake. And the next morning he had no idea that I had gone through all that or that I tried to wake him.


Anyway that's my experiences:)


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Registered: 10-23-2004
Thu, 02-10-2005 - 6:38pm

Interesting.