How do you know hallucinations are not real?

Question

Alternatively, how do you know they aren't? they are always personal experiences, and hallucinations never overlap with 'real' life. So how do you differentiate and call one or the other 'real'?

Answer 1

You are going to have to hold my hand and define 'real'.
My Mum has hallucinations all the time, she has Parkinson's disease and is on some pretty heavy medication. It's difficult to know if the disease or the meds cause her to see and hear many things which we do not experience whilst sitting with her. However, many of the things she describes we recognise as distortions of her past experience of life. In as much as our memories may be defined as 'real' then her hallucinations are real in her experience. Her emotional response to seeing rabbits on the roof is very palpable, so is it a 'real' experience?
We are all bombarded with visual and verbal experience throughout our lives, much of which we will not recall, who can say if hallucinations are not just distorted memories? This does not, however, answer the question of their reality.

Sorry, after applying as much brain power as I can muster, (yes, I know you think I'm lacking in that department!), I cannot defend or deny another persons experience of reality. I can barely figure out if I'm real!

Answer 2

Take hand run through body if it doesn't stop it is hallucination. otherwise real. :-)
An illusion is a distortion of a sensory perception. Each of the human senses can be deceived by illusions, but visual illusions are the most well known. Some illusions are subjective; different people may experience an illusion differently, or not at all.

Optical illusions, such the use of false perspective, exploit "assumptions" made by the human visual system. Such include motion illusion, grid illusions, etc.
Mirages are optical distortions through the atmosphere that may be photographed. While the perceived reality (such as water in the desert) is illusory, the visual image (of a reflective surface) is real.
Auditory illusions, such as the Shepard tone, exploit our hearing.
Touch illusions exploit the human sense of touch.
Stage magic is a popular form of entertainment based on illusion. Magicians use tricks to give their audiences the impression that seemingly impossible events have occurred. See magic (illusion).
In psychiatry the term illusion refers to a specific form of sensory distortion. Unlike an hallucination, which is a sensory experience in the absence of a stimulus, an illusion describes a misinterpretation of a true sensation so it is perceived in a distorted manner. For example, hearing voices regardless of the environment would be an hallucination, whereas hearing voices in the sound of running water (or other auditory source) would be an illusion.

okay just my opinion:-)

Answer 3

Hi,

They are real... When someone has hallucinations, their whole system responds just as any other event... the person livingl it is living it in his or her own reality, thus making it very real... It is only unreal to those who cannot see or hear what the "victim" is experiencing... and the "victim" will react to their hallucination exactly as in a dream... When you sleep and dream, you do not realize you are in fact dreaming... You have reaction and emotions just the same... You just do things a little crazyer than normal..., simply because the "codes" of life do not apply in dreams... Given a certain surounding and certain emotions, a person will react basically on their emotive system in dreams... I on't think anyone can say that they sat down and studied the situation while in a dream... A similar reaction happens when having an hallucination...emotions gains all logic...

Hope this helps...

Answer 4

It's really simple. Someone with hallucinations - either by trauma, illness, or drug-induced may not be able to tell if they are real. However, just like trying to figure out if you are even awake this very instant - eventually you will just have to "roll with it". I remember being very ill once with a fever somewhere in the 104-106 range and going into full waking visual/auditory hallucinations.
In the end, if hallucinations are bothering you - see a doctor for help.

Answer 5

I assume you aren't talking about drug-induced hallucinations, like taking LSD or eating mushrooms where you're expecting to see, hear or feel something right? OK. I'm not a doctor, I only know what I know and that's experience. I did not know that what I was hearing or seeing was not real, until it would happen with someone else nearby and when I said something about it, they said they hadn't heard or seen anything. I found it hard to believe, since it was extremely realistic. It wasn't imaginary to me. But then I began to hear or see things that were simply impossible to be real, like hearing my father call me, when he was already deceased. Or hearing my husband open the door, climb the stairs and call out my name and realize he was at work. Until then, I couldn't tell the difference. So after things like that happened, I told my doctor and took medication that eased these occurances until they stopped happening. It is astounding to have your own mind do these things when you are awake and conscious.

Answer 6

Two of America's most brilliant men suffered from schizophrenia and dealt with active hallucinations. John Nash, Nobel Prize winning mathemetician and subject of the movie, "A Beautiful Mind", and Nikola Tesla, great inventor of Serbian descent.

In both cases, the men used their genius intellect to reign in the excesses of their mind. Even though the hallucinations were very real, they eventually gained the ability through superior powers of reason to distinguish hallucination from reality, and form an alliance with their mind that allowed them to function relatively well in the "real" world.

Tesla describes in detail his experience with hallucinations, in his autobiography, " My Inventions". This fascinating account describes his usage of hallucinations to build, tear down, and rebuild electric motors in his mind until they ran perfectly. By the time he got to the bench to actually build his many inventions, they ran perfectly on the "first" attempt:

http://www.lucidcafe.com/library/96jul/teslaautobio.html

Both men helped us to understand that genius often comes at a high cost. The chemical filtering mechanism in the brain that reduces our exposure to sensorium is often missing or reduced in the genuis. This constant barrage of input can induce hallucinations, as well as lead to explosive breakthroughs in the thinking process.

To finally answer your question, it is logic that gives away the hallucination. If it can't possibly be, than it is not; no matter how real it may seem to your senses.

Answer 7

i'm no longer able to unquestionably say from very own experience because of the fact I even have not at all had any hallucinations. yet i do get ocular migraine and notice weird and wonderful waves and get weird and wonderful innovative and prescient. Its the main weird and wonderful ingredient ever. and that i did artwork in psychological well-being with people who had schizophrenia, one lady could hallucinate that snakes have been crawling on her palms. it replaced into VERY genuine to her, basically comparable to auditory hallucinations are very genuine to the guy listening to them. the strategies is a peculiar and wonderful ingredient certainly! do you have any first hand experience of hallucinations your self?

Answer 8

while they may seem real to some people that have this to happen to them, this is something that I feel is not real. I say this because the Brain controls what we see. It is real to the people that have hullucinations but it's a part of the Brain that is messed up somehow. And if someone does see something like a ghost, a spirit then this might be real. Who is there to say it's not?

Answer 9

I am searching the dictionary for the word Hallucinations I know the meaning of all normal words ???????

Answer 10

The only way I can tell is that the voices in my head that accompany the visions always sound like Johnnie Cash...he is dead (I think) so I know I must be halluncinating...


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