Reality can be nothing more than our perception...so does that mean that hallucinations are merely reality???

Question

I don't just mean drug induced hallucinations, but those of altered perception due to spiritual transcendence or phenomena of the like, psychological disorders or anything else that may cause any type of sensual hallucination...

Answer 1

Sure. Why not?

Answer 2

Your perceptions are your reality, but not really reality.

No matter how hard we try to determine the real nature of reality, we will always come up short.

But "transcending" reality in the way you suggest will not work. Any more than not seeing the sky kept it from falling on Chicken Little. If you want to bury your head in the sand, you have every right to do so.

Using transcendentalism to isolate yourself more fully from reality than you would normally be will not remove the reality of reality. Its all still there whether you make the choice to acknowledge it or not.

Sometimes it is too hard to face. Most people at one time or other must shut down to avoid going insane. But it is unhealthy to stay isolated. You will become paranoid of the most common things and for the very reasons you want to do this, you shouldn't.
You will defeat your purpose.

Answer 3

Very early on in the development of the philosophy of science, it was realised that we rely on our senses to make any measurements of the reality around us, and our senses can be fooled. While we can take measures to be sure that the logic we apply to those measurements to conclude things about reality is accurate, it is harder to do this for the measurements themselves.

The solution was repetition and reproducibility. Initial this took the form of requiring that the thing could be observed using more than one sense with the same result - that is, that it was common to more than one sense. From this we get the term "common sense".

The fact that we can make reproducible, common sense measurements shows there is an underlying reality that is constant, and so hallucinations are clearly and measureably an abberation of the perception of that reality.

Answer 4

They are your version of reality. However, reality would still be defined differently for everyone else (hence the "perception"), as they perceive the same thing entirely different.

Answer 5

reality is our perceptions based on our senses, so hallucinations are not reality because they are not based completely on our senses and our logical perception.

Answer 6

It sounds feasable. Time and space do not exist as we perceive them so I'd say yes. Possibly just as real as dreamland.

Answer 7

good point!

Answer 8

whatever ...