Hallucinations vs Supernatural

As background, I don't have schizophrenia, but I have briefly experienced hallucinations and delusions at times. I haven't had any hallucinations for a couple of years, but every few weeks I have delusional worries that people are reading my thoughts or using magic to cause odd coincidences. These delusions only last a day or two, but I start feeling so confused, worried, and helpless.

When I was walking yesterday, I realized that I don't know what to believe about reality.

I don't understand why most people with psychosis seem to have no problem accepting that their hallucinations and delusions were not real. Why is it so hard for me? Maybe some of my experiences were not hallucinations and that is why it is harder for me?

When I say "I had a psychotic episode", I'm only saying that because I'm trying to be sensible. It's like I'm telling myself a lie to make myself feel better. I don't actually believe it.

Has anybody else felt this way?

It would be wrong to say that people going through psychosis have no problems accepting their hallucinations & delusions are not real.

For one, in my acute phase everything was very real. I had no idea I was ill. Many people tend to gain insight gradually as symptoms lessen, if they do. We all have our bad days when things seem very real. It takes a lot of effort to learn to do reality checks.

Also, bear in mind most schizophrenics are on medication, which although I don't think directly affects insight, will help to calm the mind a bit & facilitate the above.

That's just my impression though. It does vary a lot for each individual I'm sure. I'm finding that smoking cigarettes & being in a neutral environment is helping at the moment.

I think a predisposition to the supernatural can be indicative of psychotic symptoms but there is a line... hard to know where to draw it sometimes.

Thanks, a person with bipolar made a comment on another forum that started me thinking. He said (paraphrasing) "I have hallucinations frequently due to bipolar and they are only a nuisance. Hallucinations never dramatically change a person's outlook on life in the way that near death experiences affect people."

He had such a casual attitude about hallucinations, but here I am trying to sort-out my hallucinations several years after they happened. Were my hallucinations different or is there something about my personality different?

I would take that comment with a pinch of salt... hallucinations can have a profound impact either positive, negative or somewhere in between.

I personally found that after my acute phase, it really opened my eyes to the power of the human mind. For something to come from within that seems so external & which can be highly complex in nature... really makes you stop to think. Bear in mind though my delusions can be very distressing at the time...

I think hallucinations in the absence of delusions are entirely different....I'm not sure how delusional bipolar people get and whether they are uniform in that....

I suppose the biggest reason for attributing something as a hallucination is that disease, brain injuries , drug interactions , drug intoxication , fever , etc can cause hallucinations .

My voice(s) got me on a plane to Florida three times where I attempted suicide twice. That's how convincing that internal dialog can be.

I have no idea why Florida was the place to go. It's the last place I would choose to go, and certainly an armpit for inpatient psychological services.

This hallucinatory stupidity cost me 3k and time better spent at home seeing my shrink.

Edit to add, there was external stimuli - my house creaking, well-timed banging, visual and auditory input - which could have been perceived as supernatural, but I connected it to the dialog in my head due to the satanic nature of the voice(s) on-board.

Took me a while to remember that my voice(s) convinced me that I was a national security asset with a dedicated satellite to protect me. I still believe the government is watching me. Can't seem to shake that feeling.

Anyway, I was sucked into the whole "America is the Great Satan" line because of heavy reading of conspiracy stuff at the time. There was a lot of occult and Masonic material that was very convincing. The voice(s) took and ran with that I can tell you. It was insane.

Literally.

The delusional thinking is probably very important.

One thing that bugs me about some of my hallucinations is that I can't define the start and stop of the hallucinations. There is usually some period in the middle that is obviously not natural reality, but there are before and after periods where I don't know what was real and imaginary.

Sometimes I have wondered if brain injuries, fever, etc. creates a state where the person is more sensitive to supernatural things.

I think people who haven't experienced hallucinations can't appreciate them. Like people might have experience with a hallucinogenic drug and think that is the same, so they don't understand why I can't accept that my hallucinations were just hallucinations.

It is very impressive that our brains can create things. I know my hallucinations were probably less extreme than schizophrenia, but they impressed me.

When I first went through psychosis it started with hallucinations such as voices and auras around objects that seemed to want to communicate with me. As the illness progressed these experiences became longer and more pronounced. The ideas of reference and voices started to contain themes (communism and aliens). As that point my insight started to become impaired and gradually worsened as the delusions became stronger. During that time I was often confused. Eventually it went away.

After I recovered I was left with some lingering symptoms which can be overwhelming at times. Most of the time I know those experiences are due to my head and are not real. Hallucinations are fairly easy for me to identity. It is the warped thinking that I struggle with because there is no sensory input to help me reason my way out of it. For example I sometimes feel like an evil mass murderer has taken over my body and that I will be punished for that person's crime. It really scares and confuses me because it feels so real. Usually I can cope with all this as long as I don't get agitation.

I knew something was up but I wasn't sure what to make of it or how to explain it. Getting help wasn't really an option because I was misdiagnosed with a PD 9 years before. I quit psychiatry for five years and wasn't very willing to go back after that nasty experience even with a completely new and different illness.

I know my experience doesn't apply to all people but that doesn't make my experience less valid. I have discussed this in person with other people I know with schizophrenia. Some had no insight and others did especially in the early stages of their illness. I have also read some textbooks on the prodrome which validated my experience and so did my psychiatrist. We are all different.

Maybe your illness is mild or you may be in a prolonged prodromal state.

It depends on the content too----most of my hallucinations were totally intertwined with the delusions but right now I'm only hallucinating----things smell or taste weird or i just hear knocking or music its really not a big deal in comparison so I can see a clear difference....still if I had voices it would not be trivial in any case same with complex visuals like I had before....

I'm glad you came through that experience. I didn't hear a voice except for 2 or 3 times. It was very startling and mean sounding.

Mostly weird things would happen. Like I was changing my cat's water dish and there was a bug under the water dish. At that time I thought that "they" were spying on me through the eyes of certain kinds of bugs that kept showing up. The bug couldn't have got under the dish unless somebody had lifted the dish to put it under there. It all seemed totally real. I squashed the bug in a paper towel and put it in the trash. These are the kinds of memories that bother me, because they seem totally real.

My experience convinced me to join a church and give away most of my savings. I'm back to being an atheist now, but those memories don't fit the atheist model. It is hard for me to call them hallucinations when they seemed so real.

X,

My experience changed me from an atheist to a Deist. I felt I was under spiritual attack. I was constantly being told I was talking to the devil and that I was going to hell. I even had olfactory and tactile hallucinations of burning and the room being like a furnace.

My eyes are still being deliberately directed to fire alarm pulls. I was once expected to pull a fire alarm after smelling something burning in my condo. My voice(s) got very angry when I did not comply.

Yes, the voice(s) are startling when they first begin. Terrifying, in fact. All I could think was it must be "God" because I didn't think the government could do that.

Thanks. I like reading about the experiences of others, because it gives me a framework for understanding my own experiences. I can see similarities and differences that way.

I think my psychosis problems are all gone now except for the way suspicious coincidences are a reminder of the hallucinations from several years ago. They make me feel like I want to curl-up in my closet and try to forget.

I guess that must be how it seems for the bipolar person who described the hallucinations as nuisances. I hope the smells and tastes go away for you, because that might interfere with enjoying what you eat.

Good thing you didn't pull the fire alarm.

Sometimes I wonder if I was sensing supernatural things somehow and translating them into a Christian vocabulary.

Probably in time I will be comfortable with psychological explanations.

I know im in a different forum since I have a bipolar diagnosis.. but ive had a couple experiences well quite a few in my past that havent happened in years that im not sure were real or in my head due to my faith.... ive been diagnosed with bipolar type two which doesnt come with the psychosis (supposedly)... but when I was younger I saw black shadow figure and it blocked out light and it haunted me for years... id hear footsteps in the house I felt its presence but it seemed to only affect me and no one else in the house. Whwn I saw it the first time it opened the door. I was with a friend. She said she saw the door open but didnt see the black mass like I did.. it keeps me terrified of certain areas of my house and certain things its created a massive fear of the dark for me. Well a phobia actually... ive heard it speak before. Its been in my dream once but I wasnt sure if it was sleep paralysis or not.. so im not sure if it was paranormal becuz I believe in that or if I was hallucinating becuz I feel as tho I can feel and sense things other places and have seen things at other places too.. I mentioned it when I was in intensive treatment but my diagnosis was never changed. I just didnt know how you can tell the difference between reality and hallucination. .... it is something that has plagued me since I was 12 and im 25 now

Thanks. The fact that your friend saw the door open seems to rule out hallucination. (You might want to be sure your friend still remembers seeing the door open, because you may have hallucinated that too. I had a weird experience where my mother was present. When I asked her about this experience a few months later, she had no recollection. It's possible she simply forgot the experience, but it's also possible that I hallucinated her reaction to the experience. I didn't discuss it with her at the time, because my way of coping was to ignore these experiences.)

My advice on that black thing would be to ignore it. It's either a hallucination or it won't harm you if it hasn't in all these years. That's my advice, but I'm sure you have heard similar advice before. Maybe don't be scared of it and don't be angry at it either? (probably that's dumb advice - I don't know. )

Thats not dumb advice at all and never been told anything about it because i wasnt given any advice about it. Also ive only realllly opened up about it one other time except with my parents and being very religious based they assume demon taunting me because my faith is shakey. And you just dont talk about it becuz it would give strwngth to such things. So idk. But I appreciate the feedback very much..

I had brief psychosis years ago and now I'm recovered, but I still wonder about the hallucinations. I don't know what they were. Supernatural events or my illness. I was convinced that one of the voices belonged to a spirit guide who convinced me to go outside one night. There was a full moon. The voice wanted me to say anything to the moon, as if it were a person.I believed that following that spirit guide's instructions would help make my life easier. I said "Hello" to the moon,

Then it took off. At first I wondered if it was a plane that I was seeing, or a hot air balloon as it moved across the sky and came downwards. It grew bigger and I realised it was the moon approaching me. Then it stopped and on the surface of the moon were flashing images of animals, flowers and people. Some of those people I recognised as dead people but they were smiling and very much alive.It was so incredible. Then a noise like a shriek right behind me made me turn round but there wasn't anything there. I looked back at the moon and saw the moon had returned to its proper size and position in the sky just as normal.

Things like this made me wonder and I was scared of these voices sometimes.

That's crazy! What a wild experience. I think sometimes my hallucinations were so intense because I used to have delusions, but the delusions are gone.

My hallucinations are helpful and I prefer to be med free.

That's good your hallucinations are a source of healing Sweet Madness.

Btw where is your blog (just curious)?