Cravings to kill and schizophrenia?

[Inexorable Username]

Just a procrastination thought.
Since I can't sleep anyways - so I'm going to stop torturing myself about it.

Has anyone taken to watching some interviews with murderers?
At least, people who kill seemingly randomly. Not the kind of people who target a specific victim to stalk.

Murderers seem to express being urged to kill by a feeling of pressure, or a compulsion, and a rationalizing voice in the back of their mind that fixates on the idea of killing. And they fantasize about it, and visualize it, until they can't seem to move on with their lives before addressing the issue.

We traditionally associate murder with psychopathy because we assume that in order to kill a person (especially an innocent person who is no threat to you), you must not have the capacity to feel as a normal person feels. If history and politics teaches us anything though, its that people are pretty good at abandoning their morals and empathy if they think its for the greater good. Some people would say the people who do that are all psychotic...but many of those people don't seem to share the other symptoms that have been observed in individuals with this mental illness, so I doubt it. And if that is the case, maybe the illness doesn't belong in the DSM after all, because it's clearly not impacting a person's ability to function in society and thrive in their life.

Anyways. What of schizophrenia? It seems to me that these brain patterns may be more suggestive of schizophrenia than psychosis. The nagging voice, the fixation, the powerfully compelling visualizations. (Obviously this isn't me saying that all schizophrenics are murderers...) I'm mostly pointing out that the brain anomalies that lead to schizophrenia may share common patterns to those that lead to murder.

I've read of one case of a schizophrenia-related murder, and in that instance, the person eventually felt so compelled to commit the crime that they seemed to think they had no choice, and that their own life was in danger. Schizophrenic voices, as to my understanding, can be very violent and terrifying.

Has anyone researched this at all?

Has anyone spent time trying to mentally put themselves into the perspective of a person compelled to commit murder? Any findings?

 

[Black Rose]

Strictly speaking, it is a hostage situation the way it is framed. Imagine hearing voices telling you to commit suicide of murder. Imagine real people told you to do these things. Now, this is only 5% (A low number, I estimate) have harmful voices like direct violence. People fight back and don't listen but they suffer still.

I have had 2 visual hallucinations in my life. Schizoaffective is only 10% as bad as Schizophrenia. Much better outcomes. But it was weird very weird. I don't hear voices thank God.

 

[ZenRaiden]

Schizoaffective is only 10% as bad as Schizophrenia.

I always thought its the other way around.

We traditionally associate murder with psychopathy because we assume that in order to kill a person (especially an innocent person who is no threat to you), you must not have the capacity to feel as a normal person feels. If history and politics teaches us anything though, its that people are pretty good at abandoning their morals and empathy if they think its for the greater good. Some people would say the people who do that are all psychotic...but many of those people don't seem to share the other symptoms that have been observed in individuals with this mental illness, so I doubt it. And if that is the case, maybe the illness doesn't belong in the DSM after all, because it's clearly not impacting a person's ability to function in society and thrive in their life.

We are all capable of killing another human being. Some people are forced into those circumstances some become killers, because they want to get something and the only way the can get it is to kill. Some people generally have low regard of life so they kill, none have to be psychopathic to do it. Some people might feel guilty after the kill, but might not have any specific inhibition in the act.
Psychopathy is not in the DSM. It is antisocial disorder that is in DSM and there are clear outlines in antisocial disorder that make it disorder and people who have it and are diagnosed with it are indeed in need of help for their own sake and sake of others.

Anyways. What of schizophrenia? It seems to me that these brain patterns may be more suggestive of schizophrenia than psychosis. The nagging voice, the fixation, the powerfully compelling visualizations. (Obviously this isn't me saying that all schizophrenics are murderers...) I'm mostly pointing out that the brain anomalies that lead to schizophrenia may share common patterns to those that lead to murder.

To be schizophrenic you have to have psychosis first sometimes multiple times before you get schizophrenic label. Schizophrenics may kill, and it maybe due to delusions or hallucinations. Its not a rule and generally its rare. So rare infact that schizophrenics can usually be on pills and just walk around normal people hallucinating and no one gives a shit. Schizophrenics are generally more likely to kill themselves than really murder someone. That is not to say they do not do it, but it is very rare. Schizophrenics may have violent hallucinations and delusions that can make them consider violent actions.

 

[Cognisant]

Philosophically it bothers me that I know of people who are having a profoundly negative affect on the world and I'm not doing anything about it, the fact being only people who know what needs to be done are in a position to actually do it so if I don't do it then who will? Nobody will, and nobody does, because like everyone else able to reach the same conclusions I have I know that if I were to try I'd most likely fail and the consequences of trying would be incredibly detrimental to my life.

Some people deserve to die, not because they're particularly terrible people (though there is a case to be made) but because their positions of prominence within systems of oppression and exploitation makes their violent deaths a catalyst for positive change.

Oh fuck the CEO just caught a bullet with his face, maybe we should think twice about engaging in hostile takeovers of aquifers in developing nations to effectively force farmers off their land so we can take over their agricultural industry, effectively allowing us to tax the people of that nation for the right to grow their own fucking food.

On a lighter note I find the method of killing people fascinating, it's like how I don't own a gun, I have no intention of ever owning or making guns, but I often watch youtube videos about guns and how they work because I find the mechanisms involved and the particulars of the problem they're designed to solve fascinating. Likewise I have no particular desire to murder anyone for the sake of committing murder but I enjoy wondering how I might go about killing someone. How I could make it look like an accident or natural causes, how I could dispose of the body, how I could get past various guards and security systems, how I could make it as difficult as possible to trace the crime back to me much less secure a conviction. It's a puzzle.

It's also very effective paranoia fuel.

 

[EndogenousRebel]

Murderers seem to express being urged to kill by a feeling of pressure, or a compulsion, and a rationalizing voice in the back of their mind that fixates on the idea of killing. And they fantasize about it, and visualize it, until they can't seem to move on with their lives before addressing the issue.

We traditionally associate murder with psychopathy because we assume that in order to kill a person (especially an innocent person who is no threat to you), you must not have the capacity to feel as a normal person feels. If history and politics teaches us anything though, its that people are pretty good at abandoning their morals and empathy if they think its for the greater good. Some people would say the people who do that are all psychotic...but many of those people don't seem to share the other symptoms that have been observed in individuals with this mental illness, so I doubt it. And if that is the case, maybe the illness doesn't belong in the DSM after all, because it's clearly not impacting a person's ability to function in society and thrive in their life.

Anyways. What of schizophrenia? It seems to me that these brain patterns may be more suggestive of schizophrenia than psychosis. The nagging voice, the fixation, the powerfully compelling visualizations. (Obviously this isn't me saying that all schizophrenics are murderers...) I'm mostly pointing out that the brain anomalies that lead to schizophrenia may share common patterns to those that lead to murder.

I've read of one case of a schizophrenia-related murder, and in that instance, the person eventually felt so compelled to commit the crime that they seemed to think they had no choice, and that their own life was in danger. Schizophrenic voices, as to my understanding, can be very violent and terrifying.

Has anyone researched this at all?

Has anyone spent time trying to mentally put themselves into the perspective of a person compelled to commit murder? Any findings?

When I think about the implications of what is supposedly causing the symptom of the disease, it makes ask some questions that no one has answers to. One explanation being the breakdown of neuronal cells, specifically in the neocortex (where empathy is born.) I can see how that would cause some symptoms such as logical leaps of faith and A-Z thinking (as opposed to A-B-C thinking), but I don't see how it causes hallucinations and besides maybe causing a chemical imbalance, but even then there are questions for explaining what is it I'm seeing/believing.

This being said, I've recommended that you go to Quora and search for ASPD, and you will get plenty of information on how these people work. Most murders aren't premeditated, and they pale in comparison when we look at heart disease so our sample size for explaining why they happen is limited, this especially goes for murders that took place with Schizophrenics. My episode made me see my true self for who I am, and I would never kill anyone even if there was an overwhelming force telling me to do so, in fact, I saw how truly empathetic I was and found a value for almost all life. I heard a story about a man who was binge-watching the Walking Dead, took a whole bunch of drugs, and killed his neighbor because he thought they were a zombie. So yeah, belief carries a big portion of the blame obviously I guess.

Schizoaffective is only 10% as bad as Schizophrenia.

I always thought its the other way around.

I got two different diagnoses from two different institutions. One for schizo, and another for schizoaffective. The one that talked to me more personally and gave me a test was the one that gave me schizoaffict diagnosis. The only real difference is that schizoaffective shows signs of schizophrenia and mood disorders like bipolar. Animekitty is right when he says that we have better outcomes, but because some people think about diseases differently they may write something like "Those with a minimal post-onset IQ decline also showed higher levels of manic symptoms." The paper this quote is from looked at IQ and schizophrenia, and didn't make that distinction for whatever reason.

I'm sure we should look at it on a case by case basis, for humours sake I have dubbed schizoaffective "spicy schizophrenia."

 

[Ex-User (14663)]

from having known an individual with schizophrenia, I would say it should be very easy to distinguish murderers with schizophrenia from murderers who are just run-of-the-mill psychopaths who enjoy the power trip and simply lack the element of sympathy

 

[peoplesuck]

Philosophically it bothers me that I know of people who are having a profoundly negative affect on the world and I'm not doing anything about it, the fact being only people who know what needs to be done are in a position to actually do it so if I don't do it then who will? Nobody will, and nobody does, because like everyone else able to reach the same conclusions I have I know that if I were to try I'd most likely fail and the consequences of trying would be incredibly detrimental to my life.

Some people deserve to die, not because they're particularly terrible people (though there is a case to be made) but because their positions of prominence within systems of oppression and exploitation makes their violent deaths a catalyst for positive change.

Oh fuck the CEO just caught a bullet with his face, maybe we should think twice about engaging in hostile takeovers of aquifers in developing nations to effectively force farmers off their land so we can take over their agricultural industry, effectively allowing us to tax the people of that nation for the right to grow their own fucking food.

these are my thoughts, I didnt give you permission to share them, feeling exposed tbh.
There are some people who are so bad, I would deem a life worth living, if the life's only purpose was to destroy them. Not for the sake of killing them, but preventing their influence. justice is cool too
If its worth doing something, its worth doing it right. years of planning would be required to actually make any real change. Maybe 5 evil people, in high places.
You would certainly need to create an alibi life, lots of things to consider, lots of rules to manipulate. The good news: you could literally buy a 1mile rated sniper from less than a month of minimum wage working.
tbh some ways, our system is kinda kick ass? like where else can you make hamburgers for two weeks, and buy a fucking sniper rifle?
Ive been looking at our system from the wrong angle this whole time.

 

[onesteptwostep]

One common trait of schizophrenics is that they feel overly scrutinized and feel persecuted. The need to kill is an irrational decision made consciously due to that intense and delusional feeling of persecution. It has nothing to do with a lack of empathy- their sense of fight or flight completely overrides their rational mental capacity. Schizophrenics usually never disclose this persecutory fixation, which usually pushes it to spiral out of control, which, if things go terribly wrong, can result in the person actually physically reacting to the object or person who is suspect of the persecution. I wouldn't say they're common though, but once in a while there are murder cases where the murderer usually fits the bill of a schizophrenic. Usually they end up in some mania stage and suffer a meltdown. Schizophrenics are more linked to a lack of sleep and intense stress over a period of time.

Source: was treated for fringe schizophrenia and have experience in dealing with a schizophrenic friend. My experience with schizo made me realize there are limits to human rationality, in the philosophical sense.

 

[Inexorable Username]

Wow. Let me just say for starters that I didn't realize so many people in this community had experience with schizophrenia. I actually feel a little bad now about bringing up this topic, as it seems so personal.

Couple things - firstly, I want to say that the point I was trying to make wasn't that schizophrenic people are more likely to kill then psychotic people, but that the same brain abnormalities involved and causing schizophrenic hallucinations may also be implicated in murderers. That wouldn't mean that someone who murders would be diagnosed with schizophrenia. It could even be that most schizophrenia causes enough fear in an individual that without hallucinations that specifically compel want to murder to save their own lives, the fear itself may make a person even less capable of committing it.

But if the person had similar brain abnormalities, but did not suffer from the hallucinatory symptoms that schizophrenics suffer from, they may feel things such as fixation, compulsion, and other things that schizophrenics feel, which my predispose them to developing a murderous mindset in the right circumstances.

It could be that certain brain abnormalities cause the brain to function in a certain way. Perhaps these abnormalities might cause a person to you have extreme difficulty coping with criticism, feelings of repression, and may predispose a person to feel higher than normal levels of anger, frustration, and a sense of unfairness. People with these brain abnormalities may also have less developed executive functioning which makes it more difficult to control their compulsions.

Some people with these problems may develop psychoactive symptoms that could result in the diagnosis of schizophrenia. Other people with these problems they don't develop psychoactive symptoms but may still share the underlying brain abnormalities that could have led to schizophrenia if they shared other characteristics as well.

 

[Inexorable Username]

Psychopathy is not in the DSM. It is antisocial disorder that is in DSM and there are clear outlines in antisocial disorder that make it disorder and people who have it and are diagnosed with it are indeed in need of help for their own sake and sake of others.

You're right...what the lay man refers to as a "psychopath" is a person the DSM-5 would diagnose as having APD.

I think the DSM might have a bit of catching up to do, because there have been observations regarding "sociopaths" and how they differ from "psychopaths", for a while now, by laymen and professionals alike, and the diagnosis of APD does not account for the differences that have been observed.

The belief right now is generally that APD is genetic. But the public opinion about psychopaths and sociopaths, and the difference between then, seems to be that sociopaths are made while as psychopaths are born that way.

I think that our research on APD is a little immature still? When we have more scientific studies and reports from professionals in soft sciences like psychology, we might be able to better nail down some of the finer differences in psychopaths and sociopaths, and at that point, by laymen's terms, and better flesh out the DSM definition of antisocial personality disorder.

I haven't looked up APD in a bit though, so maybe I'm misremembering. I used to help a friend with her sociology homework quite a bit, but its been a while.

Anyways, I think that the distinction is an important one that must be made, because it would really influence the therapeutic techniques we apply. I could see CBT as potentially being pretty effective in a sociopath, for instance, but not so much in a psychopath, because a psychopath, lacking the physical ability to experience certain emotions (if, in fact, that even exists), would have difficulty understanding that their behaviors are wrong and need to be changed, which is sort of a prerequisite to effective CBT. There was a study I read not too long ago that suggested that shrooms might be able to rewire a person's brain, and that could have implications in overcoming addiction. It's possible that, if a sociopath's ability to feel certain emotions has been inactivated in the brain, potentially due to chronic, long-term, emotional suppression of most emotions except for those relating to anger or self-fulfillment, that the use of "magic mushrooms" may stimulate activity in that area of the brain, helping a person to overcome their limitation.

So in my personal opinion, if indeed this distinction exists between the "psychopath" and the "sociopath", it's an important one for us to make in the DSM, because not doing so somewhat defeats the purpose of the DSM, which I view as a tool we use to outline plans for rehabilitation.

The potential existence of the sociopath is really quite a sad thing...someone who has had such a rough shot at life, and such an inability to cope, that their brain has rewired itself to spare them the pain of vulnerable emotions. Compassion for those people might be greatly limited if our studies on psychopaths suggest that rehabilitation is majorly ineffective. Sociopaths with a potential to change may be, for instance, placed on death row, and interviewed by professionals who treat them as hopeless cases. I don't know. That makes me sad. I'm usually not in favor of the death penalty.

Anyways, you're right. There's a difference between psychosis, insofar as it refers to hallucinations, and psychosis insofar as it refers to delusions. Honestly - that's another thing we probably need to correct, because it's too much of an umbrella term, basically just meaning that you see the world in a way it is not. That leaves way too much up for interpretation, as it can mean anything from seeing a murderous clown standing by your closet, to thinking to yourself "I was right. I AM a god."
It would be better if we called visual and auditory hallucinations something to the effect of "sensoriosis"

To be schizophrenic you have to have psychosis first sometimes multiple times before you get schizophrenic label.

Sort of...It's changed in the DSM-5. Although, even in the DSM-4, I don't think that sensory psychosis was necessarily a requirement, because you could have the "Disorganized Type" or the "Residual Type". Apparently, we ditched these subcategories in the DSM-5, but it's still helpful to know that they at least existed, because the DSM-5 is less specific now, but basically just includes the previous distinctions in a sort of umbrella term. I'd be interested to know why that change was made. But in any case, those umbrella terms provide a better explanation of schizophrenia that occurs sans hallucinations and other criteria.

But anyways, according to the DSM-5, two or more criterion must be met for a significant portion of time during a one month period :
1. delusions
2. hallucinations
3. disorganized speech
4. disorganized/catatonic behavior
5. diminished emotional expression

So a person could present with 1, 2, and 3, and have sensory psychosis but not the emotional symptoms of APD, or they could have catatonic behavior and diminished emotional expression, and not necessarily present with any psychosis at all, but simply an endless, emotionless stupor, and still be diagnosed with schizophrenia if their symptoms persist for 21 solid days within a one month time period.

Correct me if I'm wrong. I'll send you the DSM 4 and 5 comparison links.

Anyways - I think that's, again, too vague. The DSM, in my opinion, often isn't specific enough and it can lead to diagnoses that maybe should have remained undiagnosed so we could treat the problem as those it requires more research. I think it can also lead to psychiatrists prescribing potentially harmful medications to a person. Anti-depressants, for instance, can be very, very dangerous. I knew someone who had a psychotic episode as a result of antidepressants, according to his psychiatrist, and I won't share the details of it here because I know he wouldn't want me to...but the point is - his has to live with that memory now, and I don't think this psychiatrist was careful enough. Their potential negligence has really affected his perception of himself. Sad. Very sad. In some of these cases, peoples very lives are at stake.

Well - anyways. Here's the comparison table for the DSM.

Table 3.22, DSM-IV to DSM-5 Schizophrenia Comparison - Impact of the DSM-IV to DSM-5 Changes on the National Survey on Drug Use and Health - NCBI Bookshelf

If you think I overlooked something, let me know. I think there should absolutely be the presence of sensory psychosis to diagnose schizophrenia, but it would appear that's not the way the DSM reads. It would also appear that you can make this schizophrenic diagnoses in a relatively short time - the patient must display the behavior for a "significant" amount of time within one month according to criterion B. When you look at specifiers, the first course only applies to symptoms that have lasted for a year or more, and the second course of specifiers isn't required for a diagnosis.

 

[Inexorable Username]

Strictly speaking, it is a hostage situation the way it is framed. Imagine hearing voices telling you to commit suicide of murder. Imagine real people told you to do these things. Now, this is only 5% (A low number, I estimate) have harmful voices like direct violence. People fight back and don't listen but they suffer still.

I have had 2 visual hallucinations in my life. Schizoaffective is only 10% as bad as Schizophrenia. Much better outcomes. But it was weird very weird. I don't hear voices thank God.

I can imagine that....I came across a YouTube video once where someone tried that out for a day by wearing headphones. It was enlightening.

What I can't imagine is being a person with a health issue that severe, and feeling so alienated, so isolated, so worthless, so broken, and so ashamed that you can't possibly admit to someone (or even to yourself) that you suffer from these hallucinations. From what I've read from things people who claim to have these issues have said, it took them a very, very long time to seek help. I also watched a video about a father who had to help his schizophrenic daughter who was suffering from visual hallucinations, and didn't know how to tell what was real and what wasn't. The father had also been diagnosed with schizophrenia.

I have enormous compassion for people who suffer this way. It's horrible. One of the worst things I can imagine. I might almost prefer to be laying in a hospital bed covered in first degree burns, awaiting skin grafts, and doped up on pain killers, than have severe visual and auditory schizophrenic hallucinations. At least sometimes, even if you're in excruciating pain, you will be able to look at things and know they're real. At least sometimes, you have control of your mind, and at least you have the compassion of people who can see how much you're hurting, and are supportive of what you're going through, and you have the hope that one day, you won't have to suffer the way you're suffering.

Schizophrenics that isolate and try to blend in...they have none of that. They're all alone in a truly terrifying world - like a living nightmare - the likes of which the rest of us could never imagine.

Of course, not a lot of people suffer that way. But what really can tend to upset me is when people demean schizophrenia by making fun of a person who hears voices. Of course, I get it. A lot of people think rape is funny too. You think it's funny if it's not a real threat to you. But what upsets me about that mentality is that its for that reason that some people who are suffering beyond belief just cannot bring themselves to seek help. They're terrified that the secret will be out, and everyone will know they're "crazy". A lunatic. Someone to be locked away in a straight jacket and poked, prodded, and laughed at.

That's what I can't really imagine. That feeling of not being able to turn to anyone for help, and not having even your own brain to turn to in order to sort things out. Many of us get so freaked out by the possibility of there being a murderer in our dark shadowy closet, that we're paralyzed to the spot and can't even move for a good 10 minutes. Imagine seeing the murderer holding a bloody knife and leering at you, while the voices in your head are telling you that you're going to die and no one is going to help you when you scream.

I think I would kill myself. My voices would probably agree with me. My head would not have the strength to deal with severe schizophrenia that presents with auditory and visual hallucinations.

I talked to a mom whose son has schizophrenia for quite a while once when I was waiting for my car to be fixed. Not sure why people tell me things like this but...they do. Anyways. Just hearing her story - it broke my heart. She tries so hard, too. How terrible to be a parent, and be so powerless to help your child with a mental illness that hurts them so much. She's an advocate for schizophrenia. Explained to me how deeply it hurts her son that people make fun of his illness and call him crazy.

I think I'm going to make myself cry now so I desist!

I'm not sure what my point was. What was my point?

Oh. Well I think my initial point was that I have no personal experience with schizophrenia, but I've read a lot of (apparently) first-hand accounts, watched a first hand account on Youtube, and watched that experiment on YouTube, and I had the second-hand account from that mom. So this is an issue I feel a lot of compassion for.

One case comes to mind - a little girl who murdered another girl because of slender man. I remember reading her account (or maybe I watched it on a video) of what the voices were saying to her.

I think that's what brought me to wondering whether the same brain abnormalities that lead to schizophrenia that presents with sensory hallucinations, could be similar to the abnormalities that predispose a person to murderous tendencies if their life circumstances aggravate that. When you look at the DSM-5 definition of schizophrenia, without the sensory hallucinations, some of the pieces seem to fit. A flat affect, impaired emotions, etc.

There may be a common root cause here. If we suspected there may be, we could compare scans from murderers with scans from people diagnosed with schizophrenia, and look for correlations. Finding them might be a useful way to identify which people with APD or Schizophrenia might present a risk to the safety of others.

 

[ZenRaiden]

First schizophrenia is a complicated topic. The lay presentation and the way it gets viewed by psychiatrists is a lot different.
Also do not use DSM 5 as a way to figure out mental illness or anything like that. It is just a standardized manual. It is not end all be all guide to diagnosis. The symptoms have to be interpreted and even professionals have hard time diagnosing schizophrenia.
ASPD is simply used for convenience sake. Yes there are psychopaths and maybe some sort of sociopaths, but those terms have been now avoided for sake of better treatment.
Psychopathy is said to be untreatable.

 

[ZenRaiden]

Oh. Well I think my initial point was that I have no personal experience with schizophrenia, but I've read a lot of (apparently) first-hand accounts, watched a first hand account on Youtube, and watched that experiment on YouTube, and I had the second-hand account from that mom. So this is an issue I feel a lot of compassion for.

All people experience schizophrenia differently. Some things are more common some less common. For example my problem were mostly ideas and delusions. My hallucinations were not that bad. For example I could predict the future, know what people are thinking, know something that I should not know, had visions etc. There was also huge creepy factor to everything, because some predictions and things came true.
When I was hospitalized I realized I have to lie about my symptoms or they will keep me there. I figured every other schizo is lying so I might as well start too. Since psychiatrist cannot really tell what you are telling them is true or not they either believe you or don't.
Worst bad move was telling the people around me what I thought. Most people freaked out and frankly I did not tell them even 1 /10th of what I was thinking.

 

[Black Rose]

Events in my mental illness.

December 20, 2015 (saw a vision of a rainbow angel after confronting demon-like music)

June 3, 2016 (the room cracked in two - I saw the old spice commercial man on my computer - I saw the wienermobile fall apart on my computer) note the hallucinations were on but not originated from my computer. the crack happened last.

August 3, 2016 (I saw the white light, a woman was there covered in liquid gold sunlight)

June 3, 2017 (in a dream, people were pushing me onto a cross laid flat, I stopped resisting and was able to get up and wake up) I had eaten magic browny chocolate a friend gave me, - in the ambulance, I was motionless with a 180 heartrate. (the experiences happed way too fast)

March 25, 2019 (I hallucinated candy land when staring into the sun)

April 2019 (a scary face like the Eye of Sauron popped out at me from a person and said "I am the sins of your grandfather, go away") me and the person we're watching Van Helsing in the patients living area. The face looked like the Green lantern villain movie 2011.

 

[Inexorable Username]

Wow. That sounds intense.

I’ve only had any kind of hallucination once, and my eyes weren’t open, so I don’t know that it counts. It was also because I was meditating. So there was an attributable reason.

And it was boring compared to what you’re talking about.

Honestly, it’s something that a person shouldn’t even be scared of, but I found it sort of terrifying.

I guess I can slightly relate to ZenRaiden’s comment of the “feeling of creepiness”.

For me, I was just meditating, as usual, and there were some spots of light behind my eyes - pretty normal. But then they turned into sea creatures that were swimming in the water, and I enjoyed that. They were really highly detailed and beautiful in some weird way, and some had strange, intricate markings. It all felt like a heavily stylized painting come to life and the sea creatures felt like...the closest I can come to describing it is “Heavenly creatures playing in paradise” - but I’m not religious. They admitted a sort of glow though.

At first I was caught off guard and I had a thought of something like “Am I going crazy?”. But the scene was just really cool so I figured I’d watch it for a bit. (I researched this later and found out you’re not supposed to pay these hallucinations any mind). A whale jumped out of the water. Then I started to lose the visual and I didn’t really want it to go.

Then a new vision came. Everything was black, but there was a far away door that was open and the doorway was full of bright light, and then I noticed a dark, backlit silhouette of a man walking towards me dressed in a suit.

And for some reason I can’t fathom, the sight just filled me with terror. For some reason I knew he meant me harm - like he was going to kill me or something. He was evil. And while I again hate to make a religious reference, not being religious myself, it was like he was satonic - or maybe satan himself. The more I watched him the more freaked out it made me. I was trying to tell whether he was getting closer and trying to figure out what was going to happen to me if he made it to where I was.

So then I opened my eyes. My heart was beating pretty fast I think and I was pretty freaked out. I guess I’m lucky that it happened while I was meditating - so I could just open my eyes.

Anyways...I researched it and found out that you can sometimes hallucinate when you meditate and the Buddhists say just to ignore it XD how Buddhist of them.

It made me edgey and paranoid though, because it happened shortly after I’d been off on a curiosity research rabbit hole that started with musings about Christianity and other faiths and ended up somewhere in the realm of wicca and paganism.

Actually, now that I think on it, that visual display has some strange parallels to the way my research experience panned out. So weird.

Anyways. I say I got paranoid because after that, I went to go walk my dog, and I thought I saw something run into the bushes that wasn’t an animal. (It was dark out), and for some weird reason my mind jumped to “demon!” Lol

So then I started to really question myself. Started thinking maybe there were things I read that people shouldn’t read. I’ve NEVER believed in demons or anything of the sort, but I found myself asking “What if you were wrong.” And imagining the kind of consequences there could be.

Oddly enough, the consequence that scared me the most would be realising I was wrong, and then being unable to prove it to people, and having people not believe me, and think that I was going crazy.

By the next day I was back to my senses and I wasn’t spooked by the creepy guy in my head anymore. I thought the whole thing was fascinating in retrospect and I was eager to find out if other people had the same experiences. I saw it all very objectively.

But....

I still haven’t gotten back into meditation >_>....and I’d been meditating pretty regularly for sessions up to 40/45 mins I think. Sometimes I meditated twice in one day. It had been making me smarter and better at life and my job.

I’m a little more freaked out now by what my head is capable of, a I think.

That’s my only experience with a hallucination. I don’t know how it would compare to the hallucinations people have from schizophrenia or similar. Although I’d be really curious to hear your guys’ feedback on that.

I wonder if the same brain structures involved in visual hallucinations when you have your eyes open are involved in hallucinations that occur with your eyes closed. I wonder how different those two kinds of hallucinations are.

What surprised me the most was I almost felt like my feelings were hallucinating too.

 

[Black Rose]

@Inexorable Username

Several things could be going on. I will list them.

controlled imagination
uncontrolled imagination (daydream)

dreaming
lucid dreaming (conscious dreaming)

controlled hallucination (overlay onto reality)
uncontrolled hallucination