What Are Hallucinations?
Hallucinations are the sensory experience created by the brain that feels real. Hallucinations can affect all five senses, leading to hearing different sounds, visualizing an image, or a person that nobody else in the room hears or sees.
What Are the Types of Hallucinations?
Based on the same hallucinations can be classified as follows:
- Visual hallucinations: Visual hallucinations include seeing things that are not present and nobody other than you can see; it includes visualizing images, objects, lights, or people, like seeing a person or cat who is not even present at a particular place.
- Olfactory Hallucinations: These types of hallucinations include sensing a fragrance or an odor that is not even there; in such situations, a person might even feel that his body stinks or might experience a scent that he loves.
- Gustatory Hallucinations: Hallucinations are similar to olfactory hallucinations but include false feelings concerning taste; in such circumstances, a person generally feels the taste of anything that he eats is unpleasant. Gustatory hallucinations are commonly seen in patients with epilepsy, where they experience a metallic taste.
- Auditory Hallucinations: These are hallucinations where a person experiences certain voices being called or might feel a person taking or instructing them. A person might even hear voices like someone walking behind or the noise of repeated tapping or clicking.
- Tactile Hallucination: These types of hallucinations include a feeling of being touched or insects crawling on the body; in such instances, a person might even experience internal organs moving.
What Are the Causes of Hallucinations?
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Hallucinations result from many medical conditions or habits and the long term use of certain medications.
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Some of these factors causing hallucinations include:
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Medical conditions like schizophrenia, epilepsy, dementia, and delirium, migraine.
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Substance abuse like cocaine can also cause visual and auditory hallucinations.
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Medications are used to treat certain disorders like parkinsonism; epilepsy also triggers hallucination-like symptoms that develop over the long-term use of these prescriptions.
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Trigger hallucinations last for a short duration, like for a day or until complete sleep and rest are not taken.
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Short duration, like for a day or till the time complete sleep and rest is not taken.
When to Visit a Medical Professional?
Hallucinations are often a cause of underlying severe medical conditions which require attention and help; therefore, any person who is suspected of hallucinating should be taken to the doctor immediately.
What Are the Diagnostic Methods Used?
Diagnosis of hallucinations is based on a detailed medical history that a person reports during the office visit. Physical and laboratory findings help in confirming the diagnosis.
What Are the Stages of Hallucinations?
Hallucinations can be divided into 3 stages which are as follows:
Stage 1: This stage is also called the comforting stage; it is the beginning of hallucinations where a person starts experiencing anxiety, fear, and guilt about the thoughts one is having; in this stage, a person is aware that the thoughts are their own and can be replaced thus he tries to focus on reverting the thought process.
Stage 2: This stage is referred to as the condemning stage. In this stage, the severity of the disorder progresses, and a person does not accept that the sounds he hears or the people he sees are his imagination; in this stage, a person tries to magnify or tries to focus more on the hallucinating objects.
Stage 3: This is referred to as the controlling phase; this stage can be considered severe as the person experiences that the hallucinations are overpowering the thoughts of an individual and are directing or instructing them, if the command is not followed, they can be threatening. This is the stage where a person may attempt suicide or can harm people around them. Thus in such stages, any individual should not be left alone as he can be a danger to society and put his life in danger; in this stage, hallucinations can last for days.
How Is Hallucination Treated?
It is very important to treat hallucinations as the underlying root cause. The treatment plan completely depends on and is framed according to the cause of the hallucination. For example, if a person has hallucinations due to alcohol withdrawal or schizophrenia, then doctor would first prescribe medications to cure or control the symptoms of alcohol withdrawal, or schizophrenia, then the measures would be recommended to overcome hallucinations. The treatment for hallucinations is a long-term therapy with multidisciplinary approaches; the results of the treatment in such cases are unpredictable.
Treatment Modalities for Hallucination Include:
- Psychotherapy: Counseling is a very important part of therapy, as the counselor acts as a guide; and can help you regulate the thought process and develop strategies to avoid hallucinations.
- Medicinal Treatment: Patients who hallucinate are usually treated with antipsychotic drugs that help control or eliminate the frequency of hallucinations.
- Other treatment options include the use of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation, which has proved to reduce the frequency of hallucinations in people with schizophrenia; in this method, the magnet is placed directly over the skull and is thought to reduce auditory hallucinations. Patients with a history of hallucinations are advised to stay calm and avoid situations that make them anxious; they are also asked to preferably avoid dark spaces or places with loud noise as, such areas can trigger hallucinations. Friends and family must be strong support; whenever a person is hallucinating, a loved one can tap on the back or shout his name, which can act as a distraction and bring a person back to his consciousness.
Whenever a person is hallucinating, it is very important to assure him that you understand what he is going through and make him believe he will get well soon. A record can be maintained stating the time, place, or situations that aggravate or cause hallucinations; this can help prevent the frequency by avoiding similar situations.
Conclusion:
Hallucinations are the sensory experiences that a person feels even when it is not present; hallucinations can be classified as auditory, visual, sensory, etc. hallucinations resulting due to underlying medical conditions like schizophrenia, epilepsy, and alcohol withdrawal. Treatment for hallucinations is mainly based on treating the cause of the disease. However, family and friends play equally important roles during the treatment by guiding a person to cope with the situation.
