I have a migraine and daily headache condition and one of the side effects is a changing assortment of hallucinations. It’s nothing to worry about, we keep track of them as part of my treatment and do periodic MRIs just to be sure when the hallucinations change…
But they are pretty damned normal, even outside of having a condition that impacts your brain, and most people don’t really understand that, and keep it to themselves if it happens to them, so I figured it’s worth asking.
Without drugs being involved, have you had hallucinations? Not just sounds or visions, but smells or touch or proprioception (body position) hallucinations? Those are far more common and much less talked about than hearing voices. Do you know what caused them, if you had them, or was it an alarming experience?
My biggest one is that chicken usually smells like peanut butter. I hate peanut, and actively avoid anywhere that uses peanut oil, and yet chicken still smells and tastes like it’s cooked in peanut flavoring. Awful hallucination.
Recently I’ve had some other olfactory (smell) hallucinations, lavender, sage, etc. sometimes a mild burning smell which is alarming because that’s associated with other issues like stroke. Have also had some audio hallucinations, the sort of thing I pause whatever’s playing to see if I’m imagining it. No big deal, because I’m aware of it happening.
For me, it’s seeing things I know aren’t real, or things that don’t match my memories. Trucks turning into giant mouths was one related to sleep deprivation / energy drink use.
But more recently it’s things like: That mural is different than yesterday but could not possibly have been repainted in this amount of time. No idea what triggered these kind, but I am diagnosed with an anxiety disorder.
That’s a really disquieting sort of hallucination, where you just sort of feel things are wrong. Or different. I’m glad you recognize them as unreality.
I have a really active dream world that I genuinely struggle to distinguish from waking real life, so I kinda get how troublesome that can be.
Friend, have you ever spoken to a mental health professional about the struggle to distinguish reality from your dream world?
Oh, no need, I already have strategies to help ground my reality thanks to the hallucinations. I think it’s mostly a result of being aphantasic, so the only things I see are real, other than when dreaming. Coupled with intensely vivid imagery it just feels real.
But my dreams are pretty calm and mundane these days, since I started taking meds for nightmares, and take place in easily recognizable (as dreams) locations. The struggle is more the interactions with friends, waking feeling like I wronged them. But I’ve learned how to handle that.
I appreciate the concern though :)
<3 I’m not a mental health professional, so I’ll leave it at that, but if you notice it getting more difficult, please speak to someone who is a mental health professional. There are solutions for if it becomes overwhelming or hard to distinguish.