Intense Visual Hallucinations

[Rabaelthazar]

I had a very intense psychedelic experience today and just wanted to share.

It was my work's 6 monthly report/update meeting and I spent from 9:30 until 4:00pm in a stuffy room with downlights, which for some reason always make me drowsy.

Sure enough, after only fifteen minutes of presentations I could feel myself starting to nod but, being the good employee that I am, I forced myself to stay awake. After about an hour of this, I found myself in a very odd state. Physically, it felt as though the left side of my face had gone to sleep. I tend to get a lazy left eye when I'm tired or heavily stoned anyway, and this came in to full effect. I couldn't keep my left eye open and I felt like the left side of my mouth had gone droopy, but I still forced myself to pay attention.

Anyway, I started noticing odd things occurring. For instance, at one stage the speaker was suddenly holding a baby in swaddling cloth which I could see clearly and which my mind at first accepted as not unusual. When I focussed, the baby dissipated. I would notice people getting up form their chairs and walking across the room but again, when I turned my attention to them they melded back in to the ether. Faces appeared in inanimate objects and at one point, the speaker suddenly appeared to be wearing a t-shirt on which was an image of his own face. When the face on the t-shirt started delivering his speech, I again flipped back to normal.

To clarify, I was stone cold sober. I think the downlights played an important role in making me drowsy and the drowsiness was obviously what was causing the hallucinations. The hallucinations were very intense and believable, in a dissociative kind of way. I know the left side of the body links to the right side of the mid, so I'm wondering whetehr somehow the right side of my brain entered dreaming mode while the left side stayed awake and focussed?

Has anyone else had these sort of experiences?

[ThunderIdeal]

dozing off almost violently, the moment work tells me to sit in a chair (when bosses and heaps of people are around)? yep i have that experience.

will be interesting to watch this thread.

i do wonder if you actually DID go to sleep sporadically, even though you seem to think you didn't.

stroke? epilepsy?

[Rabaelthazar]

i do wonder if you actually DID go to sleep sporadically, even though you seem to think you didn't.

 

I was teetering on the brink. I did actually nod off a couple of times, but that was different (I have plenty of experience falling asleep in meetings from previous jobs so can recognize that ). These experiences were occurring when I was definitely awake, but right on the edge of it.

stroke? epilepsy?

 

Hmmm.... I don't think so, but the face thing did make me think of stroke. I certainly hope not. What's your reason for suggesting epilepsy?

[synchromesh]

Perhaps you had a micro sleep followed by sleep paralysis?

Sleep Paralysis Visions: Demons, Succubi, and the Archetypal Mind

[Teotzlcoatl]

You were walking the razor's edge between the waking world and the realm of dreams. Hope you enjoyed this non-drug educed altered state!

[mutant]

how long did the 'trips' last?

[paradox]

so I'm wondering whetehr somehow the right side of my brain entered dreaming mode while the left side stayed awake and focussed? <___base_url___>/uploads/emoticons/default_wacko.png

Has anyone else had these sort of experiences?

 

i know certain birds like the flamingo sleep with only one hemisphere of the brain at a time, with the other hemisphere staying wide awake....which is why they're often seen standing on only one leg...

i often find myself with sleep dep & forcing myself to stay awake with my work/lifestyle & damn it can get weird sometimes!!!... particularly when the deprivation is stretched over long periods of time... which reminds me i have to go to work.. & i've only had 4 hours sleep.. <___base_url___>/uploads/emoticons/default_rolleyes.gif

[solomon]

this is a hypnagogic hallucination no?

"i know certain birds like the flamingo sleep with only one hemisphere of the brain at a time, with the other hemisphere staying wide awake....which is why they're often seen standing on only one leg..."

wow thats cool i never knew

Edited October 26, 2010 by centipede

[Zen Peddler]

I can relate to the drowsy thing with the lighting. And ive fallen asleep a few times at work and dreamt stuff I thought happened so maybe that explains it? Ask the guy next to you whether you nodded off??

[ThunderIdeal]

this is a hypnagogic hallucination no?

 

or hypnapompic, now that rab has admitted he did nod off a few times.

i think teotz might have summed up the basics here

You were walking the razor's edge between the waking world and the realm of dreams. Hope you enjoyed this non-drug educed altered state!

 

but the one half of your face thing is what makes this interesting. that and the vividness of your unusual perceptions? i feel that i am able to enter left and right brain states, not exactly on a whim but i have some control over it (except when it happens spontaneously). it's a very interesting thing and i reckon you were lucky to have this mystery experience.

i suggested epilepsy because you said something about lights. what is a downlight anyway?

[kindness]

halogen downlight... on that is above you and shines down? (I'm just guessing...)

I was wondering two things Rabal...

1. Your general age like 18 - 25 or 25 - 32 or whatever... just general age and

2. How much sleep had you had, (and what quality) did you have the night before? As in did you have a night on booze beforehand or something? Were you extra tired that day?

There is a condition where people experience true hallucinations...

Just what I thought when i read your description. Sounds pretty bizarre man

[synchromesh]

1. Temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE)

There are two temporal lobes, one on each side of the brain located about the level of the ears. These lobes allow a person to recognise smells, sounds and language. They also help to sort new information and are intrinsically associated with memory.

The seizures associated with TLE are usually simple partial seizures without loss of awareness (aura) and complex partial seizures, causing loss of awareness.

Seizures can differ vastly, but some typical symptoms of temporal lobe seizures are listed below:

Auras (simple partial seizures) occur in approximately 80% of temporal lobe seizures.

Sensations include:

* Changes of taste and smell.

* Auditory hallucinations – hearing buzzing sound, a voice or voices, or muffling of surrounding sounds.

* Visual hallucinations – seeing formed or unformed figures

* Distortions of shape, size, and distance of objects – things may appear smaller or larger than usual.

Feelings include:

* Feelings of déjà vu or jamais vu, a sense of familiarity or unfamiliarity, respectively.

* Feelings of detachment from oneself or surroundings appear unreal.

* Fear, anxiety, anger, or elation.

* People may describe a sense of dissociation where they report seeing their own body from outside.

Body function changes include:

* Changes in heart rate

* Hair standing on end and goose-bumps

* Sweating

* Blushing or loss of colour

* A "rising" sensation from the stomach, or nausea

* Clonus or spasm to muscle(s)

Complex Partial Seizures can have a vast array of symptoms. Some include:

* Wide-eyed, motionless stare, dilated pupils, and the person stops what they are doing

* Lip smacking, chewing, and swallowing may be seen (automatisms)

* Unusual limb postures or movements also may be observed

* The person may continue their activity or react to their surroundings such as fidgeting with objects around them (automatisms)

* Most seizures last approximately 1-3 minutes

* Afterwards people usually experience a period of confusion for several minutes

* Occasionally longer periods of confusion are encountered that may last several days

* Usually there is little or no memory of the event

A simple or complex partial seizure may evolve to a secondarily generalised seizure, often a tonic-clonic seizure.

http://www.epilepsy.org.au/epilepsy_explained3.asp#common3

[Zen Peddler]

I get weird symptoms from neon lights sometimes and i suffer from autoimmune based parasympathetic withdrawal.

[Rabaelthazar]

Perhaps you had a micro sleep followed by sleep paralysis?

Sleep Paralysis Visions: Demons, Succubi, and the Archetypal Mind

 

Hmmm... this sounds really plausible to me. Good link, thanks Synchromesh, and this suggestion is probably the one I'm leaning towards at the moment. Entities/spirits were featured heavily. Almost every hallucination was of a face or a moving body or someone being in a space that was really empty.

You were walking the razor's edge between the waking world and the realm of dreams. Hope you enjoyed this non-drug educed altered state!

 

Thanks Teotz.... yeah, I enjoyed it at an experience level. Being three seats away form the MD wasn't that much fun, but had he not been there I might not have tried so hard to stay awake and may have just had a nap instead of seeing spirits.

how long did the 'trips' last?

 

Perhaps 30 seconds to a minute for each one before snapping back to focussed. Then it would cycle again.

i know certain birds like the flamingo sleep with only one hemisphere of the brain at a time, with the other hemisphere staying wide awake....which is why they're often seen standing on only one leg...

 

Interesting!!!

i often find myself with sleep dep & forcing myself to stay awake with my work/lifestyle & damn it can get weird sometimes!!!... particularly when the deprivation is stretched over long periods of time... which reminds me i have to go to work.. & i've only had 4 hours sleep..

 

Poor bugger, paradox. I feels for ya. Yeah, the mental state was very similar to sleep dep... same sort of dissociative effect, confusion, belief in the absurd, but the visual aspect was much more pronounced.

Edited October 26, 2010 by Rabaelthazar

[Rabaelthazar]

this is a hypnagogic hallucination no?

 

or hypnapompic, now that rab has admitted he did nod off a few times.

 

After doing a quick read up on these two (both terms are new to me) I'd say that what I felt ties in with more with general observations of hypnapompic hallucinations, but perhaps it was a bit of both.

I can relate to the drowsy thing with the lighting. And ive fallen asleep a few times at work and dreamt stuff I thought happened so maybe that explains it? Ask the guy next to you whether you nodded off??

 

I know that I nodded off, but I also know what that feels like. I was definitely awake when I was seeing things. I talked to the guy who I saw holding the baby and wearing the t-shirt with his face on it and he says that I looked like shit but was awake during his presentation. Glad someone else suffers from dodgy lighting. Thanks Zen.

but the one half of your face thing is what makes this interesting. that and the vividness of your unusual perceptions? i feel that i am able to enter left and right brain states, not exactly on a whim but i have some control over it (except when it happens spontaneously). it's a very interesting thing and i reckon you were lucky to have this mystery experience.

 

Yeah, I've felt during very lucid moments that I've been able to distinguish the left and right parts of my brain as distinct thinking entities, and freely switch between or join as one. I used to often stand and look in the mirror and concentrate on my two faces. The one that I had when I looked myself in the left eye and the one I had when I looked myself in the right eye. Both faces had distinct personalities that joined together to make me. Sounds a bit weird now I'm writing that, but I think we might be talking about the same sort of thing, Thunder?

halogen downlight... on that is above you and shines down? (I'm just guessing...)

 

correct

I was wondering two things Rabal...

1. Your general age like 18 - 25 or 25 - 32 or whatever... just general age and

 

31

2. How much sleep had you had, (and what quality) did you have the night before? As in did you have a night on booze beforehand or something? Were you extra tired that day?

 

It was Monday and I had been a little light on on sleep over the weekend, but nothing too extreme. When I was driving to work in the morning I did feel a bit drowsy in the car and did dread a little the idea of the meeting as I knew I'd have trouble staying awake

There is a condition where people experience true hallucinations...

 

Can you expand on that?

Thanks all for the replies

[ThunderIdeal]

TLE text is worth contemplating. i sometimes relate to those kinds of symptoms but then i'm a person who loosens his grasp on reality intentionally so it probably doesn't indicate actual epilepsy... i was tested for epilepsy when i had migraines and results were negative.

Yeah, I've felt during very lucid moments that I've been able to distinguish the left and right parts of my brain as distinct thinking entities, and freely switch between or join as one. I used to often stand and look in the mirror and concentrate on my two faces. The one that I had when I looked myself in the left eye and the one I had when I looked myself in the right eye. Both faces had distinct personalities that joined together to make me. Sounds a bit weird now I'm writing that, but I think we might be talking about the same sort of thing, Thunder?

 

link might be helpful re hemispheres

http://player2000gi.host-ed.net/hemispheric_specialization.htm

my post gets a bit out of control, trying to keep it small but its even more apparent than earlier that so many issues here are very pertinent to myself, and i hope explaining a bit about my own experience might give you a little help to interpret what happened. i'm happy to talk more about any particular area if you want, but my mind is running in different directions with this and i could derail your thread.

i guess this is on topic. it's a bit of a major thing for me, left/right. in my early teens, i think i first became conscious that the left half of my body was lacking something. i am right handed, and have taught myself to do nearly any task with some proficiency on either side, but to this day the muscles in my left side don't seem to respond properly. i'm sure it's well within the limits of normal physiology and i'm perfectly dextrous but it bothers the shit out of me and i can never be happy doing weight training or any training really because that inequality is always at the front of my mind and it sometimes feels like the more i try to compensate, the worse it gets. there is some kind of energy blockage at least, i'm sure of that much, i've had incredible breakthroughs which usually seem to relapse, it is like SO MUCH purifying energy (that i can't seem to muster very often) is needed to immolate the discrepancy/issue.

i once believed a sprite was roaming my house, literally hours after doing a big read-up on sleep paralysis hallucinations (although the tone was more along the lines of 'astral vampires that attack as you drift into sleep') and some stuff about astral thought-forms and manufactured entities. upon perceiving this presence, which i suspected to be a thing of my own unleashing (dunno), it immediately closed the distance between us and grasped my head, through the wall, with electricity, shocking my head. this was a bit different but i'm not exactly a stranger to believing myself the victim of an astral/psychic tormentor, i took it for a while. then i raged "grrr FUCK OFF"; the shock grew ten times stronger, so intense, then stopped. it took a few seconds to go from feeling raped to feeling blessed. i couldn't believe that my left nostril, which is almost always subject to reduced air flow despite my efforts, was now more open than at any other time in my life, and didn't go back to normal for about 15 hours. what to make of that? i have multiple interpretations.

"We literally project the dreamscape onto the landscape of our sleep environment. " from synchros first link. i'm becoming fearful as i read this article, although it promises to be quite good. i used to always have this lingering hypnapomp, where my "sleep environment" was the host of anything between one big huntsman, to a writhing PILE of huntsmen and worms, and it could take between 5 and 20 minutes before it even occurred to me that said critters were never actually in my sleep environment. i don't fear earthworms by the way, but not a fan of giant huntsmen spiders (which often actually DID inhabit my sleep environment).

"Indeed, sleep paralysis visions are a normal, healthy part of life for thousands of psychics, shamans, and explorers of the deep mind. Like lucid dreams and psychedelic encounters, SP visions present gifts and opportunities, once you get used to all the existential horror, spontaneous kundalini blasts and first chakra freak-fests."

FFFFUUUUCK. i still have so much fear, after so many encounters with beyond. a huge rush of fear usually that flings me back whence i came, before i can realise 'hey maybe if i don't react with abject horror i could get comfortable in this place'. i've had sleep paralysis a few times in the previous year and there was no definite demon on my chest but a definite sense of catastrophic danger if i don't either fall asleep or get my body to move.

err rewinding to before all the ghost stuff, i had a cannabis experience, first choof after a long break. lay down, forced my will relentlessy to observe and ignite nerve channels in my left body, the left half of my respiratory system, contract the core muscles in my left shoulder, hip, neck, abdomen, leg. ferocious effort. the memory is a bit vague now, but i felt myself becoming somebody else. i know both of my brains can work together, and either one can take the fore, but one side (left brain? controlling right body) seems to have a firm dominance that spreads across my entire body, during this experience i felt that dominance lift and my right (?) brain took command of my body. it was hard work. the left (?) brain constantly queried, jostled, demanded relevance, i had to suppress/ignore it every moment and funnel my being into this other, emerging person. i wish i could say more about how it felt to be that person for once, but it was several years and at least a thousand bongs ago.

[synchromesh]

Hmmm... this sounds really plausible to me. Good link, thanks Synchromesh, and this suggestion is probably the one I'm leaning towards at the moment. Entities/spirits were featured heavily. Almost every hallucination was of a face or a moving body or someone being in a space that was really empty.

These visual illusions are unlike the visual hallucinations associated with occipital lobe seizure in that no formed elementary visual image is noted, such as the visual image of a face that may be seen with seizures arising from the fusiform or the inferior temporal gyrus.

http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/1184509-overview

Did you read through the epilepsy link I posted, Rabael?

Edited October 26, 2010 by synchromesh

[kindness]

Given your age I don't reckon my input is that valid Rabal. I am interested in seeing what it turns out to be if you do find out however... I'm not sure if you visit any doctors / healers but they may be able to help you piece it together.

[Rabaelthazar]

Did you read through the epilepsy link I posted, Rabael?

 

Just did. You must have posted it as I was composing my big reply cos I missed it yesterday.

There are enough correlating symptoms to prey on my inner hypochondriac, but my gut feeling is that I don't suffer epilepsy. I will do some more reading up and probably organize a test to be on the safe side. Interestingly, some of the symptoms in that link I can relate to from other similar but not so full on normal daytime oddities I've experienced. I've always put it down to tiredness, but it's a semi-regular thing, like once or twice a year, for me to feel I'm about to fall over and by concentrating on not falling over get perspective distortions and for my hearing to go a bit muffled.

my post gets a bit out of control, trying to keep it small but its even more apparent than earlier that so many issues here are very pertinent to myself, and i hope explaining a bit about my own experience might give you a little help to interpret what happened. i'm happy to talk more about any particular area if you want, but my mind is running in different directions with this and i could derail your thread.

 

Ha ha, Thunder, good post. You're welcome to go off tangent if you can come up with entertainment like that. I could relate to a lot of what you said about the left/right balance. I'm not sure if it is just normal for people to be more dominant on one side and that you and I pay more attention to it or whether there's something more to the separateness off the hemispheres/body sides. I had to quit weight training for the same reasons you mentioned. I almost constantly shift my shoulders to try and keep the muscle group on each side of my back in harmony and can feel two separate sides of my head/brain. I like aspects it, but I'm almost constantly aware of left/right imbalance, which can make me uncomfortable. Interesting reading your post, especially re: the sleep paralysis stuff.

Given your age I don't reckon my input is that valid Rabal. I am interested in seeing what it turns out to be if you do find out however... I'm not sure if you visit any doctors / healers but they may be able to help you piece it together.

 

Still curious as to what was in your mind. I've got a friend who works with naturopathy/homeopathy/hypnosis and I'll be talking to him about it in more detail. I'm not really expecting to know for sure the reason behind what happened, but I'll let you know next time I have to sit through a presentation in that room whether anything happens again.

Edited October 27, 2010 by Rabaelthazar

[ThunderIdeal]

so you're the same in this respect then..

I'm not sure if it is just normal for people to be more dominant on one side and that you and I pay more attention to it or whether there's something more to the separateness off the hemispheres/body sides.

 

a question i'd love to know the answer to. i have tended to think the former, but our similarities bring it back into question a bit.

i was attracted to this thread instantly and am eager to see it develop.

curious if we have other things in common. i tend to think i'm going through (probably the early phases of) a spiritual(/kundalini?) awakening and all of the associated weirdness.

things like:

*vivid, epic, bizarre hypnagogia and dreams

*reality-shattering acid/mushroom trips

*had powerful energy experiences at times, like magnetism or pressure on your head/teeth/chakras that seems like it will collapse your skull. on the occasions i let this energy move from spot to spot in its regular order, it always ended up moving to my testicles which of course was not something i could handle, being an intense pressure in such a painful area. or like your entire body surging up and down like an electric piston. approaching the point of astral seraration (i actually separated last year during a paralysis episode and moved a bit, astrally, i'm pretty sure because the experience was so intensely different and freaked me RIGHT THE HELL OUT, and it was marked by a fucking weird sound that i can't remember). (thankfully? my progress and experience is a bit more predictable now c ompared to as a teenage stoner when most of this stuff happened, and no longer involves my etheric body threatening to go supernova)

*do you draw bizarre pictures then use them as your sig, when you know they are just wrong and shouldn't be inflicted on others?

[kindness]

*do you draw bizarre pictures then use them as your sig, when you know they are just wrong and shouldn't be inflicted on others?

 

hahahaha

[synchromesh]

Rabael - Here's hoping that it was just something like sleep paralysis. It sounds like it was.

[mutant]

the visual aspect was much more pronounced

Maybe they're 'flashbacks' as a result from your past psych use. If your use has been heavy, this is more likely and quite natural, I would think.

Tireness/sleep deprivation/darklight , even caffeine all seem to worsen what people nowadays call HPPD, a psychedelic drugs - induced visual/mental syndrome.

I am not saying you have this, but since you're curious, you might like to consider.

Edited October 29, 2010 by mutant

[ThunderIdeal]

all very unlikely explanations IMHO mutant, but thanks for introducing some new ideas.

[Rabaelthazar]

*do you draw bizarre pictures then use them as your sig, when you know they are just wrong and shouldn't be inflicted on others?

 

Funny you should ask this... I don't draw as much as I used to, but there was a time when I'd draw everyday and the reason I don't have that many pictures left is because I firmly believed that the best life these pictures could have would be being left to be found by a random person somewhere who would look at it and say "What the hell?". I'd pin pictures to public bulletin boards, leave a folded picture under newly laid carpet, leave in a random letterbox, hand to a stranger at a rave, draw in chalk on the footpath or in wet sand at the beach etc...

So... yes, I know they're wrong, but I like inflicting that wrongness. That's the sadist in me. I also kinda hoped that perhaps one person who looked at my pictures might ask a question of it that would lead them to explore their own minds further. Don't know if that ever happened, but I'd like to think somewhere, sometime a bizarre pic turned someone on.

Maybe they're 'flashbacks' as a result from your past psych use. If your use has been heavy, this is more likely and quite natural, I would think.

Tireness/sleep deprivation/darklight , even caffeine all seem to worsen what people nowadays call HPPD, a psychedelic drugs - induced visual/mental syndrome.

I am not saying you have this, but since you're curious, you might like to consider.

 

Thanks Mutey, I'd err away form the idea of flashbacks as this was quite unlike a normal psych experience. HPPD, although I've not heard the term before, isn't out of the question, but I think unrelated to this particular situation. Reading from wiki, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallucinogen_persisting_perception_disorder , I'd be inclined to think that it's more of a being able to tune in rather than a disorder for me. I can notice psychedelia in a clear blue sky or in my room when it's pitch black or by watching the clouds even months after having any psychedelic compounds. I like it, and as the article says, there's no confusion about the visual aberrations being anything other than what they are. If I have HPPD, I say... no problem.

Rabael - Here's hoping that it was just something like sleep paralysis. It sounds like it was.

 

That's the way I'm leaning for sure, although I've learned about a few conditions I knew nothing or very little about from the responses to this thread, so thank you everybody for the contributions.