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.
I have something like this. It’s mostly music, things on or under my skin and some smells, sometimes people lose their heads too (didn’t happen for a while). But I can’t make it disappear, even if I know there is nothing. I kinda like the music, but the first occurrences were scary. It sometimes happens I can’t tell what is common reality and what is not, and of course it’s always fucking scary things.
I had it for delusion too, like I know it is, but it doesn’t matter. I was paranoid for years, it went worse and worse and I knew it was paranoia. I still believed some people could read thought my eyes while I writing, following me, etc.
It protects me for saying it to the wrong person, and it doesn’t take all my life, but it’s annoying. But there are nice things in it, like the music, I’m understanding with weird people, I’m creative for hiding things, I spoke with my tiles one day, I don’t panic easily.