HALLUCINATION TYPES

    

The word hallucination was derived from Latin, meaning “to wander mentally” HALLUCINATIONS are relatively a common symptom among mental illness. Person who typically hallucinate may experience things which are not real. Person will experience things to be real but are not actually experienced through their real stimuli.

Hallucination is a sensory perception that occurs in the absence of external stimuli. It is caused by the damages in the brain. In other words hallucination is a misinterpretation of external stimulus in the absence of them.

TYPES OF HALLUCINATION:

The types are classified based on the person’s senses (vision,touch,sound,smell,taste) being affected.

Common 5 types of hallucination are:

·         Auditory hallucination

·         Visual hallucination

·         Tactile hallucination

·         Gustatory hallucination

·         Olfactory hallucination

Special types of hallucination are:

·         Autoscopy

·         Extra campine hallucination

·         Hypnagogic hallucination

·         Hypnopompic hallucination

·         Functional hallucination

·         Reflex hallucination

COMMON TYPES OF HALLUCINATION

AUDITORY HALLUCINATION:

·         Person hears voices that does not exist.

·         Most common symptom in schizophrenia, bipolar disorder , dementia

·         Presented in the form of voices, sounds, music etc.

·         People can able to live with this condition if the hearing voices are neutral, voices of the loved ones or complimentary.

·         Types based on patterns :

a)      Elementary – noises

b)      Partially organized – music

c)      Completely organized – voices

·         3 types of auditory hallucination

a)      Thought echo / First Person : People hear voices of their own thoughts spoken loud.

b)      Second Person: People hear voice of a person(single) who may be a known or stranger talking to him. The voice may be criticizing or commanding. The voice may induce the patient to harm himself (suicide) or to create harm to others.

c)      Third Person : People hear more than one voice talking about him. Two or more voices are heard. Mostly talking about the actions of the patient.

 

 VISUAL HALLUCINATION

·         Person sees something that does not exist.

·         Most common symptom in dementia, alcohol or drug addiction.

·         Presented in the form of flashes of light, vision of people, animal or objects.

·         Three types of visual hallucination

a)      Elementary pattern – flashes of light

b)      Partly organized – patterns of image

c)      Completely organized – visions of people, animals or objects.

·         Scenic hallucination – whole scenes are hallucinated like a cinema film. Eg: Delirium, psychiatric disorder associated with epilepsy.

TACTILE HALLUCINATION

·         Person experiences the feeling of being touched when they are not.

·         Most common symptom in substance abuse.

·         Presented in the form of bugs, insects crawling over the skin, tingling sensation, feeling of heat or cold, pain, stroking or stabbing, burning skin.

·         It may be superficial, paraesthesia and kinesthetic forms.

·         Superficial

a)      Thermic – perception of heat or cold that does not exist.

b)      Haptic – hallucination of touch (hand stroking the body,kissing) or painful (knife stabbing in the body) or formication (little animals or insects crawling over the body

c)      Hygeric – perception of fluid that does not exist.

·         Paraesthesia  - tingling sensation

·         Kinesthetic – perception of muscle or joint being bent, twisted, squeezed or stretched that does not occur.

·         Visceral hallucination – false perception of inner organs or experiencing the sensation like pain, heaviness or stretching.

 

OLFACTORY HALLUCINATION

·         Person experiences smell that does not exist.

·         Presented in the form of poisonous gas, anesthetic gas, and smell of burning rubber.

·         Most commonly occur in the middle of the night.

·         Sometimes person may experience please smell like scent of flower.

·         Person may also experience unpleasant smell like odor of urine, feces, vomit, smoke, rotten flesh. This condition is called as Phantosmia.

·         Phantosmia is caused by virus, trauma, brain tumor, exposure to toxic, epilepsy resulting in damage to the neurological pathway of olfactory system.

·         In Epilepsy, olfactory hallucination occurs in the form of “AURA” – person may experience the smell of burning rubber before he becomes unconscious.

GUSTATORY HALLUCINATION

·         Person experiences taste that does not exist.

·         Presented in the form of metallic taste, unpleasant flavor.

·         Metallic taste common symptom in Epilepsy.

·         In depression, people may experience changes in the flavor of the food items. 

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Special types of hallucination