Aside from that, about the only thing new to me was that hallucinatory experiences are not confined to hallucinogens, but can occur with other types of drugs, such as morphine. <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\nReading \/ Discussion break<\/mark><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/span>C7: Patterns: Visual Migraines<\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n\n- Visual Migranes \u2014 light, shimmering border (fortifications), scotoma within. Within scotoma hallucinations\u2014 mostly dynamic geometric patterns. <\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Multiple copies; series of stills<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Mind always errs towards giving life to inanimate objects <\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Kinesthetic hallucinations of size or position <\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Olfactory hallucinations: buttered toast; PB; Roast beef<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Most migrain aura hallucinations are simple, but a few people have complex<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Argument that the dynamic geometric hallucinations in migraines actually illustrate the dynamics of self- organization in large populations of neurons. <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
<\/span>C8: The “Sacred” Disease<\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n\n- It can be difficult to distinguish between migraines and epilepsy (at least if no seizure follows), except that complex hallucinations unusual in migraines. <\/li>\n\n\n\n
- There can be simple sensory seizures \u2014 visual, auditory, olfactory, taste. <\/li>\n\n\n\n
- There have not been any mentions — anywhere in the book, I believe — of tactile hallucinations. I wonder why?<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- As W. Penfield noted, there does not seem to be any emotional significance to the hallucinations or memories that are evoked during epileptic episodes.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Discussion of Dostoevsky’s epileptic visions and experiences and accompanying personality change.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Ecstatic and religious conversion seizures occur; but they are not consistent with respect to how they are theologically interpreted. One patient became a Christian following one experience, and then converted to being an atheist after a subsequent one, both conversions accompanied by profound feelings. Another person converted from one religion to another, going through at least four. <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
\nEcstatic seizures shake one’s foundations of belief, one’s world picture, even if one has previously been wholly indifferent to any thought of the transcendent or supernatural. And the universality of fervent mystical and religious feelings\u2014a sense of the holy-in every culture suggests that there may indeed be a biological basis for them; they may, like aesthetic feelings, be part of our human heritage. To speak of a biological basis and biological precursors of religious emotion\u2014and even, as ecstatic seizures suggest, a very specific neural basis, in the temporal lobes and their connections\u2014is only to speak of natural causes. It says nothing of the value, the meaning, the “function” of such emotions, or of the narratives and beliefs we may construct on their basis.
\u2014ibid., p 163<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
<\/span>C9: Bisected: Hallucinations in the Half-Field<\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n\n- “One does not see with the eyes; one sees with the brain, which has dozens of different systems for analyzing the input from the eyes.<\/mark><\/em>“<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- A model that is useful for making sense of hallucinatory phenomena is that the systems in the visual system are hierarchically controlled, and that higher level systems control and inhibit the activity of lower level systems, and when a high level system is damaged or compromised, lower level systems are disinhibited.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Various hallucinatory phenomena <\/strong>that have been described:\n
\n- faces, sometimes distorted, sometimes perseverating from faces she had really seen<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- images like flowers or kermit the frog, flags, star of david, christians bells, praying hands, stacked and serrated coat hangers<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- The ability to assemble objects into a coherent scene<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- ‘clips’ — a woman in a red dress moving around, traffic lights turning on and off, dancing people,<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- geometric shapes: octagons with red centers that changed into hexagonal snowflakes; green dots that changed into silver leaves;<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- projection of a scene into and through a blind spot<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Polyopia. <\/strong>Often images are multiplied and reared, or come in identical series, or are stacked<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Anton’s Syndrome<\/strong>: blind people who believe they can see and confidently (but wrongly) describe what they see; it is not possible to persuade them that they can’t see<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
<\/span>C10: Delirious<\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n\n- Delirium<\/strong> involves hallucinations and distorted perception due to a whole-body medical problem rather than neurological trauma. It is not uncommon for people to have a very mild delirium that is not severe enough to come to medical attention.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Causes of delirium<\/strong> include high fever, liver disease, alcohol withdrawal, drugs (e.g. antimalarial drug), post-anesthesia<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Examples of delirium<\/strong>\n
\n- Hallucinations of changes in body size or other kinesthetic sensations<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Seeing clear rings spreading out, like ripples, from things<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Hear a deep humming that waxes and wanes<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Nabokov’s arithmetical deliria<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Alfred Russell Wallace conceived the idea of natural selection during a malarial fever<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Piranesi’s ‘Imaginary Prisions” during a malarial fever<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Musical hallucinations, or hallucinations of musical scores\/notes<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Tactile hallucinations: finger-touches going from smooth to rough; blankets from smooth to heavy and drenched<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Imagined situations (someone with a gun) or episodes (on a trip), or imagined narratives (Sacks in a ‘Jane Austen’ sort of world), parents<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- auditory hallucinations of sounds and voices<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
<\/span>C11: On the Threshold of Sleep<\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n\n- Hypnagogic imagery — geometric patterns that shift and change. But other people have more vivid imagery, and may see complex scenes. <\/li>\n\n\n\n
- More than half of a large set of people studied reported hypnagogic imagery, and auditory hallucinations (bells, voices, animal sounds) were just as common as visual ones. <\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Hypnagogic imagery is distinct from dreaming. Dreams come in episodes, have narratives and continuity, and surround the person who feels within them and is a character or participant. In contrast, hypnagogic imagery is external — the subject is a spectator. Dreams are top-down reflecting issues one is facing . <\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Hypnopomic imagery is very different from hynagogic imagery — Hypnopomic hallucinations are often seen with open eyes in very bright illumination and seem totally solid and real. They often seem charged with meaning.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
. . . reading break<\/em> . . .<\/mark><\/mark><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/span>C12: Narcolepsy and Night Hags<\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n\n- Narcolepsy: attacks of sudden, irresistible sleep, including dozens of “microsleeps” and ‘in-between” states that last only a few seconds. These “micro sleeps” may not be noticed by subject: one reported only noticing a micro sleep because the world “‘jumps’ forward.”<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Narcoleptic episodes can be accompanied by hallucinations or dreams, and\/or paralysis (aka cataplexy). The hallucinations are often extremely vivid; they also may have visceral, tactile or kinesthetic components. Eg., Lying on the back of a moving elephant; out of the body experience of floating or falling; pressure or weight, as of someone standing or sitting on one’s back or chest; ants walking on one’s legs.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Cataplexy — loss of muscular strength and tone — can occur when the subject is conscious, and may also include hallucinations. It can be triggered by intense emotion or laughter (Robin Williams acquaintance’s story)<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- The hypothalamus secretes hormones — orexins — which promote wakefulness. <\/li>\n\n\n\n
- One person who had narcolepsy with hallucinations spent much of her early life convinced that she had schizophrenia, or was psychic, or was haunted. She was both relieved and a little sad (to lose a sort of magical world) when she came to understand that the hallucinations were associated with the narcolepsy.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- People with narcolepsy may fall directly into REM sleep (rather than experiencing the approximately 90 minute sleep period before it), and experience the dreaming and loss of muscular control associated with it. <\/li>\n\n\n\n
- There is a report of hundred of people dying during periods of cataleptic hallucination. These were Hmong — who grew up in a culture where there is a strong belief that night-mares can be fatal –immigrants; deaths ceased after they became more assimilated into mainstream culture and beliefs. <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
<\/span>C13: The Haunted Mind<\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n\n- There seems to be a mechanism in the brain that generates hallucinations in response to a local ‘trigger’ — irritation, trauma, neurotransmitter release, etc. — with little reference to life’s circumstances, character, emotions, beliefs, or states of mind. Subjects nearly universally deny their meaning and relevance. These stand in contrast to the hallucinations taken up in this chapter.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- There is a family of hallucinations that are involuntary returns to a traumatic event or experience, often involving longing or grief; or terror, horror, or dread associated with the trauma. They may be triggered by sounds, sights, smells, etc., associated with the experience. These make sense relative to the subject’s life, but are often experienced as a separate, unintegrated part of it. <\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Bereavement hallucinations<\/strong>\u2014of the voice, sight, or other indications of presence of the deceased person\u2014are a very common. A doctor who interviewed 300 bereaved people found that around half hand illusions or hallucinations of those they had lost. They were more likely the longer the marriage had lasted, and could persist for months or even years. The anecdotes related often depict them as comforting or reassuring. <\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Two anecdotes about bereavement hallucinations of cats are given.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- PTSD. <\/strong>TEMP \u2013 Sacks 2-Apr<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Xref \u2013 Franco Magnani<\/strong>, artist who obsessively reproduce views of Pontito<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- PTSD<\/strong>. In addition to anxiety, depression, startle-responses, and autonomic disorders, PTSD may also include flashbacks, multi-sensory hallucinations in which the subject re-lives the traumatic experience and every emotion that accompanied it. The flashbacks are spontaneous, but likely to be triggered by objects, sounds or smells associated with the original trauma. PTSD is more likely to follow from \u2018man-made\u2019 trauma than from natural disasters. <\/li>\n\n\n\n
- PTSD memories<\/strong>. Some researchers (C. Berwin, et al) argue that PTSD memories are fundamentally different from other autobiographical memory. PTSD memories erupt, but cannot be accessed verbally or voluntarily; they are also isolated from other memories. In contrast, autobiographical memories can be recalled voluntarily and are associated with a life context. Ben Helfgott (a concentration camp survivor who can remember his experiences and has integrated them with his other memories) said: \u201cThe ones who forget, they suffer later.<\/em>\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Collectively-induced hallucinations. <\/strong>A superstitious and delusional atmosphere, especially if fueled by fear and stress, can give rise to hallucinations. Sacks points to the events leading to the Salem witchcraft trials, and also the experience of collective madness in the village of Loudon in 1634. He also notes that other factors \u2013 post-encephalitic neurological damage stemming from disease, or ergot poisoning \u2013 could give rise to such mass delusions.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Seances, trances, and other self-induced altered states. <\/strong> William James <\/strong>felt that the mediums and spiritualists involved in seances were not charlatans, but rather were in altered states due to self-hypnosis and having hallucinations that were guided by the questions they were being asked. Current practices such as meditation, drumming, and dancing can also be seen as instances of self-induced altered states. <\/li>\n\n\n\n
- T. M. Luhrmann<\/strong> is an ethnologist who has investigated modern practitioners of magic, and later, evangelical religion. She suggests that the various spiritual practices pursued by both groups can increase individuals\u2019 abilities to achieve altered states in which they experience hallucinations consistent with the belief systems they are cultivating. <\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Imaginary Companions<\/strong>. Can be seen as a sort of ongoing, systematized story-telling that, in some instances, may have elements of hallucination. According to Piaget, children cannot consistently and confidently distinguish between fantasy and reality, inner and outer worlds, until about 7.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
. . . reading break<\/em> . . .<\/mark><\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/span>C14: Doppelg\u00e4ngers: Hallucinating Oneself<\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n\n- Out of the Body Experiences (OBEs)<\/strong>. One way of viewing an OBE is of having a hallucination of one’s own, singular body, in a location where one is not. OBEs can be terrifying or pleasant. They may arise from seizures, migraines, electrical stimulation of the cortex, drugs, self-induced trances, and reduced blood flow to the brain. <\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Near Death Experiences (NDEs)<\/strong>. NDEs are remarkably consistent: the person feels they are being drawn into a dark tunnel or tube, propelled towards brightness, and sense a limit or barrier or border ahead. Some experience a rapid review of the events of their lives or sense the presence of friends and family. Typically the person experiencing an NDE is suffused with feelings of peace and joy. <\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Neurological correlates of NDEs<\/strong> Nelson et al. at Kentucky U ascribe NDE’s to reduced cerebral blood flow and argue that the tunnel is correlated with reduced blood flow to the retinas, and the white light with a flow of neuronal energy moving from the brainstem to the subcortical visual relays and then to the occipital cortex (but does not say how this neuronal excitement is connected to reduced blood flow or anything else). <\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Dopplegangers. <\/strong>Know as autoscopic hallucinations these involve seeing a double of oneself — typically the double is mirroring the viewer’s position and movements. There is no speech or interaction. While most cases of autoscopy are brief, instances that last months have been reported. There are very rare cases where the viewer reports interacting with their double. <\/li>\n\n\n\n
- False arms perceived as real. <\/strong>Botnivik and Cohen (1998) did an experiment where their subjects had one arm underneath a table and a false arm on top of the table where there real arm would have rested. Stroking the false arm with a feather, while doing the same to the real hidden arm, created the feeling that the false arm was real. <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n