Hallucination - Tips to tackle

You witness something happen but people can't see it, sometimes you see an event happening one moment but at very next moment there is no trace of any such event occurrence. You listen to your own thoughts as if they are spoken aloud, but you haven’t even pronounced a word. You hear someone calling you by your name, someone screaming, crying, or laughing, a voice comes from back but there is no one, and you are all alone. These are some of the normal and commonly occurring hallucinations. Hallucination is any event that is experienced when one of our senses produce false input to our brain and we see an event happen which is not actually happening in real world.

There are many reasons why hallucinations occur? Generally in age range of 3 to 5 years, the hallucinations are common. This is the age when a child is in developing stage and if he/she is subjected to such conditions where he/she is left alone and is in complete social isolation, if a child is intimidated of something, if mental development of the child is not allowed to take place etc. Along with this, there are some common reasons where people may experience hallucinations, and those are exhaustion (this one reason causes many other problems too), sleep deprivation, social isolation and rejection, severe reactive depression, amputation of a limb (phantom limb syndrome), a reaction to medication, a reaction to hallucinogens such as LSD, a reaction to other drugs such as heroin and cocaine.

It’s not always that only daily life reasons play role in hallucinations; there are some physical (organic) causes of hallucinations which include delirium, tumors leading to increased intracranial pressure, temporal lobe lesions, seizures, head injuries, and irritation of sensory pathways.

There are some social causes which lead to hallucinations, if a child is not allowed to meet anyone and kept in isolation from rest of the world, soon he/she develops hallucinations where he/she finds a friend who is not present in real world, he/she talks to that friend, plays with him/her and even feels like he/she is always with him/her wherever he/she goes. People who have undergone something that they never expected to face in their lives normally develop hallucinations, for example if a person is dying to marry a girl who loves him too very much, but in an accident she is taken away from him, its not always easy to come out of such situation and he develops hallucinations where he is being accompanied by the same girl even after her death. There are thousand such examples of people developing hallucinations.

Hallucinations are not to be taken literally but we should care about the person having hallucinations, it is important to find out the root cause of the hallucinations and help in eliminating those causes or it can lead to mental imbalance. If a person is having hallucinations, the first action should be taken is to take him/her to a good physician who can find out the reason behind it and will be able to give a good solution, there are medicines available which help in such conditions, ask physician if the person who is having hallucination is needed to medicate. In conditions like over sedation, mental tremors, confusions etc. we need to be extra careful and be watchful.

A person who is close to those who receive hallucination should try to find out if the hallucinations are causing mental instability for the individual, or if the face or anything that they see is frightening the person receiving hallucination, or any other problem where he/she can help him/her with soothing words, quick and calm reactions, comforting touches and assuring them that everything is fine and nothing is going to happen to them etc. Keep in mind, never argue with the person over his/her hallucinations and what she/he hears or sees, in stead try to understand him/her and help accordingly but do not show that you are ignoring him/her. Some great ideas should be followed in order to distract the person from what he thinks most about i.e. his/her hallucinations, ask him/her to walk along with you, or go and enjoy with friends etc. Take help of music, games, and other hobbies which can make the person think on other topics. Do not make the person having hallucination think that something wrong is happening with him/her, in stead tell them that whatever it is happening with them will be over very soon and they won’t be seeing it again. Try to change the environment in which the patient is staying, if he/she is not comfortable with whatever he/she is staying with, remove it and bring in the things he he/she do not have problem with.

I hope these things might help in taking care of the person who is having hallucinations, just keep in mind you have to be very kind with him/her, be honest, try to change everything that he/she is not comfortable with, take help of a good physician, try to understand the situation the individual is in, who is having hallucinations, try to use soothing words and comfort him by saying that nothing is going to happen etc.