Should I Be Very Concerned?

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First of all, I wanted to thank all of the nice people that have helped me with a couple of other problems I posted on here over the past couple of days, you’ve helped me out like you wouldn’t believe!
Okay, so something strange started about a month ago, maybe a month and one week. I’ve been seeing things that aren’t there, hearing things that didn’t happen. When I say that, I mean REALLY seeing them. Like, when I see a person/figure across the room that I KNOW isn’t there, I rub my eyes or blink a few times, expecting it to go away, and it doesn’t. It doesn’t go away until I leave the room and come back.
And when I hear things, It’s as clear as day. Whether it’s my mother calling my name when she isn’t even home, or a dog barking or something. about a week ago I was laying in my bed at about eleven at night and I heard a car horn, BLASTING in my ear as if the car was right there in my room.
I mean, I’ve heard of this kind of thing in movies and tv shows, but I didn’t actually think it could be real. I feel like a complete idiot or something, and I don’t want to talk to anyone about it because they’ll just tell me I’m crazy or send me to a therapist or something.
At first I thought it was a result of stress, or maybe I wasn’t getting enough sleep and they were sleep-deprivation hallucinations. But I get plenty of sleep every night.
I can’t take it anymore! What do you think is causing this? Who should I talk to? This isn’t at all normal. Does this happen to anyone else?

Category: Tags: asked August 14, 2014

3 Answers

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accepted
yes, you should be very concerned! those are symptoms of schizophrenia which is basically a mental disease that makes it hard to tell the difference between what is real or not real. they could also be symptoms of psychosis which is a loss of contact with reality, including delusions and hallucinations. for all we know, they could really be there, your house could have ghosts. I think that you should talk to a medical professional. do some research on this and make up a list of disorders that you think you have, then get tested for them. that would be a good path to go down if you want to get treated for this, but for all I know, you could be the next ghost whisperer owoand yes, this has surely happened to other people, your not the first. these brain disorders normally affect about 1.1 percent of the u.s population aged 18 and older in a given year, but about what I said before, you should do the list thing and go show your doctor. afterwards, getting a journal would be great to record what you see and what you hear. maybe they could mean something and getting a therapist would be great to, or just coming on blah therapy cxI hope I could help!
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How did you not sh*t your pants? I would have!!Starrscottxo is right though.
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Hearing loud noises when you're going to sleep is not a symptom of schizophrenia, just as having visual hallucinations is not automatically a sign of the same.

This may sound startling to read, but the phenomenon of hearing sudden, pants-shittingly-loud sounds while drifting off to sleep is a known phenomenon called "Exploding Head Syndrome", and science has absolutely no explanation for it, but it has not been linked to any known illnesses or disorders, so it has so far been labelled a benign phenomenon; it is startling, but it is ultimately harmless.

Visual hallucinations are typically disturbing; something is there, then it is not. so it can make our heads spin a bit when we realize that we've just seen something that wasn't there. Visual hallucinations have been reinforcing the myth of ghosts and supernatural phenomenon for thousands of years, but through modern medicine and science, we have learned a great deal about hallucinations.

Hallucinations are caused when the part of your brain that is responsible for processing visuals is engaged in odd ways, and these "odd ways" are numerous; hallucinations are reported from yawning too deeply to experiencing electric shock, so the experience of visual hallucinations not only vary widely, but they are very much subjective to the individual.

Though you have symptoms that are similar to schizophrenia, I do not believe that you are schizophrenic at all. You are not reporting your experiences with delusional fervor, nor with content that suggests the beginnings or ongoing experience of the breaks with reality that are key to schizophrenia.

To give you another good example of visual hallucinations: the human brain is exceptional at "pattern recognition". One form of pattern recognition is called "pareidolia", which is the phenomenon of seeing human faces in otherwise innocuous or random features. This is a trait of human evolution; Carl Sagan (a famous scientist) described it as a "hard wired" trait to humans; to recognize the human face.

The example itself is something to which anyone can relate; we have all been staring at a wall or floor with lamination of multi-colored rocks, and if we stare into the designs long enough, patterns start to emerge: those three look like a Mickey Mouse face at first, then they look like an internet emoji, then they "join" with surrounding patterns to look like a random animal or some other pattern. Sometimes if we blink, the image chages, or sometimes patterns are so recognizable on a floor that we can identify the same "faces" each time we look at the same spot.

You are in the right age group for the symptoms of schizophrenia to be setting in, so you should absolutely speak to a doctor, something could be going on in your brain to trigger these symptoms. But in the meantime, don't think you are "crazy", that is a form of personal abuse, and you need to be on your own side.

Relax and breathe slowly and deeply to calm yourself down. Remind yourself that what you are seeing is not real.

If you need to discuss this further and in private, my inbox is always open.