That is a fascinating story - do either of you think that what seemed to happen to your computer screen was a hallucination? Barbara, if you would like to clarify what a hallucination is, I would appreciate the benefit of your knowledge. If it was a hallucination, that suggests to me the extreme power that your conflict (between two sets of feelings) had. It would be so interesting to know what the process might be of a perfectly sane person suddenly producing a hallucination. (I have had three different hallucinations in my otherwise reality-bound life, all of them involving a close beloved relative - grandmother, father, son - and death. As though my brain had to come up with something that encompassed two irresolvable sets of feelings.) It’s amazing, really, that your hallucination (if it was one) allowed you to break through your own barriers.
Marilyn, thank you so much for commenting on our post and for talking about your own experiences. It is not uncommon for people who are grieving to experience hallucinations of the lost loved one, as you described.
What Elizabeth described was a little different in that what she saw was a distortion of the letters on her computer screen. This would be considered an illusion because there was really something out there in the world, only Elizabeth perceived it in a way that was inaccurate. In her case, the illusion was also quite apt—even poetic. A stone screen that made it impossible to move words around for editing!
In either case, hallucinations or illusions arise from the brain. We usually think of perception as our sense organs taking “in” stimuli (sights, sounds) from the world outside. But, in actuality, the brain has learned what to expect from “out there.” And much of what we perceive is our brain showing us what it expects.
Also, many people think that hallucinating equals psychosis. But, this is not accurate. If you know that what you are seeing is not real, then your ability to tell reality from non-reality is intact, and you are not psychotic. People can have hallucinations or illusions under stressful conditions or from medical diseases such as certain types of epilepsy or from Charles Bonnet Syndrome which is what Oliver Sacks discusses so eloquently.
That is a fascinating story - do either of you think that what seemed to happen to your computer screen was a hallucination? Barbara, if you would like to clarify what a hallucination is, I would appreciate the benefit of your knowledge. If it was a hallucination, that suggests to me the extreme power that your conflict (between two sets of feelings) had. It would be so interesting to know what the process might be of a perfectly sane person suddenly producing a hallucination. (I have had three different hallucinations in my otherwise reality-bound life, all of them involving a close beloved relative - grandmother, father, son - and death. As though my brain had to come up with something that encompassed two irresolvable sets of feelings.) It’s amazing, really, that your hallucination (if it was one) allowed you to break through your own barriers.
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Marilyn, thank you so much for commenting on our post and for talking about your own experiences. It is not uncommon for people who are grieving to experience hallucinations of the lost loved one, as you described.
What Elizabeth described was a little different in that what she saw was a distortion of the letters on her computer screen. This would be considered an illusion because there was really something out there in the world, only Elizabeth perceived it in a way that was inaccurate. In her case, the illusion was also quite apt—even poetic. A stone screen that made it impossible to move words around for editing!
In either case, hallucinations or illusions arise from the brain. We usually think of perception as our sense organs taking “in” stimuli (sights, sounds) from the world outside. But, in actuality, the brain has learned what to expect from “out there.” And much of what we perceive is our brain showing us what it expects.
Oliver Sacks has a wonderful discussion of this phenomenon as revealed in people with vision loss who have hallucinations that “come from their brains.” Check out his TED talk. https://www.ted.com/talks/oliver_sacks_what_hallucination_reveals_about_our_minds?subtitle=en
Also, many people think that hallucinating equals psychosis. But, this is not accurate. If you know that what you are seeing is not real, then your ability to tell reality from non-reality is intact, and you are not psychotic. People can have hallucinations or illusions under stressful conditions or from medical diseases such as certain types of epilepsy or from Charles Bonnet Syndrome which is what Oliver Sacks discusses so eloquently.