Dream-state Hallucination Theory

The mental health community tries to be helpful to people having episodes of hallucinations, but thus far I have not heard them fully explain what and why people hallucinate. I have a theory as to what is going on with people hallucinating and I hope it helps mental health professionals diagnose patients to better help them find rational for their symptoms.

While in close association and proximity to all different kinds of mentally disabled people, I was able to quietly observe and document several mental conditions. From multiple personality disorder, bi-polar, schizophrenia, and hallucinatory episodes and other mental states, I personally witnessed people having to deal with and try to overcome their mental event.

What I found from these observations about hallucinations is a possible explanation for the condition that I hope mental health professionals will explore in depth. Upon talking with people as they are hallucinating and them explaining to me in detail exactly what they are seeing or hearing or feeling at that time, I had the idea that these people are not truly awake. I think that they are in a dreaming state with their eyes open, kind of like they are dreaming two dreams. One dream is awake reality, the other is an asleep kind of reality. While they spoke to me because they can hear my voice and visually see me, they were also concentrating very heavily on this other reality that was a scenario in their head and in their vision, hearing, or feeling.

It is established fact that people know other people or environments or things in their head when they dream while asleep. However, I think that some people dream with their eyes open, and they fully comprehend their awake state. This way they can go through their daily life just like people who do not have their condition and look perfectly normal while we see them walking and talking, but that they are living with their dream-state hallucination. We just can’t see or hear or feel what they do.

These scenarios in their head are many times recurring dreams. They see repeatedly the same exact dream. There was one such mentally disabled person who told me she saw a man on the floor with a bullet hole in his head with blood all over him. We were sitting in a room, but when moved to another room she was still seeing the dead person. I asked her if she had had this same vision before and she said she has had it many times before. She did say that when she would think at length about the vision that it would sometimes change, but it usually started out the same way.

Another mentally challenged person wanted me to help her get away from snakes on the floor slithering around her. I told her I did not see the snakes and she quickly pointed to where she saw them and said they are right there. Upon further discussion, I learned that this person, too, had recurring dream-state hallucinations. They were always snakes that she saw, and they usually began in her vision when she was anxious about something or at night when alone in her apartment.

It occurred to me after a few years of observations and speaking with various people having these conditions that they all had something in common. They each were able to describe in detail exactly what their hallucination was about or what it looked like, sounded like, or felt like and it was recurring. I think it is a dream while awake and it stays in a certain part of their dreaming area of the brain only to pop up and present itself while they are around other people.

As I have found, some of these incidents happen to them and they do not say a word to others when it happens. However, they are used to them. We are not. To them, it is a normal occurrence in their awake state, and they have learned how to push it to one side and function as if they are totally awake. They do seem “crazy” to people who do not have this condition whenever they casually or sometimes act out or say things about their awake dream. As the one person vividly described the dead person and the other vividly described her snakes. I don’t think that they are any crazier than people who have the craziest of dreams with their eyes closed. I, too, have recurring dreams in my sleep. I complain to myself about having that stupid dream again, but I don’t go around telling people about it.

What if these mentally challenged people are just verbalizing a dream? Their heavy medications do not seem to stop or slow down these occurrences. Indeed, they sometimes enhance the dream-state as the person gets sleepy from the psychotropic drugs they are prescribed. I believe they may be having an animal spirit hallucination where their spirit is in connection with a certain animal or person, and they are able to visualize them in the daytime. So, what do we do to help these people have a more normal existence or to medically improve their condition?

I suggest that one way to help them is to explain to them that yes it does seem like reality but that they are really having a dream. Giving people the knowledge that, no, they are not crazy, just having a bad dream will help them and others better understand and cope with their reality. Another way to help may be to give them medication or therapy that targets that area of the brain where dreaming is believed to occur. Also, it may be helpful to explain to the person how they may be spiritually connected to the vision and that if they are not physically harmed, then maybe they should focus on a study session about what they visualize. Telling others about some horrible vision and receiving an interpreted explanation may help the patient deal with its recurrence. I am not a medical professional and am reaching out to the mental health community to help provide a clearer pathway to successfully help with this problem.

To remind you all, this is only a theory. I welcome any sincere comments and discussions that may be related to this and other mental conditions. By being open and honest with our own visions of reality, we can help others achieve some semblance of normalcy in their own lives. Do not be afraid of judgment here. We are all family, after all. We are humans and are supposed to take care of each other. I value any insight you may be able to share to the rest of us that helps hone in the exact causation of this problem. Take care out there and come back to tell your story when you are ready.

Copyright, 5/25/2022, Dream-state Hallucination Theory, April Graves-Minton, Love MoonEagle. All Rights Reserved.