Hallucinations from sleep deprivation

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7200
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Hallucinations from sleep deprivation

Post by 7200 » Sun Feb 11, 2018 8:36 am

The “I Feel Terrible” post got me thinking about my Epogogic hallucination from severe insomnia. They,re not psychosis, it,s a brain/dream thing 6 to 10% of the population experience. The most common are blinking columns of light and, for some reason, spiders and snakes. I got past the spiders. No snakes thank God, still the lights and some really cool and vivid hallucinations that are actually entertaining. They occur when I’m really sleep deprived. Anybody else having them and freaking out about it? You’re not crazy and it’s very unlikely it’s a brain tumor which is the first thing I thought of when they started.

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Re: Hallucinations from sleep deprivation

Post by TedVPAP » Sun Feb 11, 2018 9:09 am

7200 wrote:The “I Feel Terrible” post got me thinking about my Epogogic hallucination from severe insomnia. They,re not psychosis, it,s a brain/dream thing 6 to 10% of the population experience. The most common are blinking columns of light and, for some reason, spiders and snakes. I got past the spiders. No snakes thank God, still the lights and some really cool and vivid hallucinations that are actually entertaining. They occur when I’m really sleep deprived. Anybody else having them and freaking out about it? You’re not crazy and it’s very unlikely it’s a brain tumor which is the first thing I thought of when they started.
I googled this but didn't get any hits. Please provide a link as I am interested in learning more. Thanks

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Cowboy Casey
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Re: Hallucinations from sleep deprivation

Post by Cowboy Casey » Sun Feb 11, 2018 9:19 am

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnagogia

I have had some of this but I think most everyone have had these at sometime...
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Re: Hallucinations from sleep deprivation

Post by QueSera » Sun Feb 11, 2018 10:31 am

No visual hallucinations, fortunately, but I’ve experienced most of the other things described in the article.
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Gryphon
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Re: Hallucinations from sleep deprivation

Post by Gryphon » Sun Feb 11, 2018 10:34 am

Used to have these a lot before I treated my sleep apnea... for example. When I'm dreaming I have telekinesis... I can always move things with the power of my mind. In real life I know better. So when I was at work and I started moving my office pen and flying it around the room like a child's toy rocket ship. I knew it was time to snap out of it because I was experiencing a micro nap/waking dream.

My big issue before was having dream like qualities appear very very quickly while I was still fairly awake. These would never happen when I was walking around or doing something like driving. Usually would only happen when I was sitting somewhere for a while.

Now when I was really sleep deprived I would sometimes get what I refer to as the "Fireflies effect" I'd see thousands of very bright lights dancing around in front of my vision. I knew it was time to sit down when I saw that, before I fell down.

Now that I treat my sleep apnea I no longer have most of these symptoms... I'll still get the occasional waking dream if I'm sitting somewhere and let my self nod off/day dream but these are very rare and not the norm any more.

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Re: Hallucinations from sleep deprivation

Post by hobbs » Sun Feb 11, 2018 10:56 am

I used to pay good money for hallucinations! Image Image

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Re: Hallucinations from sleep deprivation

Post by chunkyfrog » Sun Feb 11, 2018 11:09 am

Reality is plenty weird for me.
:mrgreen:

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Re: Hallucinations from sleep deprivation

Post by yourbrokenoven » Sun Feb 11, 2018 11:20 am

I was so exhausted one night (I think this was AFTER I started treatment but before my recent discovery of my mask leak issues)
I was driving home one evening and I almost got into the oncoming lane of traffic. We had just eaten. I was supposed to follow and meet up with the family at the in-laws' house, however, I realized how ... confused I felt. I got off the road for a moment, then turned around and headed home instead. I called my wife to let everyone know how exhausted I was and I was going home. Right after the phone call, making a turn at a traffic light, I SWORE I saw a young boy sitting on top of the arm of the traffic light pole which was overhead above the road. That was the one of the first moments I knew I had hallucinated from exhaustion.

I had a few others. I can't remember specifics, but it was usually misinterpreting something that was actually there, not seeing something where there was literally nothing like the kid on the traffic light.

Switching from a 7pm to 7am shift to the 7am to 7pm shift really helped at first, but I think this mask leak has made the last three and a half years of BiPAP use much less effective than it should have been.

Just before switching to day shift, for about three or four months, we had moved and I had a 45 minute drive home. I would have to stop for a nap about about 3/4 of the way home. I got good at noticing my drowsiness and pulling over before I became a hazard. I live only about 10 minutes from work now.

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Re: Hallucinations from sleep deprivation

Post by USMCVet » Sun Feb 11, 2018 12:15 pm

The worse it got for me was thinking I saw people out of my peripheral in roadway when I was driving.

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Re: Hallucinations from sleep deprivation

Post by Goofproof » Sun Feb 11, 2018 12:52 pm

chunkyfrog wrote:Reality is plenty weird for me.
:mrgreen:
Yes, and hard to wake from. Most of us settle down and live in Reality. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly! Jim
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"The art of medicine consists in amusing the patient while nature cures the disease." Voltaire

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Re: Hallucinations from sleep deprivation

Post by 7200 » Sun Feb 11, 2018 1:48 pm

Two sources among several. Wikipedia “Hypnagogia”

Web site “Patient”
About hypnagogia halucinations/patient info
Written by Dr Laurence Knott if first search doesn’t work
The lights are the most frequent hallucination. The hallucinations usually happen as you wake up from lite sleep. You may not even know you’ve been asleep. You can actually control what you see because you’re in a dream state, but awake.Cpap lessens the incidents or stops them completely. You may still get a few if your stressed or not sleeping very well at times. Also occurs with Narcolepsy. Hallucination can pop up when driving and make drivers swerve to avoid things that aren’t there. Sorry, I misspelled Hypnagogia.

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Re: Hallucinations from sleep deprivation

Post by lamar2217 » Sun Feb 11, 2018 3:32 pm

I think that I saw this scenario on an old Twilight Zone TV episode.

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Re: Hallucinations from sleep deprivation

Post by 7200 » Sun Feb 11, 2018 3:37 pm

Twilight Zone “Life imitates art”

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Re: Hallucinations from sleep deprivation

Post by Mikebear » Sun Feb 11, 2018 4:04 pm

I used to get them many years ago, it's just like dreaming while fully awake. So you are aware of "both worlds" at the same time. Almost like virtual reality in my case, but fortunately NOT nightmares.

I think it's a survival thing to keep you from going insane if you never dream at night.

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