I've been hallucinating for a while now
Posted: Tue Aug 09, 2016 6:04 am
Hail,
I've never spoken of this to anyone aside from medical professionals, but now I think the time is right. I'm sure it's not unusual for the denizens here to be a little "strange" when it comes to their minds, so I feel relatively safe speaking here.
As the subject line states, I have frequent hallucinations. I've had them for a while. At first I only heard sounds. I'd be sitting in my office alone all day, listening to the sounds of my family moving throughout the house. Doors opening and closing, footsteps, pots and pans clinking. Things like that. It went on for two weeks before me exiting my office to find the house empty became anything more than "Oh, I must've just missed them." You may think two weeks is an awful long time, but the other three members of the household, my father, step-mother, and step-sister, are always in-and-out. Once I came to this realization, I assumed we had some kind of paranormal phenomena. I had always been a believer in ghosts as a child, and I have several memories of witnessing paranormal activity that I know weren't hallucinations due to the other witnesses that corroborate them to this day.
And then I started seeing things. Little things at first. My first visual hallucination involved simply the wristwatch I had on. I have a collection, and there's one that stands out immensely. The face of the watch is easily three times the size of the face of all the others. Additionally, it is (or was at the time) one of only two watches with a metal band instead of leather, and was one of only three black-faced watches. I was sitting at my desk, right where I am now, and I thought to check the time. When I looked at my watch, I had on the large, metal one. I took a long look at it, because the hands blend in with the face, and I had to concentrate to actually get the time. And then I placed my hand back on my computer mouse and was wearing my normal, day-to-day watch. A small, leather-banded silver watch. I turned my chair around and saw the large metal watch sitting atop the watch-case, with a light film of dust.
A few days later, I left my office to see the family dog curled up on the floor, so I crouched down to pet him and he looked up at me. Just before my hand touched him, I looked up and saw him standing on the other side of the hallway. When I looked back down, there was only a pile of tubes for our vacuum (we have central vac).
A few days after that, I became afraid of the hallucinations for the first time. Up until then, I hadn't been afraid or unnerved at all, just interested. The phenoma didn't change at all. It was still the same old sounds, and I hadn't seen anything obvious since the dog incident. But I was terrified. I didn't leave my office at all at night, and rarely in the daytime. The rest of the family left on a trip after the first night I spent like that, so I had the house to myself. I surrounded the perimeter of my office with salt, which did only a little to make me feel better. For three days, I didn't sleep. Then I sat within another circle of salt on the floor, clutching a crucifix on a silver chain in one hand, and a pendant of St. Michael in the other. I had nailed a wooden cross onto my doorway. I sat there all night, terrified and exhausted. Running on pure adrenaline. That night I found myself in a state that I now know as the one-pointedness described in Liber Null, brought on by sensory overload. I don't remember exactly what I had been focusing on, but whatever it was, it worked. At some point I fell asleep. The next morning, I wasn't afraid anymore. The sounds still weren't gone, but they weren't scary anymore. I was refreshed enough to clean the mess I had made with salt and my office food-stash.
A week later there was a blood-moon. I sat outside to watch it peak, and that night I had the strangest experiences of my life. I went outside and sat in the cold in my pajamas to watch the moon hit its peak. I know it wasn't a dream, because I have my skype-chat logs of me and a friend discussing our remotely-shared activity of sitting outside and waiting for the moon to peak. Anyways, I started seeing red spots around my front yard. Eyes. Glowing, red eyes. I wasn't afraid, just interested. Then as the moon rose and began to light up the yard, I saw solid bodies of shadow. Kids. I head children laughing, which I at first dismissed as the neighbor's kids out watching the moon. They weren't outside, and there wasn't a single light in eyeshot. The children were just lingering, not being malevolent or anything like that. So I just sat and watching the moon rise, while a small army of red-eyed, shadow-children watched me with equal interest. I went inside, and took a final look out the front-facing living-room window on the first floor. I saw a large deer leave the sparse forest separating mine and my neighbors' houses from the road and stand in the middle of the driveway. It's antlers were silhouetted against the red moon. I took a photo, but the deer wasn't in the image, only the moon. I shrugged it off as I had the other hallucinations and made my way upstairs to my office/bedroom.
And then I heard the thunderous sound of a million trumpets. At first it came from within my head, but then it was all around me. I collapsed, clutching at my ears in vain. I woke up at some point and crawled into bed.
After that, things stagnated for a long time. Up until about a week or two ago, actually. I had begun to see many figures, and a hallucinated copy of an ex-girlfriend even stalked me for a while. Aside from me walking straight into said ex-girlfriend assuming she was just her hallucinated self, the added hallucinations didn't cause any noteworthy events. I saw the infamous "hat man" many times, and still continue to see him roughly once a week. But, until about two weeks ago, I saw only either people I knew in my everyday life or shadow figures. But then there was a figure that's entirely white, except for his red eyes and dark void of a mouth. He wears a cloak and some sort of turban-esque thing wrapped about his face, with holes for the eyes and mouth. I first saw him while driving somewhere with my mother. (Real mother, not the step-mother that I live with). I pulled up to a stop sign at a deserted five-way intersection (Maine's weird, man) and looked to my left to make sure someone hadn't sped in out of nowhere, and there he was. The white figure, I mean. He was sprinting towards the car. I remained calm, as I almost always have in times of hallucination, and just pulled away from the stop and went on my way. Since then I've seen him with growing intensity. His body shape differs, but his clothing and facial features remain the same. The other day he abruptly appeared purched on the hood of a car in which I was a passenger, and I just locked eyes with him until he dissipated. Just yesterday I looked out of a rear-facing window of my house and saw him standing in the treeline, leaning against a tree with his arms crossed. The other figures appear more often now, as well. I'm not sure what to do about it, or even if I want to. Aside from the man in white, none of them seem to be malevolent. They're just passive observers, and so far none have tried to communicate with me. The closest to communication was when the hallucinated-ex-girlfriend scowled at me and dissapeared forever after watching a romantic moment between some other girl and myself.
In addition to the hallucinations, I have a legion of disturbing dream-experiences to tell should any of you wish to hear them.
And before anyone suggests medical help, I've been in contact with a small army of psychologists and psychiatrists since well before the hallucinations began due to a suicide attempt from my teenage years. I'd rather not get into my dealings with these medical professionals, but the short answer is that aside from the hallucinations, and aside from my shall-we-say "occulty" interests, there's nothing obviously wrong with me. As I go through psychologists (of which I'm on my fifth psychologist and third psychiatrist), they all tell me that I'm an "interesting" case. But that's the closest to helpful that anything they've said have been. I tried medication for a while, but it made no difference and after months of trials my psychiatrist and I decided to ditch meds.
I don't know what kind of information or answers I'm hoping to get from posting this here. I've been having spurts of what I've taken to thinking of as a sort of "witch's intuition" that have grown in frequency over the past month or so. For example, I was driving my mother someplace about three weeks ago, and abruptly felt something off. I pulled over (road was deserted anyways, we still had a ways to the highway we were meant to drive on) and had my mother fiddle with the gps to find us a different route. There was an accident on that highway an hour or so later. I mention this because this intuition is the reason I'm posting all of this here.
I'm posting under "Help!" because I don't really know where else I should post it. I guess I'm looking for help in finding information and opinions on my current state.
I need to sleep before class tomorrow morning.
Blessed be,
Algiz
I've never spoken of this to anyone aside from medical professionals, but now I think the time is right. I'm sure it's not unusual for the denizens here to be a little "strange" when it comes to their minds, so I feel relatively safe speaking here.
As the subject line states, I have frequent hallucinations. I've had them for a while. At first I only heard sounds. I'd be sitting in my office alone all day, listening to the sounds of my family moving throughout the house. Doors opening and closing, footsteps, pots and pans clinking. Things like that. It went on for two weeks before me exiting my office to find the house empty became anything more than "Oh, I must've just missed them." You may think two weeks is an awful long time, but the other three members of the household, my father, step-mother, and step-sister, are always in-and-out. Once I came to this realization, I assumed we had some kind of paranormal phenomena. I had always been a believer in ghosts as a child, and I have several memories of witnessing paranormal activity that I know weren't hallucinations due to the other witnesses that corroborate them to this day.
And then I started seeing things. Little things at first. My first visual hallucination involved simply the wristwatch I had on. I have a collection, and there's one that stands out immensely. The face of the watch is easily three times the size of the face of all the others. Additionally, it is (or was at the time) one of only two watches with a metal band instead of leather, and was one of only three black-faced watches. I was sitting at my desk, right where I am now, and I thought to check the time. When I looked at my watch, I had on the large, metal one. I took a long look at it, because the hands blend in with the face, and I had to concentrate to actually get the time. And then I placed my hand back on my computer mouse and was wearing my normal, day-to-day watch. A small, leather-banded silver watch. I turned my chair around and saw the large metal watch sitting atop the watch-case, with a light film of dust.
A few days later, I left my office to see the family dog curled up on the floor, so I crouched down to pet him and he looked up at me. Just before my hand touched him, I looked up and saw him standing on the other side of the hallway. When I looked back down, there was only a pile of tubes for our vacuum (we have central vac).
A few days after that, I became afraid of the hallucinations for the first time. Up until then, I hadn't been afraid or unnerved at all, just interested. The phenoma didn't change at all. It was still the same old sounds, and I hadn't seen anything obvious since the dog incident. But I was terrified. I didn't leave my office at all at night, and rarely in the daytime. The rest of the family left on a trip after the first night I spent like that, so I had the house to myself. I surrounded the perimeter of my office with salt, which did only a little to make me feel better. For three days, I didn't sleep. Then I sat within another circle of salt on the floor, clutching a crucifix on a silver chain in one hand, and a pendant of St. Michael in the other. I had nailed a wooden cross onto my doorway. I sat there all night, terrified and exhausted. Running on pure adrenaline. That night I found myself in a state that I now know as the one-pointedness described in Liber Null, brought on by sensory overload. I don't remember exactly what I had been focusing on, but whatever it was, it worked. At some point I fell asleep. The next morning, I wasn't afraid anymore. The sounds still weren't gone, but they weren't scary anymore. I was refreshed enough to clean the mess I had made with salt and my office food-stash.
A week later there was a blood-moon. I sat outside to watch it peak, and that night I had the strangest experiences of my life. I went outside and sat in the cold in my pajamas to watch the moon hit its peak. I know it wasn't a dream, because I have my skype-chat logs of me and a friend discussing our remotely-shared activity of sitting outside and waiting for the moon to peak. Anyways, I started seeing red spots around my front yard. Eyes. Glowing, red eyes. I wasn't afraid, just interested. Then as the moon rose and began to light up the yard, I saw solid bodies of shadow. Kids. I head children laughing, which I at first dismissed as the neighbor's kids out watching the moon. They weren't outside, and there wasn't a single light in eyeshot. The children were just lingering, not being malevolent or anything like that. So I just sat and watching the moon rise, while a small army of red-eyed, shadow-children watched me with equal interest. I went inside, and took a final look out the front-facing living-room window on the first floor. I saw a large deer leave the sparse forest separating mine and my neighbors' houses from the road and stand in the middle of the driveway. It's antlers were silhouetted against the red moon. I took a photo, but the deer wasn't in the image, only the moon. I shrugged it off as I had the other hallucinations and made my way upstairs to my office/bedroom.
And then I heard the thunderous sound of a million trumpets. At first it came from within my head, but then it was all around me. I collapsed, clutching at my ears in vain. I woke up at some point and crawled into bed.
After that, things stagnated for a long time. Up until about a week or two ago, actually. I had begun to see many figures, and a hallucinated copy of an ex-girlfriend even stalked me for a while. Aside from me walking straight into said ex-girlfriend assuming she was just her hallucinated self, the added hallucinations didn't cause any noteworthy events. I saw the infamous "hat man" many times, and still continue to see him roughly once a week. But, until about two weeks ago, I saw only either people I knew in my everyday life or shadow figures. But then there was a figure that's entirely white, except for his red eyes and dark void of a mouth. He wears a cloak and some sort of turban-esque thing wrapped about his face, with holes for the eyes and mouth. I first saw him while driving somewhere with my mother. (Real mother, not the step-mother that I live with). I pulled up to a stop sign at a deserted five-way intersection (Maine's weird, man) and looked to my left to make sure someone hadn't sped in out of nowhere, and there he was. The white figure, I mean. He was sprinting towards the car. I remained calm, as I almost always have in times of hallucination, and just pulled away from the stop and went on my way. Since then I've seen him with growing intensity. His body shape differs, but his clothing and facial features remain the same. The other day he abruptly appeared purched on the hood of a car in which I was a passenger, and I just locked eyes with him until he dissipated. Just yesterday I looked out of a rear-facing window of my house and saw him standing in the treeline, leaning against a tree with his arms crossed. The other figures appear more often now, as well. I'm not sure what to do about it, or even if I want to. Aside from the man in white, none of them seem to be malevolent. They're just passive observers, and so far none have tried to communicate with me. The closest to communication was when the hallucinated-ex-girlfriend scowled at me and dissapeared forever after watching a romantic moment between some other girl and myself.
In addition to the hallucinations, I have a legion of disturbing dream-experiences to tell should any of you wish to hear them.
And before anyone suggests medical help, I've been in contact with a small army of psychologists and psychiatrists since well before the hallucinations began due to a suicide attempt from my teenage years. I'd rather not get into my dealings with these medical professionals, but the short answer is that aside from the hallucinations, and aside from my shall-we-say "occulty" interests, there's nothing obviously wrong with me. As I go through psychologists (of which I'm on my fifth psychologist and third psychiatrist), they all tell me that I'm an "interesting" case. But that's the closest to helpful that anything they've said have been. I tried medication for a while, but it made no difference and after months of trials my psychiatrist and I decided to ditch meds.
I don't know what kind of information or answers I'm hoping to get from posting this here. I've been having spurts of what I've taken to thinking of as a sort of "witch's intuition" that have grown in frequency over the past month or so. For example, I was driving my mother someplace about three weeks ago, and abruptly felt something off. I pulled over (road was deserted anyways, we still had a ways to the highway we were meant to drive on) and had my mother fiddle with the gps to find us a different route. There was an accident on that highway an hour or so later. I mention this because this intuition is the reason I'm posting all of this here.
I'm posting under "Help!" because I don't really know where else I should post it. I guess I'm looking for help in finding information and opinions on my current state.
I need to sleep before class tomorrow morning.
Blessed be,
Algiz