Visual Hallucinations: Another Argument for Brain Equals Behavior

An out-of-body experience is explained by few as a sense of being detached from one’s body, and if associated with other factors like a sense that the world is not real, far away, or even foggy. This with the combination of failure to recall significant personal information, or the content of a meaningful conversation forgotten from one second to the next are signs of a psychological disorder known as Dissociative Disorder. Considered as a rare and mysterious psychiatric curiosity, Dissociative Disorders will be the psychological disorder that will be discussed in this paper.

"Dr. John Todd noted [similar] hallucinations in [Alice in Wonderland] a variety of states... of epilepsy [and] schizophrenia" (Stewart). Psychiatrist Dr. John Todd connected the mind and symptoms of the main character Alice in Alice in Wonderland to the mental illness of Schizophrenia by looking at the common symptoms of people who suffer from this disease. Those symptoms are paralleled in Alice's trip to Wonderland through the hallucinations mentioned by Dr. Todd. Alice has many symptoms of a paranoid schizophrenic because of everything she does in Wonderland that is not normal to the world of reality. These strange things include shrinking and growing potions, talking animals and bugs, and the weird world around her. The strange occurrences are the initial key to figuring out her medical condition. Schizophrenia is a brain disorder that affects the way a person acts, thinks, and even their idea of reality. People with schizophrenia often have a different way of seeing the world. People who are commonly schizophrenic speak in strange or confusing ways, see things that don’t exist, and have unusual hallucinations. These hallucinations the characters experience are believed to follow the five senses. The five senses are touch, sight, sound, smell, and taste. The senses make the patient think the hallucinations are real when in reality the world only exist in the person's mind. Alice

B. Hallucinations, are perceived through one of the senses and do not correspond to any stimulus in the outside world. Hallucinations are defined as perceptions in a conscious mind.

Auditory hallucination is a fundamental presentation observed in patients suffering from schizophrenia. It is one of the frequently occurring symptoms considered to be disabling in schizophrenia, but despite vast and numerous organized studies undertaken in this area in order to comprehend the pathophysiology of auditory hallucination, little success has been realized, and it remains to be complex in research, understanding, and expressing the knowledge accrued (Kaprinis, 2008.) The auditory processing in schizophrenia seems to be different from that of normal individuals because patients inflicted with this mental illness complain of voices deep inside their heads. The voices are described as coming

When the brain is deprived of all sensory input it begins to provide input of its own, sometimes relating to events that have occurred before. Sometimes these hallucinations occur with no reasoning whatsoever, all the researchers

28-30). What is most interesting about these examples is that the majority of the hallucinations are experienced by experts within the scientific community. Clearly intentional, the author masterfully crafted a strong appeal to ethics both by presenting himself as an expert and drawing support from reputable

About 65% of schizophrenics hallucinate hearing, seeing, or smelling things that are no there. Even though hallucinations are a common symptom of schizophrenia, Susannah’s hallucinations were caused by anti-NMDA-receptor autoimmune encephalitis, so they disappeared once she was treated. One strange hallucination of Susannah’s was that she had wet herself and the nurses were yelling at her. Another was that her father was kidnapping her, although she went with him willingly. Drugs, alcohol, medication, smoking, strokes, or dementia usually causes memory loss.

Macbeth’s Schizophrenia According to the National Institute of Mental Health, a schizophrenic person cannot distinguish the difference between fantasy and reality. Consequently, they oft suffer from delusions and hallucinations. A delusion is considered as a false idea while a hallucination is considered as a false image or vision.

A hallucination is an experience involving the apparent perception of something not present. In Macbeth, Shakespeare uses hallucinations to show the feeling of guilt, the amount of hallucinations someone has shows how much guilt they are feeling at that particular moment about the actions they have done. Shakespeare uses the character Macbeth and Lady Macbeth to build towards hallucination as a motif. He built towards the motif by giving the two characters hallucinations based on their past actions. In the play Macbeth, William Shakespeare uses hallucinations as a motif not only to show Macbeth and Lady Macbeth's tragic downfall, but also as a symbol of the destruction Macbeth causes within the country of Scotland.

Living life imagining people and objects that are non-existent, already seems like a difficult way of living. Patients often turn to antipsychotic medications for help with Schizophrenia. The antipsychotic medication can help the patient minimize their hallucinations. The medication can also help the patient depict between what is real and what is a hallucination made up in their mind. According to Awad, “The clinical picture includes a range of symptoms such as delusions, hallucinations, agitation, suspiciousness, hostility, conceptual disorganization, blunted affect, emotional and social withdrawal, lack of spontaneity, poverty of speech and a wide range of neurocognitive deficits” (Awad 877). Needless to say, there are a lot of symptoms

These strange symptoms could be explained by the Charles Bonnet syndrome. The syndrome is most usually caused by people having damage done somewhere in their visual pathway causing them to experience these hallucinations. Later in the chapter, blind spots in our visual field are explained more fully. With diagrams to test those blind spots, and the explaining of tests and scientific studies conducted to further our knowledge on blind spots. At the end of the chapter the blind spots investigations are tied to James Thurber by questioning if the brain’s capacity for “filling in” blind spots and scotomas can also help us understand the extraordinary visual hallucinations people with Charles Bonnet syndrome experience.

Rosenhan's study was done in two parts. The first part involved the use of healthy associates who briefly simulated auditory hallucinations in an attempt to gain admission to 12 different psychiatric hospitals in five different states in various locations in the United States. All were admitted and diagnosed with psychiatric disorders. After admission, the pseudopatients acted normally and told staff that they felt fine and had not experienced any more hallucinations. All were forced to admit to having a

Multiple regression analysis was run to predict hallucination history from metacognition variables; perception and memory. The model statistically significantly predicted hallucination history, F(2, 177) = 11.88, p < .000, adj. R2 = 10.8%. All variables added statistically significantly to the prediction, p < .05

It is not uncommon for individuals who have taken LSD to report vivid and complex auditory and visual hallucinations

Therefore there are many more logical explanations for the abductees experience when they state that they had been abducted by Aliens. For instance the use of prescription and recreational drugs causing hallucinations leading the individual to believe they have been abducted. Miriam Webster defines hallucinations as a “perception of objects with no reality”. Hallucinations are thoughts or images that appear to us to be real and to imagine that something is there when in reality there is nothing. To