@UncleClover: "Hi all! :-)
This is largely non-triggery, but is a little, so I'll spoiler-space
the first bit & try to warn before any triggery parts.
<spoiler>
<spoilerier>
<spoileriest>
Okay, I guess that will suffice. Lately, I've been questioning how
much of the world I'm perceiving is real and what might be
hallucinations from an internally-generated world. I do have some
alters that live in entirely internal worlds, and I know for them
their lives there can be awfully convincing. They all seem to know it,
though, but it occurs to me that with some of my "perceptual
abnormalities", I might not be able to distinguish
internally-generated subjective phenomenon from external, "real-world"
phenomenon.
The "perceptual abnormalities" of which I speak are generally
classified as a "migraine aura without mention of infarction" (though
I do occasionally have migraines, but I have the perceptual
distortions associated with them 100% of the time whether I have an
actual migraine headache or not). Having had the auras my entire life,
I learned at a fairly young age how to "control" them, and am quite
brandon48@example.org. In essence, I can induce hallucinations of any of the
senses (and a few senses I invented via experimentation) and these
hallucinations can appear quite real. However, when I induce such an
hallucination, there is always a sort of "blackness" or "blankness"
surrounding it that makes it obvious that it's not really part of the
real world.
So all this time, I've been able to do this and have thought myself to
be in full control, and now I'm just not so sure any more. There are
so many coincidences in my life, synchronicities, things that just as
I'm thinking about them, either they happen directly or some other
event will go on around me that is directly related to them.
When I was younger, I went through two phases in particular - one
where I thought I might have some kind of "special" connection to God
and one where I thought I might be psychic. But I've tested both of
these speculations more than enough to be convinced that they are
untrue. At least to any significant degree - if there is a god, I'm
sure I have no more "special" connection to it than anyone else has,
and if I am "psychic" to any degree, it doesn't even rise to the level
of empirically verifiable when I _want_ it to happen and so it's not
really of much use to bother with.
It's only recently that the possibility occurred to me that maybe some
of these "extremely unlikely coincidences" are all in my mind - that
perhaps while I can sense an hallucination when I know I'm creating
it, some other part of my psyche might be making hallucinations that I
completely fall for because I'm not looking for them. Maybe these
synchronicities only -appear- to happen and the reality of the
situation is nothing like I've been thinking it was all these years.
So how do you do it? How can one tell internally-generated perceptions
from the real world? For all I know, the entire world I perceive
around me might just be an internally-generated state of some "real"
me in some mental hospital somewhere. I know just how truly convincing
the mind can be when it's generating hallucinatory phenomenon - is
there any way to tell?
:-?
<url> 100% Uncensored , 100% Anonymous,	 5$/month  Only!"
    @UncleClover: "Expanding on my quandry via a few incidents which caught me off-guard
- below quoted spoiler space....
On Fri, 08 Oct 2010 03:11:20 -0400, Bill Shroyer
<quote>
<snip>
One event that made me realize that I do sometimes experience
internally-generated phenomenon that I'm not aware of right away was
when I lived in my last apartment in Knoxville, TN. There was this
incessant dog-barking, it sounded like it was coming from the room
right next to mine. I'd be sitting there in my nice, quiet living room
playing around online or what-have-you when all of a sudden, out of
the blue, what I took to be "the neighbor's dog" would seemingly run
around just on the other side of the wall and start BARKING. It
sounded like a big one, too - a very deep, very loud bark.
I can't even begin to count how many times I've had to peel myself off
the ceiling after that happened. Imagine hours of dark, peaceful
silence and all of a sudden a klaxon is going off right by your head -
it was that kind ot "startle scare".
However, one time when I was experimenting with some entheogenic
substances, this same barking occurred again, and I realized I could
control it. Of course at the time I figured - even from within my
chemically-altered state - that I was probably just tripping and only
imagining that I could control it. But it was enough of a foothold for
my realization to emerge after I sobered up that if I heard the
barking next door again, and closed my eyes and mind and intended for
it to go away - it stopped.
Once that happened, it never happened again - at least, not so that it
sounded as if it were right beside me on the other side of the wall. I
did manage to hear a few times what sounded like the same dog in some
farther-away apartment.
Barking dogs have always been an annoyance to me - not so much that
the dog is barking, but that someone is ignoring or neglecting it to
the point that it has to bark constantly in some desperate bid to find
any little crumb of social interaction it can get in the world. After
the first time I realized that I was producing auditory hallucinations
involuntarily of dogs barking, I'd occasionally notice at other times
other dogs barking somewhere out-of-sight, and while most of the time,
I couldn't control them (and thus, I assume they were real), there
were times when out of the blue, I realized that a dog was barking
that I hadn't been paying much attention to, but here it was just a
background hallucination that went away the moment I realized it.
The entire "barking dog" hallucination was the first time I ever
realized I was having at least auditory hallucinations that I didn't
consciously produce (though once aware of them, I could make them stop
fairly easily).
I sort of brushed that little situation aside for a few years, but
these days - there are just too many coincidences. Things I'm
expecting to happen that do, and just when I'm expecting them to
happen - though not generally things that leave a lasting mark so that
you can confirm that it happened later. For instance, someone walking
by me and bumping into my arm a certain way, or someone in the
distance screaming - the thought crosses my mind first, and then
almost instantly, it appears to happen. Or I'll "overhear" two people
talking just beneath my window outside - every once in awhile, I find
myself overhearing a conversation that I can "control" in some sense.
If I were any less rational or objective of a person, I would have
very good reason to believe that I'm "controlling" these things,
making them happen - but I have no such delusion (that I'm aware of,
at least). The only extent to which I believe that is to the extent
that I'm aware that some people believe such things are possible, and
such things have been common beliefs throughout human history - so
yeah, sometimes I wonder, "What if?"  But not often.
That's pretty much all auditory stuff. I pretty much ignore it these
days. But how would I be able to tell if a visual halluicination were
happening that I wasn't consciously creating? I think if I'm on the
look-out for hallucinatory perceptions, I can probably recognize them.
But how many of us spend our lives analyzing every little thing we
perceive to see whether or not we should let ourselves believe that
it's "real"? That's just not a very healthy or practical way to live.
So something within me has shown a great talent for creating
"background noise", and when I'm not trying to analyze the sounds
there really is no way to tell the difference between internal and
external. From jets flying overhead to kids squealing in the streets
as they play - is my mind just "filling in" the silence that actually
exists? If so, is it out of boredom or what?
Sorry, I know this got a bit long, I didn't mean for it to. I'm just
trying to understand what's happening. In that, I'm sure many of you
can relate. :-)
L8r,
Bill
<url> 100% Uncensored , 100% Anonymous,	 5$/month  Only!"
    @jill: "<quote>
Hi :)
So, the first thing I thought of with this is maybe you have
habituated to this stuff. I'm thinking of how doing something or using
a behavior or even reacting to a stimuli over and over and over can
cause a habit to form and the person begins to react in this way as a
sort of knee jerk reaction without really thinking about it
consciously.
This is a good example of what I was thinking might be habituation.
Existentialism anyone? *grin* For clients I have worked with who
report hallucinations we talked alot about reality testing, things
like checking with trusted external people to verify the validity of
reality. Or using intellect to double check. If you think you see a
large alien peeking in your window do a reality check with your
intellect, does this seem reasonable? Is there some other way to
validate it?
For me personally, I use a combination of the above most of the time.
I have residual hallucinatory like reactions to brandon48@example.org. I
think it's that my brain chemistry got so out of whack for so many
years from the anxiety and ptsd that it is just not quite right any
more. So, if I think I see something that I question 'is that really
there?' I do reality testing. I might talk to it, or change the
environment in some way (turn on/off a light) and observe what is
happening. I also observe my emotional reactions. If I am feeling very
anxious before hand there is a good chance the observation is
hallucinatory. If I am feeling calm and there are other external
checks that indicate there might really be something there, I accept
it more readily as 'real'. Using the alien example, if I think there
is something looking in my window I observe _other_ criteria that
might exist at the same time (does it cast a shadow, does it make
noises, do other people act like they can see it). I don't just accept
my perceptions out of hand if I have any reason to question them. This
keeps me from having a knee jerk panic reaction like I used to have.
Finally, I have learned over many years of pondering this that there
is an inherent 'difference' in things that exist and things that don't
exist. It isn't something I can see or touch, but rather a sense or
perception or something. I use that to guide my interpretation as
well. If I get the sense that the situation 'feels' real I tend to
believe it more than if it 'feels' unreal. This has taken many years
to learn though.
Rainbow Colors (Jill)
    ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
     The colors blend, the edges soften. Swirling and mixing
                   we are becoming white light.
                        <email_address>"
    @astri: "<...>
<quote>
think everyone experiences some synchronicities, tho
nope
we not figments of your demented imagination
you figments of *our* demented imagination :)
feedback?
if anyone else is there, ask them?
if you have an audio recorder, try getting a recording and see if it's
there? or take a picture?
 astri
  ======================
  to email send to astri
  ======================
      at volcano dot org
  ======================"
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