Rhuwen

My friend told me today about a hallucination she had not too long ago.

She says it was becaus she had gone without sleep for far too long. ANYWAY, she was sleeping in the "fun house," a little shack where she hangs out, drinks with friends, that kind of thing. She had fallen asleep, for what she feels was only minutes. In her dream, Dee, an old woman we work with, came running up to her yelling "you have to check on Jake, quick!" (Jake is our friend/co-worker, and he was also sleeping in the shack at the time.)

She woke up from this, and noticed someone standing in the doorway in the dark. She didn't know who it was at first, because he was facing away. She quietly said, "Jake?"
no answer. She rubbed her eyes, and looked again. The person now had one leg up against the door. At this point she "knew" it was Jake. (he comically humps things all the time) She kept saying "jake? what are you doing? Jake" Louder and louder, but he wouldn't answer.

She rubber her eyes again and sat up. When she looked again, the figure had turned around to face her. She didn't describe a face, but said he had a huge "cheshire cat" smile. It kept growing off of his face. At this point she was almost screaming, throwing pillows and whatever she could at it.

Jake, being awoken from the noise, rolls over and askes her what's wrong. Confused, she looks back at the doorway, and nothing is there.

To go along with this, she has a mysterious hole in her leg, that's spreading a rash. That part I'm chalking up to a bug bite and maybe an allergic reaction, but she said she protected Jake from the thing, and in his place, it injected her with whatever.

I just thought I should share this with you guys.

hulk

Sounds almost like a lucid dream, except she would have woken from it. Definately creepy - has she had that bite or whatever checked out?

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Rhuwen

I think she's having it checked out tomorrow.

As an update, she had yet another dream like this.

She woke up and saw spirits pushing the furniture in her room up against her door, trapping her inside the bedroom. She only told me a bit, I think she was too scared, but it ended with one raising (his?) arms, and the window opening, then them trying to push her out of the window. She feels they wanted to kill her but make it look like a suicide. Now she's afraid to go to sleep.

Any dream analysts around?

ManWithAPlan

she ought to have someone spend the night with her and see what goes on... check the room for static electricity and temperature changes (As well as her talking/moving in her sleep). this should be done on random nights when she doesn't expect it (to make sure it's not all in her head)

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In the end we are but wisps

Benji

This is a serious question now, don't think it isn't..

does she do any drugs at all?

Martian

ManWithAPlan and Benji have my thoughts covered here. A possibility is schizophrenia. Onset can occur in late teens or early twenties and vivid/bizarre halucinations are a possible and widely known symptom. Also watch for periodic 'flattening', which is an absence of emotion and/or speech, or even social activities (compared to her prior state).

If she's doing drugs or if she's going for long periods without sleep that can cause similar hallucinations. When my insomnia was at it's worst I'd go for 48 hours at a time without any sleep and by the end of that I'd get quite paranoid. My most common one were these little black demon-type creatures that would sit around me, but never directly in view. I remember they had very sharp teeth and rat-like tails and they'd always sit off in my peripheral vision. I'd often see them scurrying around, always bolting for places (I once watched one jump right into the sink; of course, when I walked over to check nothing was there). The point of telling you all this is to illustrate just how vivid and 'real' hallucinations brought on by sleep deprivation can be, in which case, not sleeping is definitely not the answer here. You need to get her to get some rest, which if it's feasible may even involve crashing at her place for a few nights to reassure her. If she's doing any drugs she needs to stop asap and consult a doctor.

Good luck and all that, keep us posted.

__________________
I wake up in the morning more tired than before I slept
I get through cryin' and I'm sadder than before I wept
I get through thinkin' now, and the thoughts have left my head
I get through speakin' and I can't remember, not a word that I said

- Ben Harper, Show Me A Little Shame

ManWithAPlan

martian, i thought that onset of schizophrenia was accompanied by milder hallucinations, kind of like shooting spots in the eyes... hallucinations of this calibur would most likely have to be a serious stage already.

The disease comes in 3 types: http://psychcentral.com/library/schizo_subtypes.htm

that link should give you a good set of symptoms, but i think if that this is the case you would have noticed sooner.

by the way, to elaborate on what martian said: if she acts emotionaly devoid, that would point at disorganized schizophrenia.

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In the end we are but wisps

Martian

ManWithAPlan, yeah milder hallucinations usually come first, but these sorts of severe and bizarre hallucinations along with a seeming paranoia seem to maybe point in that direction. It's possible that the minor hallucinations may have consisted of spotting, 'floaters' (little floating black bits in front of your eyes) and/or auditory hallucinations, which may be passed off as seeing things and/or not sleeping enough, too much caffeine or even just background noise in the case of auditory hallucinations. The powerful aspect of hallucinating is that the person suffering doesn't realize, what you see and hear seems very very real. Mine were caused by lack of sleep due to insomnia, but even knowing that lack of sleep can cause that sort of thing and even with the sudden onset and very bizarre nature of what I saw, it was hard to discount and I rarely sat up alone without all the lights on. It's quite possible for symptoms to go undiagnosed simply because the patient doesn't report them.

And yeah, the emotional aspect is disorganized, although if combined it would actually be undifferentiated schizophrenia. Hallucinations are much less pronounced in disorganized, being much more common in paranoid schizophrenia. I merely listed the disorganized symptoms because they're easier to spot and may provide clues. Paranoid schizophrenia has fewer observable symptoms and cataonic tends to be rather apparent on it's own, so I listed the ones that may not be recognized if one doesn't know about them.

I've skimmed that site and it definitely seems worth looking over. I'm not saying this is likely to be the cause but it's definitely a possibility and if it is the case the earlier you catch it the better.

__________________
I wake up in the morning more tired than before I slept
I get through cryin' and I'm sadder than before I wept
I get through thinkin' now, and the thoughts have left my head
I get through speakin' and I can't remember, not a word that I said

- Ben Harper, Show Me A Little Shame

ManWithAPlan

i know, i was just adding onto it and highlighting something since i posted the link.

But if it's undifferentiated and part disorganized, wouldn't that point against having such vivid and pronounced hallucinations? (thats not supposed to be rhetorical, i am not entirely sure how that works)

I just don't want to get him to think that it's schizophrenia if it's not, because schizophrenia is a serious thing.

__________________
In the end we are but wisps

Martian

ManWithAPlan, I'd rather have him worry needlessly than not even think about it. Given the situation it is a possibility.

And the nature of undifferentiated is that it incorporates symptoms of two or more types of schizophrenia, therefore it's possible for a person to both show symptoms of disorganized schizophrenia and suffer hallucinations as in paranoid.

Undifferentiated is a catch-all. The idea is, you're either paranoid, disorganized or catatonic. If you're symptoms don't sufficiently isolate one type due to not being pronounced enough or (as in the hypothetical case I've presented) showing signs of more than one sub-type, they just call it undifferentiated. Is that a bit clearer?

And yeah, no offense meant, I'm just trying to clarify exactly what goes on. Disorganized is really easy to spot, as is catatonic (I once knew a guy who suffered from catatonic with echolalia; the one time I saw an attack he simply froze up and would not move, but repeated everything said to him. It was an odd experience, to say the least). Paranoid is much harder to notice, although if she is schizophrenic that's the most likely subtype. It doesn't rule out the others, though.

__________________
I wake up in the morning more tired than before I slept
I get through cryin' and I'm sadder than before I wept
I get through thinkin' now, and the thoughts have left my head
I get through speakin' and I can't remember, not a word that I said

- Ben Harper, Show Me A Little Shame

Zeraph

Update Rhuwen?

EULA

One time I had an auditory hallucination from high fever (undiagnosed strep throat). I hear about 4 other voice, but they weren't talking to me. They were having their own little conversation, and I was all, "Shut up! I'm trying to sleep@!"

Rhuwen

sorry for the lack of update.
She said she was suffering from extreme lack of sleep, and since then I don't know of any more episodes. Hopefully that's all it was, and if anything else happens, I'll be sure to post.

analog

Hallucinations are something people have when awake. She's just having very vivid dreams. Lots of people have lucid dreams, it's very common. While nothing rules out schizophrenia, not much supports it, either. If she's not seeing things while fully awake, it doesn't count. Sleep deprivation can do incredible things to people (as far as hallucinations go), including very vivid dreams when they finally do sleep. This explains either that she was asleep and awoke when Jake called to her, and she was dreaming, or perhaps the lack of sleep had taken a few liberties with her conscious mind. When asleep, people are perfectly capable of talking, screaming, throwing things that are within reach, etc. I talk in my sleep all the time, and one time I punched the wall behind me... and the only reason I know i did it (because I didn't remember it) was because in the morning, there was a mark on the wall where i scraped my knuckle, and my hand hurt like a bitch.

Lucid dreaming very often incorporates the exact room, position, etc., in which a person occupies at the time the dream starts. And if this "shack" is anything like I'm thinking it is, just a little stand-alone construction outisde someone's house, it is most likely no stranger to spiders and other little things that bite people. Even if this took place in the home, I would say soemthing bit her. Hell, being bitten may have caused the odd dream.

As far as the other dream goes where she saw spirits trying to trap her and throw her out the window... shit happens. I've had a million and nine weirder and scarier dreams than that (really- I have lucid dreams all the time, and many of them are totally horrific), but I didn't have a secondary thing like the "shack" incident to try and correlate them to, to believe there's something going on other than two unrealted things that are both odd.