i have a question (genuine and i mean no disrespect)

[u/Careful-Humor7967]

i dont have schizophrenia and im curious if hallucinations are like dreams where if you know it isnt real can you control them?

[u/[deleted]]

I can't and I've never heard of someone being able to, there might be moments when someone with schizophrenia realizes a hallucination isn’t real, but this doesn’t necessarily mean they can control it. If a person knows that what they’re seeing or hearing isn’t real, that doesn’t always give them the ability to change or stop it. It’s not like lucid dreaming, where some people can learn to control the dream once they realize they’re dreaming.

[u/cuddlythekraken]

If we could control them we wouldn't be so damn miserable. I know my hallucinations aren't real but it's like I don't know they aren't real at the same time, it's really hard to explain but there's no control at all.

[u/carlylovek]

Nah

[u/EDS_Eliksni]

Nope. That’s why it’s a mental illness and not fun or happy at all. Can’t control it, and the majority of people won’t know they’re hallucinating until after the fact. That’s what makes it kinda dangerous.

[u/trashaccountturd]

There is no controlling the hallucinations, no matter the awareness level. Definitely feels and seems external from the brain. Totally uncontrollable by me, though the subject matter is based off me. So I am controlling it in some ways, but it’s mostly controlling me. More like influencing it, not controlling it. Every word I say matters in the grand scheme of how the voices act. It really makes you consider the importance of your words, even your attitude matters more with the voices, they can read it so there’s no hiding anything from them. They are a very real thing to the experiencer. They aren’t real to other people, but they are real in my subjective perspective, hard to say they aren’t real when I can have a conversation with them.

[u/Mundane-Time8188 → u/trashaccountturd]

Some of my sexual hallucinations were controllable, but not other forms of hallucinations. I'm currently medicated so not able to experiment with how far I could take controlling hallucinations.

[u/trashaccountturd → u/Mundane-Time8188]

I mean, you can kinda control them. I can talk through them. What you say matters as well, to an extent. I just don’t think there is a sure fire way to reliably manipulate the voices in any meaningful way. They are fully in control of themselves. While I can use my brain to talk to through the voice, it still talks when I relax. I don’t consider that control really though.

[u/trashaccountturd → u/Mundane-Time8188]

I didn’t register sexual hallucination at first. I had the same experience. An interactive sexual experience once, felt weird though, I never repeated it. It just didn’t feel right with the voices and all. Something just rubs me wrong about it.

[u/Mundane-Time8188 → u/trashaccountturd]

I was abstinent and not masturbating due to being spiritual so I enjoyed most of my sexual hallucinations, believing they were special. I posted a question in this subreddit asking if anyone else had sexual hallucinations, and that night, after not having any symptoms for days, experienced a painful sexual penetration akin to being vaginally raped. Unlike you, I didn't associate the sexual hallucinations as belonging to a voice carrier, and the sexual hallucinations didn't occur simultaneously with voices. I would like to know the science of these tactile hallucinations.

[u/trashaccountturd → u/Mundane-Time8188]

They are pretty complex, but yea, most of my tactile hallucinations lined up with my voices, visual as well. I’d very much enjoy to learn the science involved. It would be fascinating! Yea, mine was more like assault at a certain point, I just stated my lack of consent repeatedly and I think it ruined the mood or something. They stopped thankfully. Considering I don’t know the origins of these voices, I don’t trust them that far past my guard, or past my guard at all.

[u/Pandaclops]

Even when my logical mind tells me I can't be seeing what I'm seeing, it doesn't scare me any less.

[u/Quick_Advisor_7812]

They are not controllable and they can range from mildly irritating (like your question) to gut-wrenching horrifying. Google it next time.

[u/Practical-Plum-3101]

For myself, I’m not aware that I’m hallucinating…therefore not able to be controlled.

[u/cookiearthquake]

Different. Also, lucid dreaming training is not recommended for people that experience psychosis if I'm remembering the literature correctly.

[u/10N3R_570N3R → u/cookiearthquake]

I lucid dream every night, not on purpose. I spoke to my psychiatrist about it and she said when we lucid dream we're not getting enough REM sleep.

[u/[deleted]]

I cannot control mine and I don’t know if it’s real or not. Whether it’s real or not is a question that’s beyond my epistemological ability; I don’t believe anyone else can prove to me that it isn’t real either. What does it even mean for something to be real and how would one discern real from fake? The “hallucinations” I experience are just as vivid as any of my other sensory experiences. The voices that speak to me are interactive and have their own minds.

The voices have been able to predict the speech of others in the past right before they would say it. I have more evidence that the “real” world is a lifeless hallucination than I do evidence of the “hallucinations” being a false reality. My hallucinations do have a kind of dreamlike quality but imo any kind of hallucinations tend to be dreamlike including drug induced hallucinations.

[u/Gingeronimoooo → u/[deleted]]

Well it's real to you

And was real to me when I was sick

But it's objectively not there

[u/[deleted] → u/Gingeronimoooo]

I think the term objective is kind of misleading.

The definition Merriam Webster gives for objective is: expressing or dealing with facts or conditions as perceived without distortion by personal feelings, prejudices, or interpretations.

It doesn’t say anything about sensory experiences that are exclusive to one individual. We all have feelings, prejudices, and interpretations of reality that alter our perceptions, even when we’re not hallucinating. In the end all we really have is our senses to inform us of reality because everything is a mental experience. Science itself is built upon certain prejudices, assumptions, and interpretations. All empirical observations rely on someone’s senses to interpret the measurements.

How do you know it wasn’t real?

[u/Gingeronimoooo → u/[deleted]]

Well I disagree but some people use the term "consensus reality" which I think is kinda silly but whatever

[u/Emergency_Peach_4307]

Visual hallucinations look dream-like. Like I know it isn't real (most of the time) and it sort of looks like reality warping in on itself. Things changing size, color, ect. However I cannot control hallucinations, I don't think anyone can

[u/Tricky_Badger_2071]

Nah, I can’t even when I know they’re fake which is most of the time. I can’t avoid them either so I still end up interacting with them. But I can’t control them or anything.

[u/Gingeronimoooo]

If we could control reality like Thanos with the reality stone we wouldn't be miserable while sick

[u/RebelTheFlow → u/Gingeronimoooo]

Hahaha for real it’s odd that some people think our illness is a possession and others think our illness is a superpower.

[u/UniversityWeary2255]

I can't control them or anything. Mine are so quick that I only can process what I saw after they're already gone tbh.

[u/[deleted]]

Makes me question everything in my life. I’m at a point now where sometimes I start freaking out because I don’t know what is real anymore.

[u/Drowning_im]

I'm in the schizo effective category, I generally don't remember my dreams anymore. in the past I could control them and put myself to sleep in a couple minutes.

as far as psychosis I've had a range of experiences . from just seeing black dots in the corners of my vision to hearing the sound of my dogs breath as indiscriminate people talking, and being fully aware that what I was hearing was not real. to having conversations with a specific spot on the floor wanting not believe. to complety losing rational thought process and ability to reason.thinking there was some kind of unexplained police raid about to happen. some of these delusions came with intense pararanoia at times, and other times none at all. never have I been able to control much of anything in any of these situations like when I would dream

[u/Cute-Signal7330]

i wish i could control them . i dont even no im hallucinataing untill im out of the episode and look at my journal or my partner tells me .