I Used To Hear Voices But I Wasn’t Hallucinating
Not in the traditional sense, anyway; there is a different kind of hallucination that is talked about far less often
During my eight-year stay at Mental Illness University, I majored in clinical depression, generalized anxiety disorder, and panic disorder. But I also took forays into other specializations from time to time. One such (mis)adventure was psychosis.
Author Markus MacGill, who served on the editorial team at Medical News Today and has worked with clients such as the World Health Organization, defines psychosis as follows:
Psychosis involves a loss of contact with reality and can feature hallucinations and delusions. It is a symptom of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, but there are many other causes.
While I did experience some pretty heavy delusions, I want to focus today on hallucinations. To make sure I had my facts straight for my fourth novel, I was researching on schizophrenia. Namely its chief symptoms. And I couldn’t help but notice one significant absentee.
Pseudohallucinations
To be fair, nobody seems to agree on what pseudohallucinations actually are. A National Library of Medicine research paper puts it best:
