Hallucinations that are not about your trauma

[siniang]

So, I keep having those hallucinations of spiders (or similar, sometimes only the net) dangling right above my head. I would already be asleep, but somehow wake up and "see" those things next to or above me. I don't have Arachnophobia, but I don't particularly like them, either, and can't stand spiders in my immediate proximity. So I would jerk up/away, fumble to get my phone (flashlight) or otherwise turn on the light on the night stand, to convince myself that there is nothing there.

I obviously have no trauma involving spiders. Those aren't flashbacks. Also no dreams involved.

Since I'm asleep, hard to deploy any grounding mechanisms and I essentially wake up in "flight mode" right away.

Does anyone experience something similar? Doesn't have to be spiders or even visual hallucinations - just hallucinations in general that intrude into your sleep and wake you up.

When I talked with T about it she says it's explainable that those hallucinations manifest in spiders since spiders (like snakes) are an evolutionarily hardwired fear for (most) humans. But dang, it's becoming annoying, if not exhausting.

 

[grit]

If trauma hallucinations were so direct and only showed the trauma related memories, our therapy experiences would have been so straight forward.

The brain is funny organ.

Whatever that is keeping you up at night can be many things from real brain injury to manifested subconscious materials you may not be ready to tackle, environmental issues in your present life (job, relationship etc) or to your childhood traumas...limitless really.
If I was in your shoes, which I am not, it may help you to listen and allow influence from your therapist and see where that flexibility may take you rather than shutting it down that this is not part of your trauma - you may not know how your brain or anyone's brain really manifest memories that are not pleasant or we acquired prior to language.

I don't have Arachnophobia, but I don't particularly like them, either, and can't stand spiders in my immediate proximity.

see this quote is already contradictory...that is how amazing our brains are. Why spiders? maybe at minimum, you would recall them and right away associate with negative feelings...that is a good start.


The body, IMHO, is always smarter than the brain.

 

[siniang]

allow influence from your therapist and see where that flexibility may take you rather than shutting it down that this is not part of your trauma

T tried EMDR with me, but it did nothing. Not quite sure what other ways there are to tackle this subconscious level.

It's certainly disrupting my already disrupted sleep, further.

Oh, and I'm very sure this is connected to my trauma :) Just the hallucination itself isn't. And I'm just really lost at what to do about it. When talking with T about it a couple sessions ago, she said the usual approach for something like this is EMDR....which didn't work.

 

[grit]

That is frustrating. I am sorry you tried EMDR and it did not work for you. I have not tried it. In my understanding EMDR is not as good for very early childhood traumas but is really good for adult level traumatic incidents (like for Vets).

I do not know if you journal, but you could write out your thoughts and see the associations that come out and try to see patterns.
hallucination itself is nothing more than having a pain of broken leg. hallucinations is your brain trying to show you that it is hurting but not maybe not physical but more psychological sense. Even if the associations do not make sense, you can start to see what is hidden. You have to become your own investigators which is what therapists are doing anyways.
I find also, writing with the non-dominant hand takes you faster to your subconsciousness.

Another thing that works for me and not sure will for you or others is welcome the hallucinations and before you go to bed, think about them and see what message they want you to find and whatever feeling you get is most likely. Let us say (going out into wild ideas) you softly ask I want to know what the spiders are telling me and I am ready to see the dream or the hallucination so I can understand this time. Then right before you fell sleep you think of your job or your friend or someone and you are like hmm that person really pissed me off....now the connection is there...this is extremely simplified form of dissecting this but hope you get the gist. You have to acquire investigation mind. spider what comes next and next and next and you will see a pattern and then you can use your left brain to make sense of it.

like I said, I do it this way but I have been doing it so long that I do it automatic and listen to my body so it works for me. What you have to become aware of is resistance like no, cannot, etc words....those are just keeping you in the loop. your brain protecting you from knowing cause it is too unpleasant. For me what I said it is not, is most likely is...until proven unequivocally and that needs time not impulsive no.

 

[siniang]

I don't have early childhood trauma :) I'm also fully aware of my trauma, so there's nothing my brain is trying to tell me by hinting at with those hallucinations that I'm suppressing.

I don't like spiders near me when I'm awake. I tend to get startled even then if they just pop up. But I'm in control enough to not completely freak out. To analyze the situation and ground and get "over" it. At night...it's sheer flight mode like a switch turned. So not sure if thinking about it and welcoming the hallucinations before going to sleep will make a difference. I can tell myself a thousand times that even a spider in my face? Not gonna harm me (as I'm not living in an area with venomous ones). Once my autonomous nervous system kicks in, this becomes mute. (I don't usually think about job or friends or other upsetting things before falling asleep - we usually listen to audio books :) and no, no connection found there, yet)

Journalling when those hallucinations (and on related notes, night terrors) occur, is probably a good idea! See if there are any patterns or I can identify any triggers.

Night-time stuff? Yucky....so little control over anything. :wtf:

I mean, I do think I know why it's happening and why it manifests in spiders. What I don't know is how to control it/get rid of it.

ETA: I think it's a why of my brain telling me it doesn't feel safe -> Flight mode. Not sure what to do about that. I mean, it's the entire PTSD "I'm in danger" thing. But yeah, zero control over that when asleep. Not sure how to make my environment safer as, objectively, it's not even unsafe to begin with.

 

[grit]

If all your environment and your past are safe, then you have to expand why? You have to adopt a critical mind and really challenge yourself even if that seems like too obvious.
healthy adults do not go this fearful about a dream of spiders and even if they did, it is just spiders and that is it. But your attention to detail and your avoidance almost phobia like about you have no childhood trauma seems or appears you have either severe dissociation that you are not aware of or you have a successful phobia of knowing. I mean it has been proven over and over that having ptsd is most likely one had one prior at early age. you can google the researches done about that.

with that being said, honestly if this is just a bad night full of spiders, it will go just as it came so there is nothing to do. in recovery, it is really important to keep and open mind of not knowing and try to learn. at the end, in traumas, you do not know what you do not know. Do you how many people go to therapy about other people and find out they have trauma that is creating their environment?

 

[siniang]

@grit I genuinely value and appreciate your input, but I do think you're projecting here :)

Also, as I mentioned, no dreams involved. Actual hallucinations that kick off flight response. It's a proximity thing.

 

[Deanna]

ETA: I think it's a why of my brain telling me it doesn't feel safe -> Flight mode. Not sure what to do about that. I mean, it's the entire PTSD "I'm in danger" thing. But yeah, zero control over that when asleep. Not sure how to make my environment safer as, objectively, it's not even unsafe to begin with.

I thought that too. It's almost as if your brain is not trusting itself. An example would be, if you had more trauma than you really did and you don't know it. Or if the trauma is in a secret part of your brain that is not exposed . ( that kind of thing) Spiders are just a representation.

 

[Gs172003]

Link Removed

It probably has something to do with this

 

[siniang]

Link Removed

It probably has something to do with this

Thank you! I probably also should have mentioned that absolutely no sleep paralysis (and no scary monsters) and they exclusively occur very close to falling asleep time in the early part of the night. So definitely while/during/around falling asleep.

Fragmented sleep and daytime sleepiness. Well...jackpot. But yeah, I mean, still pretty PTSD-related for me.

It did only start in the last couple of years or so.

I thought that too. It's almost as if your brain is not trusting itself. An example would be, if you had more trauma than you really did and you don't know it. Or if the trauma is in a secret part of your brain that is not exposed . ( that kind of thing) Spiders are just a representation.

Thank you. Thoughts really appreciated. I still don't think there is any unaware trauma or trauma in secret part of my brain :) It's easily explainable by my trauma as is and as you said, the spiders are just a representation (evolutionarily wired fear + personal dislike).

I was just wondering if anything else can relate - and has found ways to tackle it.

(My T kinda lumps it all together. Nightmares. Night terror. Hallucinations. ... I kinda disagree, those hallucinations are not dreams and I never even once had dreams about spiders. But she says everything related with any of that? Guesswork at best, we don't really reeeaaaaally know what's going on with all that parasomnia stuff)

 

[barefoot]

I have a couple of non-REM parasomnias - night terrors and hallucinations.

Hallucinations involving insects, animals and people are very common in those who experience night time hallucinations. And it’s not just people with PTSD/trauma backgrounds who experience these sorts of parasomnias.

My therapist thinks my night time activity is some kind of response/expression of trauma-related anxiety.

The sleep dr - a neurologist - doesn’t go for a psychological/trauma/repressed emotion explanation at all. Explanation at the sleep clinic is around the brain not cleanly transitioning through different sleep stages - there’s research to suggest a mismatch of some parts of the brain waking up and not others, so non-REM parasomnias such as ‘seeing things’ as we hallucinate, or sleep walking or eating while asleep happen when our brains are in an in-between, limbo state - neither fully aroused/conscious or fully asleep.

I’m fine with the fact that they both come at it from a different angle. I quite like diving in to sleep stuff with my T (either about this stuff or dreams/nightmares) because it usually takes us somewhere interesting and, in the case of bad dreams, it can offer an easier in for me to bring up and talk about some difficult stuff.

But since the sleep dr is a sleep specialist who knows what there is to know about the brain and sleep (still an area with so many unknowns) and my therapist isn’t specialist, I feel more inclined to go with his research and see this as something happening in my brain but not a psychological thing connected to past experiences. It has been a bit freeing to accept that it’s not something I have to make sense of in terms of trying to join dots and connect them to my experiences/feelings in order to resolve the problem.

However, it is thought that sleep deprivation and stress are potential triggers for those who have non-REM parasomnias. So, if you’re not sleeping well (which could be a catch 22 because you’re having hallucinations!) or if you’re stressed (eg processing a lot of trauma, holding on to lots of emotions, having tough therapy sessions etc) that may exacerbate/increase the occurrences.

Non-REM parasomnias tend to happen in the early part of the night. Mine are often within an hour of falling asleep.

Non-REM parasomnias can (but don’t have to) run in families, though the symptoms can be different. Eg your parent may sleep walk, you may hallucinate.

One other thing to mention - when I did my overnight sleep study at the sleep disorder clinic, I didn’t hallucinate or have a night terror but it did show that I have sleep apnoea. So they started by trying to treat that as that can cause non-REM parasomnias - the apnoea (the time you’re not breathing) can stir you out of sleep as you then start breathing again but, again, it can leave you in a weird in-between state, which is ripe for things like hallucinations and night terrors to happen.

My apnoea wasn’t bad, it was only just in the bracket of what they would treat. I couldn’t get on with the CPAP machine and I did still have some hallucinations/night terrors while using it and having a mask on and forceful air whooshing into my mouth made my panic worse, so we agreed that I should discontinue use.

Since January this year I have been taking melatonin and it has settled my hallucinations/night terrors down. I still have them but only very occasionally. They are definitely less frequent now. It’s supposed to work by consolidating the time I spend in the different sleep stages. I certainly think it has worked and helped me.

For me with where I’m at now with mine, I’d say perhaps don’t worry too much about trying to work out what the hallucinations mean psychologically. Perhaps do a bit of research into non-REM parasomnias and maybe even see if you can make it to a sleep disorders clinic. And you might want to try melatonin. Here in the UK it’s only available on prescription but in some countries I know you can easily buy it in a store. It could be worth a try? But just as a warning - it gave me crazy intense dreams for about three weeks when I first started taking it but that did then settle right down.

Sorry for long post but so much of your post resonated with me so I wanted to share what I’d learned/tried in case any of it is helpful to you.

Im actually seeing a psychologist at the sleep clinic today so will post here again if I learn anything else that could be of use/interest.

 

[Gs172003]

Thank you! I probably also should have mentioned that absolutely no sleep paralysis (and no scary monsters) and they exclusively occur very close to falling asleep time in the early part of the night. So definitely while/during/around falling asleep.

Fragmented sleep and daytime sleepiness. Well...jackpot. But yeah, I mean, still pretty PTSD-related for me.

It did only start in the last couple of years or so.



Thank you. Thoughts really appreciated. I still don't think there is any unaware trauma or trauma in secret part of my brain :) It's easily explainable by my trauma as is and as you said, the spiders are just a representation (evolutionarily wired fear + personal dislike).

I was just wondering if anything else can relate - and has found ways to tackle it.

(My T kinda lumps it all together. Nightmares. Night terror. Hallucinations. ... I kinda disagree, those hallucinations are not dreams and I never even once had dreams about spiders. But she says everything related with any of that? Guesswork at best, we don't really reeeaaaaally know what's going on with all that parasomnia stuff)

One of the links on another site say that It's also linked to narcolepsy.
How Common is Narcolepsy? | National Sleep Foundation