A Recurring Hallucination

[whitehole]

First off, this isn't my hallucination but my bf's. I am posting for him and with his permission.

Before i get down to what he tells me he sees, let me give you some background. He says he has been seeing these same things ever since he was a child. When he was smaller he would end up screaming like mad. I have seen him have it once or twice and it is heartwrenching to watch him be so scared and not be able to help him. As far as he can tell, it is brought out by stress and/or lack of sleep.

With his eyes open, he says he sees the world but the scale is wrong. He can't judge distances between things. He sees everything as too small. He can hold somthing in his hand and see it properly but the feel or sound of it will make it seem to be half or quarter size. He is tall in real life (at just over 6'6") but this is something else. Scale and proportion is off for him during this time. He says it is disturbing and somewhat nausiating (he gets bad vertigo to begin with without any of this).

When he closes his eyes, his vision flips rapidly between two images. Both are washed out and he cannot tell the colours. The first is an old woman/had braiding together a thin silver gossamer thread. The second is a large muscular man picking up bales of this thread that is now suddenly very thick rope and putting them down elsewhere where they disappear. What he says frightens him most is not the strange images but instead the contrast between the thin thread and the huge bales of rope.

When this happens to him, it will go on for more than an hour. These things have always been what he sees. I am not sure where to begin. Myself, I am CR and I am pretty sure this is a bit out of my territory. It strikes me of Germanic, Norse, or Greek. He is open to such things but wary.

Any help would be very much appreciated.

~whitehole

[Raihn]

Oh, I wish the best for him and I will keep him in my thoughts. But I do have an idea to pose to you.

Only as a suggestion, I do believe your boyfriend may wish to seek psychiatric advice. Now, hear me out, I'm not calling him crazy, but something like this can be solved through speaking with a psychologist. He would not be forced to take any drugs of any kind that he did not want to...but he could speak with someone about this problem.

Now...this is somewhat difficult to express...but...from what you have said, and by my own personal experience, his symptoms sound very much like a slight bi-polar outburst. Now, bi-polar is a condition that is very misunderstood, and low accounts of it can create visions just like the ones you describe. It does not sound like this occasional happening is entirely crippling to him, but gone untreated, bi-polar can become drastically worse with time.

If you feel that this may, even in the slightest, be a concern, the bi-polar section of WebMD is a wonderful source of starting information. I wish you both the best. :hugz:

Here is the link: http://my.webmd.com/content/article/60/67149

[Rainbow Chaser]

Well with the sizing differentialities, I can relate a bit. I can get into a state (usually before falling asleep) where size seems to vary wildly. I can feel myself as 20 feet high and wide and shrinking back to one inch and that varying within a minute. Objects are not the same size anymore either. It does not upset me though even though it can be hard to yank myself out of it.
I don't encounter any entities either, not on that occassion at least.

I myself don't see any relation to being bi-polar (my mother is bi-polar so I know about this) but it is somehow related to having been pulled in two as a kid. Like a split off personality. That sounds drastic too but for me it's like I either have to be very very small, totally unnoticeable. Or I have to be big and bold, a rock of trust.
This probably results from having a bipolar mother.
As for the entities, these could be "helpers" that your boyfriend drew upon as a small child (following my own experience here) if his experience stems from the same background as mine. But it is typical that again there is a thin thread and a big bold thread, that may be again representing the weird pull-push between big & small. This is just a guess of course.

Anyway, these are my ramblings, hope it may give some insight.

[whitehole]

Raihn:

Thank you so much for your concern but I think that (thankfully) it is unfounded. I don't think he is bipolar, although I am myself and know much of the disorder. He does already have a psych who couldn't figure out much and chalked it up to stress (He has dyslexia and ADD) and is well cared for, so no worries. I am pretty sure this isn't PTSD or anything like that and I am quite sure he isn't MPD. I am merely looking for your interpretation. He was wondering if the images corresponded to anything that you guys might know of. He isn't on any hallucinogenic medicine and dislikes caffeine, carbonation and sweets.

So with that ruled out, any ideas? We aren't looking to stop these things (we already know how-- just relax more) but rather why these particular images appear and if there is any meaning to them (although sometimes there isn't) so we are appeaking to you kindly MW folks. Thanks.

~whitehole