I know that having hypnagogic hallucinations is not a mental illness in itself but I've heard that they do tend to happen more frequently during times of distress. Mental illness can cause distress.
I read something that I didn't really believe but I wanted to know what other people thought. I thought I had multiple sources but it turns out that the same source was quoted in different places so there is really only one source but you can find the text on different websites.
It's still only one source so I only put a single link into this post. Any other website quoting the same thing would be redundant.
Here's the article:
http://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=h ... 3238,d.b2I
These are quoted passages from the article I'm linking to:
Quote:
Epidemiology
•Hypnagogic hallucinations can occur without narcolepsy. People may be reluctant to admit to them for fear of being thought mentally ill.
•Sex ratio is equal.
•A telephone interview of nearly 5,000 people aged 15 to 100 in the UK[2] showed that 37% of the sample reported experiencing hypnagogic hallucinations and 12.5% reported hypnopompic hallucinations. Both types of hallucinations were significantly more common among subjects with symptoms of insomnia, excessive daytime sleepiness or mental disorders. Hypnagogic and hypnopompic hallucinations were much more common than expected, with a prevalence that far exceeds that which can be explained by the association with narcolepsy. Hypnopompic hallucinations may be a better indicator of narcolepsy than hypnagogic hallucinations in subjects reporting excessive daytime sleepiness.
Both types of hallucinations are more common among subjects with mental disorders. Do you believe this? If you click the link to the source at the bottom of the page you can only see a brief abstract of the telephone survey.
The only numbers it gives you are the 37% of the sample that experiencs hypnagogic hallucinations and the 12.5% with hypnopompic hallucinations. It doesn't tell you what the percentage is among those with mental disorders, insomnia, or excessive daytime sleepiness on their own.
The source is shaky. I don't take it very seriously but it is consistent with my personal experience at the very least. For the past 2-3 years I've been getting hypnopompic and hypnagogic hallucinations on and off and they tend to come more frequently when I'm in the greatest amount of distress and my depression is at its worst.
Quote:
Differential diagnosis
•It is important to decide if this is narcolepsy as it is a treatable condition.
•Schizophrenia can cause hallucinations including derogatory auditory remarks. In people who experience hypnogogic or hypnopompic images but do not have narcolepsy, the tendency towards psychosis is greater than in others.[3]
•Musical release hallucinations are complex auditory phenomena, affecting mostly the deaf elderly population, in which individuals hear vocal or instrumental music. Progressive hearing loss from otosclerosis disrupts the usual external sensory stimuli necessary to inhibit the emergence of memory traces within the brain, thereby "releasing" previously recorded perceptions.
•There may be drug abuse.
•Sleep terrors in children.
•Partial seizures.
•Absence seizures.
Again, the link to the study provided in the further reading/references section leads to a brief abstract. You can't see any numbers.
I want to believe that people who experience hypnagogic or hypnopompic hallucinations without narcolepsy have a greater risk of developing psychosis but unfortunately there isn't much support for it that I've found besides a single study cited in this article.
Even if the risk is doubled that's not very significant anyway. Doubling an extremely small number is still a very small number even after being multiplied by 2. 0.5% doubled is still only 1%.
What do you think? Do you think that there is any relationship between hypnagogic hallucinations and mental illnesses of any kind? Do you think there is a specific relationship to psychosis? Are mood disorders related to hypnagogic hallucinations?
16 Feb 2013, 3:09 pm
