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What's The Difference Between a Vision and a Hallucination?
- Thread starter Rival
- Start date
As far as I know, audio/visual hallucinations involves the actual senses being tricked by the brain into thinking it sees/hears things in the physical world that aren't actually there.
Visions in a religious/spiritual context, the way I've experienced them, are sort of like waking "dreams"; there's no perception of what's being "seen" as having immediate physical manifestation, but they're not controllable to the same degree that daydreams are, and yet one is not asleep when they happen. In terms of ones I've had, they're also typically triggered by something, such as a book I'm reading or a game I'm playing.
I've had my share of visions, but to my memory, I've never had an audio/visual hallucination.
Visions in a religious/spiritual context, the way I've experienced them, are sort of like waking "dreams"; there's no perception of what's being "seen" as having immediate physical manifestation, but they're not controllable to the same degree that daydreams are, and yet one is not asleep when they happen. In terms of ones I've had, they're also typically triggered by something, such as a book I'm reading or a game I'm playing.
I've had my share of visions, but to my memory, I've never had an audio/visual hallucination.
If YOU experience, it's a vision; if someone else experiences it, it's a hallucination.
Visions involve seeing things that have a basis in reality outside of the mind. A hallucination is a creation within ones own mind.
I believe both things exist and it is hard sometimes for us to tell the difference.
BSM1
What? Me worry?
A vision is someone you cannot keep your eyes off of in broad daylight. A hallucination is someone you thought turned into a vision after six beers and three shots. The next day a vision is still a vision, whereas the hallucination reverts back to itself when the sun comes up.
It depends what time period your are talking about and also where the person lives. A vision is independent of what the seer wants or knows or believes. It is about how things should be. A hallucination is something you want to see so badly that you see it, however a vision can sometimes overlap with that. Example: If you have a vision of freedom, then the two may overlap. What matters are the visions that are recorded, the visions that people feel have been about something, the visions that have moved us closer to each other.
I've never had a hallucination, at least that I know of. But, I've heard many stories about people having hallucinations, and no, people often do not want the hallucinations they experience, the things they see are NOT something they want to see so badly that they see it. As I recall, there a number of psychological conditions that can cause hallucinations and visions, as well as drugs, alcohol, exhaustion...I'm not sure what the technical distinction in psychology is, or if there is one. But hallucinations are not just people seeing what they want to see.
For one thing, hallucinations don't persist. Most people who have had them typically realize they were hallucinating within minutes or hours of their hallucination coming to an end. Visions are different. A person might remember a vision for years or decades and not think of it as false or as an hallucination. Put differently, an hallucination is obviously false, a vision is not.
There seem to be several other differences too: That's just one of the more interesting (to me).
Sapiens
Polymathematician
That's a hallucination.
hallucination: an experience involving the apparent perception of something not present.
vision: an experience of seeing someone or something in a dream or trance, or as a supernatural apparition.
Appears to be synonymous, (actually are in fact synonymous according to dictionary.com)
Papoon
Active Member
I once had an experience which doesn't seem to fit any of the categories, and still seems to be, in some inexplicable way, happening.
It was an experience during an LSD experience about 20 years ago. And unlike any of the other hundreds of trips I experienced.
I was alone at the beach in a national park. It was a very stressy trip, because I was in a major life crisis at the time. Emotional agony, despite the glory of the flowers, waves and clouds.
I was sitting on a rock in the intertidal zone, with my feet resting on a much larger rock. I was in a very realistic, grounded state, despite the Penguin blotter, which was Amsterdam's best...
Transubstantiation is the only word which comes to mind. I closed my eyes and was immediately within the larger rock, which was a space beyond my verbal capacity to describe. But I'll try...
Have you ever seen a writhing mass of insects or grubs ? All packed together in motion ? OK. Starting with that idea...it was a writhing mass of entities, unlike any kind of entities I have ever seen before or since. Myriads of varieties of entities flowing in and out of and through one another, jewel like, liquid, like molten glass in extraordinary colors. And a powerful sense of silent telepathic communion which peaked as one indivisible consciousness, intensely familiar as it was strange.
Fine you say. An acid vision. But here's the thing...
Upon opening my eyes, an entirely undistorted normal experience of sitting on the rock on a beautiful sunny day...
And then...I closed my eyes again. Instant transubstantiation into the same 'zone'. In every respect.
This happened repeatedly, I can't remember how many times, but ONLY when sitting in precisely that place.
Even today I can sense and feel, almost see, that solid space of jewel-like micro entities. And even today, I feel in touch with the life (lives) which clearly seemed to be the actual structure of the rock.
I mention this because I have experienced both hallucinations (very rare) and visions (mostly of the exogenous super-hormone type), and this experience was (is) entirely unlike either.
That is still what I was saying. The definition of 'vision' allows for the experience of 'real' phenomena.
apparition: a ghost or spirit of a dead person
McBell
Unbound
As best I can tell it depends entirely upon whom you ask.
I personally do not know that there is any significant different, though most people seem to find hallucination offensive and vision divine.
Thank you for sharing that story. I have experienced something similar, although it was with eyes open, and the entire landscape in my field of view, the building behind me, etc. I would describe them as glowing fibers. Sense of oneness, united-ness, with everything around me, down into the earth and up into the sky and all around me.
I used to hallucinate caused by High fevers. In a hallucination things happen for no reason there is no relationships and you are an observer. I also had visions. In the visions I would see myself in the actions and the actions flowed consistently and the vision would occur in reality at a later time or date.
And there are quite a number of cultures in which people have visions without taking hallucinogens at all...
McBell
Unbound
at least not in a specific vision inducing ritual....And there are quite a number of cultures in which people have visions without taking hallucinogens at all...
A vision takes over your imagination. A hallucination takes over your reality.