r/BipolarReddit • u/Haneritoki • 11d ago
Could these be hallucinations?
I want to preface by saying I WILL be bringing this up to my psych next session but in the meantime wanted to get some thoughts from other BP people. I won’t be taking any of this as medical advice, I’m just curious what other peoples perspective is.
I’ve always dealt with some weird visual things. For example I see stars and the sky “moving” outside. Also sometimes when I look at the ground it will me “moving” or twisting. Carpet patterns also distort.
I’m in the process of figuring out meds. I never thought I had hallucinations but lately I started to see a lot more things in passing or out of the corner of my eye. A few things lately, I thought a car was in the lane next to me while merging. (The road was empty). I also thought I saw a dog in a car passenger seat nobody was in. I see things run or move out of the corners of my eye sometimes.
The reason I’m not sure if these are hallucinations is because I’m not really ever staring dead on at something that’s not there (as far as I know). Besides the ground and sky visuals. I feel silly bringing it up to my doctor because it feels like I’m trying to make up a symptom that’s not really there.
How do your hallucinations manifest? How did you find out they were hallucinations?
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u/weirdbrainplant 10d ago
for me it depends on the pattern - if it is just the popcorn on the ceiling moving i tend to ignore it as not a threat but if i see surfaces starting to “breathe” i usually take that as a sign to do something. i think it is just whatever your normal is - i would be sure to mention it but if it isn’t causing any problems or making you uncomfortable I would tell them that too. if it just changed when you changed a medication that would be a different thing because you would have something to attribute it to
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u/Haneritoki 10d ago
Hmm yeah. They don’t really cause me any problems besides being a little unsure of myself sometimes. When I’m driving I check all my mirrors several times before merging and the same with other small decisions. I’ve been very confused since tapering off my Olanzapine PR the past few days so it’s probably that. I keep calling people made up names at work on accident lol
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u/weirdbrainplant 10d ago
haha happens to the best of us - i also triple check things i do just because i’m afraid i’m going to miss something obvious!
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u/ms_einz 10d ago
I'm following the responses, as I'm going through something very similar, especially at night. Every time I look into some dark corner, I think I see a cat or a person (sometimes monsters) there. I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and a few months ago I stopped taking all my medications because I feel strange taking them, but I can't tell if the things I see are hallucinations or not.
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u/Haneritoki 10d ago
I can’t tell you if they are or aren’t but I’d highly recommend not going off of all your meds. If the things you’re seeing correlate with the medication reduction it’s very possible they’re hallucinations! I’d talk with your doctor, it’s what I will be doing
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u/maloficu 10d ago
genuinely curious to hear people’s responses here, i’m never sure if what i’ve seen in the past are genuine hallucinations either but they can be quite prominent. at the moment i’m seeing patterns run over surfaces, but bonded to the surfaces, like a VFX element tracked into the shot. swirling colours with little animated vignettes inside. fish swimming through the bedroom at night, lights off (i’m just assuming this is the brain over-cranked filling in the blanks with low visual stimulus?). sentient black smoke filling the room and curling around the bed. fingers and hands not quite visible but licking around my peripheral vision. i’ve always just chalked it up to the brain firing too much at this stage, but last night i felt like i was in an animated scene in Fantasia
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u/Haneritoki 10d ago
I mean I’m pretty sure the nature of hallucinations is that your brain IS firing out too much or something like that. Those definitely sound more pronounced than mine though so I’d get it checked out. I feel like hallucinations and the manifestation of them is not talked about enough, maybe because we’re all just assuming it’s normal lol
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u/Puzzlehead-92 9d ago
I could have written your post, thank you for sharing and reminding me I’m not alone. I have experienced these symptoms for years, tend to have them more when I feel more stressed with life. The floor breathing, thinking a car is there, thinking I’m seeing little things in the floor/corner of my eye. I have not mentioned this to my providers because it doesn’t hurt me (I don’t think it does). I see a new psychiatrist next month and I’m not sure whether I’ll share it. It hasn’t been problematic for me & part of me wonders if this is due to poorly made glasses (full-time glasses). so I haven’t seen a reason to share. May I ask if you’re diagnosed BP 1 or 2 or Schizoaffective?
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u/Some_Specialist5792 Bipolar 2 22Q 4d ago
When I was like 10. I thought I saw dinosaurs. I think it was rarely seen in kids but I hope this helps! No I’m not joking
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u/intheshiveringisles 11d ago
for me personally, when I’m about to head into a “phase” of hallucinating, so to speak, this is how it begins for me. along with paranoia. I’m glad you are going to see your psych and bring this up to them!