I'm trying to get to sleep, but the voices keep screaming at me about going on forums and writing out how I live and reporting on what I think. So, I come here.
A negative hallucination is when you don't see something that is there in reality. I've had them. Back in 1985 when the sz was getting bad, I used to see, or hallucinate this one guy. I called him Fatso. A short, squat guy, beard, bandana, etc. Anyway, I was in my bedroom and went into the bathroom, came out and went to the mirror in my room. That guy said, or I just looked without him saying so, but there I was in front of the mirror. I couldn't see a reflection.
This is what it looks like. You see an outline of the person, in this case. You can discern the stature of the person. But where that person should be is a distorted view that your brain makes up because it tries to fill in the blank with what it almost knows should be there. And the things in the outline are shimmering, like you are seeing something through a piece of glass with a sheet of water running down it. And as the person moves, you can follow the outline as it moves in front of you. Basically, the person is cut out of your reality and filled in with a distorted, but similar, image of the general surroundings.
So, I looked in the mirror and couldn't see me. I stretched out an arm and waved it up and down. I laughed and the guy, who was behind me, but not in sight of the mirror, laughed, too. I said to the guy, "Ha.I'm a vampire. Cool trick." I was not a vampire and didn't believe it. I wasn't scared because I knew what it was right off the bat when I noticed it.
In 1985, I had already endured a lot of symptoms that I have now. I kept trying to look for some way to calm down, remember stuff, and just in general tried to stop feeling bad. The local newspaper had a story on hypnosis. I thought it was interesting and bought a book about it. A basic book, with what it is, how it's done, etc. The two things that I picked up on first was that the subconscious is literal. It takes things literally. The other thing was about post hypnotic suggestions, how long they last, etc. And self hypnosis.
So, negative hallucinations were mentioned in this little book (the basic information on hypmosis isn't much reading) didn't describe what people not-see, but it was just a mention in the context of those stage hypnotists. Stage hypnotists make people pretend to see things and react to them, and even make people temporarily forget their name. And the opposite is true, you can be made to not-see things that are there.
I see myself in the mirror now, of course, with no problem. Another event about mirrors that I should mention is in real life as a teen (8 or 9 years before the sz) I had lost about 60 pounds in a short period of time. I was at the store, turned into an aisle, and sort of jumped. There was a person in front of me, I almost ran into him. Then I looked and it took a few seconds for me to realize that I was looking at myself. I had turned into the aisle where the mirrors were and had almost walked into a full length mirror. That was the first time I had seen myself full length after losing all that weight, and yes, it could only happen to me, as the saying goes, I literally did not recognize myself. It was funny.
Another negative hallucination was about the same time in 1985. I was sitting at home on the couch. Not doing anything. There were relatives in the house--almost the last time we have all been together, really. So I'm sitting there and the vase with flowers on the stereo console on the other side of the room moved by itself from one side to the other. A relative came out of the kitchen and pointed to the stereo and said, "Did you see that? It's a spirit (or ghost)." I was totally unimpressed. I said, "No. Somebody I can't see pushed it." And I looked and found the outline of the person, a large person, and pointed it out and followed it as it walked towards the next room. Nothing scary. The relative that said it was a ghost went back to the kitchen and I heard her say, "See. I told you he wasn't going to fall for it." Or something along those lines, they (people in the kitchen) were just not too happy that I didn't fall for the spirits thingie.
A negative hallucination induced by another real live person? Absolutely yes. She pointed out the vase had moved. Evidently we both saw it, she's not sz as far as I know. It was just a head game played on me by people. When I was said it was somebody that was just a not-see (as I call them) and couldn't have cared less, nothing was said about it. That's the way it always was back then.In 1985 I had already been through about six months or so of hearing a lot of, "It's just in your head." So, by then I didn't ask for any explanations and they weren't giving me any.
I hesitated to bring up negative hallucinations because that's a very serious symptom. It is really harsh. I knew of them from reading about them, and induced twice. The vampire thing with that guy, Fatso, and the vase thing with a real participant, a relative. But, if it happens to someone who has never heard of them, then they could get frightened.
However, you have to see something first and told by someone to not see it. Your brain has to recognize the thing you're told not to see to blank it out and fill in the blank with a distorted view of the general surroundings. It is that way in my case--induced by a real person. But, if someone experienced a severe trauma, I think the brain could blank out some object as a means of self defense. It wants to spare the victim from having to deal with it. I have wondered about how the trauma induced negative hallucination could ever be solved if the trauma victim doesn't realize what it is they don't see, and even if they could notice the distorted view right in front of them.
I did do some self hypnosis and it is different from sleep or even just meditation. I've done things like just start thinking about something and let it go on its own. Like taking tour through my aunt's house, where they lived 40 years ago. I just started at the driveway and remembered the lawn, things that happened on the lawn, the driveway with the tall trees lining it, the porch and things that happened there, through each room of the house and what furniture, what pictures and on and on. I've maintained this for.. I think two hours is the longest time I can recall. It's an interesting trick.
I just let it run and it really calls up memories. Sometimes I'll want to remember more information about something and I'll start and then the part I want to know is recalled and even if that's all I wanted to know, I find that the timeline keeps running in the background for a while. I do not hear any voices as it happens, but I can recall conversations. I can distinctly tell that it is different from the voices that run 24/7. The voices I have are separated into right and left side. I've read on here that it is the same for others, too. The recall happens directly in the middle of my head. Images with my eyes closed and the sounds of the recollection comes from the center of my head.
I have the voices with constant interrogation going on, and one time I told them that we've been through this before and I'm going to put myself under and ignore you. They said that I couldn't do it, because I need them, etc. and I told them they're not doing me any good anyway, you're just setting me up is what it sounds like to me, etc. So, I just laid back and started. I thought for years about the doctors office I was in. I always remembered some guy, a pdoc that I didn't know, telling me to look to my right, look to my left, and then look straight ahead. Then some skinny woman in black walks between us saying, "He'll never figure it out."
So, I went back, told myself to start at a place five minutes before the doctor told me to look right, left, straight ahead. I wanted to see if there was anything else I could remember about that. And I did. When it came to the part that he said look to the right, I did a triple take, not just looking once as I had always remembered it, and I saw the face of a woman with garish makeup blowing me a kiss. I looked to the right, and I felt like one of my sisters. That was weird. I looked straight ahead. The woman walked by with the wallet like thing she clapped closed and said her usual line, He'll never figure it out. Then another new thing was the doctor, or whatever he was, pointed at the same time at either side of me and said, "See. It's the same thing." Don't know and don't really care what that means. The left right straight ahead thing, I used to think it meant past(left) and future(right) and straight ahead was now.
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