Friday, May 9, 2008

More News From Nowhere

The good Dr. Doug Shevlin suggested that I relate a story I told to him this morning which has a neuropsychiatric theme. The other night, I was in bed holding my 11-month-old son when I asked my wife to hold the baby. She replied that I must be joking. I answered that I needed her to hold the baby. She replied: "Ah, you're holding my leg." At that point, I awakened to find that I wasn't holding my little boy at all. He was asleep in his crib in the next room. It seems that I had experienced a hypnopompic hallucination, which, according to medicinenet.com is a vivid dreamlike hallucination that occurs as one is waking up. Usually these are auditory and visual in nature, but mine actually had a tactile component to it. In the opposite situation, if one hallucinates as one is falling asleep, it is referred to as a hypnogogic hallucination. Very strange. Dr. Shevlin's blog post today (see Music is My Savior link below) is titled 'More News From Nowhere', which is certainly where I was reporting from during my recent hallucinogenic state!

2 comments:

Niel said...

Only one hallucination and your son is 11months old! Wow, how'd you do that? He must be a really good kid at nights. My first only allowed me around 5 hours of interrupted sleep a night for his first 6 weeks. It didn't take me too long to begin having hallucinations and other cognitive deficits/malfunctions.

Adam King said...

This is a great story to relate the differences between hallucinations.

Neuropathology Blog is Signing Off

Neuropathology Blog has run its course. It's been a fantastic experience authoring this blog over many years. The blog has been a source...