Visual Hallucinations - Dementia?

[Nocturn]

From time to time i notice that when i begin staring at certain spots in my room, the room will begin to brighten in a certain way. It looks as if, with the lights off, the room is fuzzy and vibrating with a white glow. Also when this starts happening i begin to see vivid hallucinations such as spiraling circles, evil faces, and the appearance of eyes. It only happens at night and i experience no audio or visual hallucinations during the day, nor any audio hallucinations at night. It's just visual. The shadows in the room begin to change and grow. If i stare at a point long enough my vision begins to enter a "tunnel" and it is as if waves of energy are rushing across my vision (outside to inside). The colors red, purple, and black make up this tunnel. It never fully makes a tunnel it just rushes,in fades away, and rushes back. These waves are intense and make my head throb. Also the hallination begins with me seeing a red object constantly spinning in the middle of my vision. It appears to be in the shape of a squiggly, then takes the form of a circle. It seems the harder i concentrate on this thing the clearer the object gets. I am not scared of any of this because i feel like there is nothing to be afraid of. I know it is a hallucination, but i am trying to find answers to this situation. Any input on what you believe is happening to me would be great, becuase as it is when i talk to people about this they think i am crazy but i don't go thru a day without thinking about it. Thank you.

[Arnold]

It sounds like a form of migraine or epilepsy to me, or maybe something that happens when you get drowsy and going towards sleep.

It doesn't sound like a hallucination or a mental disorder to me.

We don't know what the context of your life is and you don't have to say of course.

Autonomically when the body sends messages the mind will often try to illustrate recognisable concepts like 'eyes'.

For me the tell tale clue in what you are saying is that the rest of the time you are describing abstracts not recognisable things.

I also think you should consider getting not only your eyes but your cortex checked out. It may be right for you to be 'constructively cautious'. I am no expert just a fascinated amateur.

To sum up join forums for:

- migraine
- epilepsy and its many different variants
- visual problems

because other people can share their experience of how diagnostics and remediation are organised in differnt countries or localities, so you can go fore-armed and soften the blow to your doctor when you broach it.

[Bruce G]

I have the same exact phenomena, and my shrink said it was hypnogogic, and it happens to everyone to one degree or another when falling asleep and, as I understand it, most people forget about it when they wake up until they try and fall asleep again the next night. It comes and goes and as long as you realize it's only an illusion, there's no harm.
I haven't had it for a long time until the other night; I had missed a night of sleep and when I went to bed there was all kinds of images and hallucinations, and I had to get up out of bed and put on some cd's on the stereo. I got a good night's rest afterwards, and the day has been good today; I'm convinced it is merely entering into some type of pre-sleep when it precedes dreaming. It is like pre-dreaming, if you will.

[perfect_circle]

I've have had similar expedience and they seem to getting worse in the daytime this gave way to voices. I have been cleared of any psychotic disorder, but they haven’t reached to a conclusion. If it not affects your life than don’t worry becoming consumed by it seems to make it worse. Try occupying your spare time before bed with reading and chilling out instead of watching TV, hope this helps.
I wouldn’t worry, however if other symptoms become present tell your GP.

[jeffm2009]

I get that too but to a much lesser degree. I don't think it's anything to worry about unless it's really affecting your life. But it seems like it's not really affecting you aside from your curiosity about what it really is.

[lsesh12]

I have been having really bad headaches lately, like a knife in my eye and my doctor said they were migraines. I told him that when I am trying to fall asleep at night and I look at the light from the television I see images, like people on bleachers or people moving around and I see them clear but what is weird is that I don't have my glasses on and I am nearsighted so everything should be blurry. Its making me think I am crazy. The other thing that has been happening to me is that I have dreams or I imagine that I am losing my mind, I will wake up saying my name because I am afraid that I won't remember it because my mind is gone and sometimes I have thoughts in my head that aren't mine. Its really wierd I know, has anyone else had anything like that happen to them?