Visual Hallucinations Are a Normal Grief Reaction

Hugh Pickens writes "Vaughn Bell has written an interesting essay at Scientific American about grief hallucinations. This phenomenon is a normal reaction to bereavement that is rarely discussed, although researchers now know that hallucinations are more likely during times of stress. Mourning seems to be a time when hallucinations are particularly common, to the point where feeling the presence of the deceased is the norm rather than the exception. A study by Agneta Grimby at the University of Goteborg found that over 80 percent of elderly people experience hallucinations associated with their dead partner one month after bereavement, as if their perception had yet to catch up with the knowledge of their beloved's passing. It's not unusual for people who have lost a partner to clearly see or hear the person about the house, and sometimes even converse with them at length. 'Despite the fact that hallucinations are one of the most common reactions to loss, they have barely been investigated and we know little more about them. Like sorrow itself, we seem a little uncomfortable with it, unwilling to broach the subject,' writes Bell. 'We often fall back on the cultural catch all of the "ghost" while the reality is, in many ways, more profound.' "

Comments

And yet....

[Anonymous Coward]

Yet, there are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy...

Re:And yet....

[Paranatural]

Like sorrow itself, we seem a little uncomfortable with it, unwilling to broach the subject,' writes Bell. 'We often fall back on the cultural catch all of the "ghost" while the reality is, in many ways, more profound.' "

I think you may be inadvertently particlaly correct. I believe there are both more and less things here on Earth than we think. Less ghosts and spirits, more real things like elbowed squid and shrimp that breathe methane and live in 500 C thermal vents.

Truthfully though, I think the reason people are uncomfortable to research it is who wants to tell the 70 year old woman that the conversation she had last night with her dead husband that has now brought her some peace was a hallucination/dream?

Besides, the researchers may well find themselves on the other end of that hallucination.

Re:And yet....

[brkello]

And I had a dream last night that there was a loud speaker in my house that said one of my co-workers had died and I needed to come in to work. Here I am at work and no one has died. Not really interesting since nothing happened...but if it did, then I would have the same sort of story you did.

We dream all kinds of crazy things. Just because every now and then a coincidence happens doesn't really mean anything. It isn't science because it isn't repeatable. Now if every night your dreams could predict something real, then you might have something. Right now you just have a +5 interesting story.

Ghosts

[tehcyder]

One thing that the death of someone I loved has proved to me is that there are no ghosts, and certainly no afterlife.

The dead only live on in people's memories.

Re:Ghosts

[Anonymous Coward]

One thing that the death of someone I loved has proved to me is that there are no ghosts, and certainly no afterlife.

How exactly did someone's death prove there is no afterlife? I can understand not believing in an afterlife, but how did someone you love's dying prove it?

Seems like a very subjective opinion, and no "proof" as such.

I can only assume he was referring to the fact that his grief caused him to feel that the person was still there (i.e. hallucinating), and this experience was resembling the "ghost" phenomenon to such an extent that he can see why people would think there are ghosts.

Re:Ghosts

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

Because belief in an afterlife didn't make him feel any better. Since that was in fact its major selling point, as an all purpose disaster recovery solution, he wisely decided not to renew the license after the incident.

People really need to understand that while religious solution providers have great marketing departments, by objective measures their systems leave a lot to be desired and often don't justify the TCO, or the inevitable lock in to the providers total solution suite.

Re:Ghosts

[joss]

Insightful, my ass. Points 2&3 are the same for a start.

> 2) There're are no fact that could lead us to think after-life exists (from a scientifical point of view)

Er, no. This whole topic is exactly that. The fact that vast numbers of people think they are feeling/seeing/conversing with their loved ones after their death certainly could lead one to think that there *might* be an after-life. Frankly any other position is unscientific. If one is just going to assume that all these people *have* to be hallucinating, because the only alternative you can think of leads one to an "unscientific" possibility, you're not being more scientific - you just have blind faith in what you think of as "science".

A scientific approach is to question the theory, make predictions and test them. For instance, if the theory is that people's grief is leading them to hallucinate, then the more upset people are, the more likely they would be to hallucinate, this could be measured and tested, a strong correlation between level of grief and likeliness of hallucination would strengthen the theory, etc.

Disclaimer: I don't believe in life after death, but this argument stinks of smugness.

Eh

[Futile Rhetoric]

Yes, misfiring braincells are way more profound than the possibility of a life after death and all that it entails.

Re:Eh

[DriedClexler]

Yes, plus, your perceptions are also highly influence by your expectations, both conscious and unconscious. I think that applies here too: if you've come to expect someone being around, your brain will "fill in the missing gaps" (similar in concept to a running-average algorithm).

In another context, that's why you can't tickle yourself: because your brain "expects" the feeling of your fingers, since you're also the one generating that touch. In order to successfully tickle yourself, you have to introduce a time lag: set up some device such that when you operate it, a few seconds later it your motions get transformed into a tickling motion against your skin.

This makes sense to me

[seanellis]

You've been living with someone for years, you develop a model of their behavior in your brain. With them there, this helps to predict where they are likely to be, what they said in that indistinct murmur from the other room, how they are likely to react when you say that you're late for the third time this week.

So this model is going to be still running even after they have gone. You "know" that your spouse will be in the living room watching "Strictly Come Dancing" because it's 7pm. So your mental model will fill them in, and as you walk into the room it will take a little time for the model to adjust. Is this the "corner of the eye" effect at work?

OK, so I'm not a clinical psychologist, not even close. But it seems a very plausible model to me.

Re:What if..

[Bandman]

Of course it's happening in your head, but why on earth should that mean it's not real?

Phantom Limb Pain, Sensory Deprivation

[handy_vandal]

Sounds to me like the social equivalent of phantom limb pain: "My other half is gone, but I still feel his/her presence."

I'm also reminded of sensory deprivation -- when deprived of normal sensory input, the mind generates hallucinatory sensations.

Re:Couldn't this also mean

[Andr T.]

Of course it could. But (and now I'm restricted to the realm of science) if you want to claim something is supernatural, you'll have to have good evidence to prove it.

You can believe anything you want (and anyone will have a hard time proving you're wrong, even if you really are). It's just a matter of choice. But if you want your claims to be heard (by me at least, a very skeptic person) you have to follow some more criteria. But that's just me.

Imagine that

[Anonymous Coward]

On the human brain: Large enough to support a vast, fertile imagination, yet still too small to often recognize imagination for what it is.

Ghosts

[Doc Ruby]

Or, they're ghosts.

Re:Morning

[yakmans_dad]

I suffer from bad insomnia which I had thought was even worse until my wife proved to me that a lot of my sleeplessness was caused by my habit of dreaming that I was awake. I'd be lying in bed fretful because I couldn't sleep while my wife was trying to rouse me because I was snoring so loud.

The illusion of being awake was so strong -- the cliche that we can tell the difference between reality and dreams is a crock -- that I refused to believe her until I had to rouse her for doing the same thing.

Re:Love?

[Lurker2288]

To be honest, this just sounds like a 'no true Scotsman' argument. 'Love' is defined as only those parts of love which are positive, uplifting, and nuturative, and the potentially nasty baggage (possessiveness, obsession, etc) are wtritten off as something separate.

Nor would I necessarily agree that love is the basis of all human society. I live in a big city where there are fairly consistent patterns of behavior which you'd consider polite and civil (folks hold doors for each other, say excuse me when they bump into someone, offer subway seats to the elderly or infirm, etc). I don't think this is due so much to some hidden wellspring of love for our common man as much as a desire to keep things running smoothly--I treat you with a certain amount of respect and politeness, and you do likewise. For all I care you might be thinking about how nice it would be to strangle me, but as long as you keep your behavior civil we can get along. It's more 'social contract' than 'love'.

Re:Ghost stories

[Koiu Lpoi]

same hallucination at the same time.

I am reminded of cases where people's story for court testimony can be changed by reinforcement of those around them.

Either that or an Arwen-Liv-Tyler-Ninja really did walk past your room.

I doubt it's imagination, just misinterpretation.

[MickLinux]

The human brain seems to be very good at making shortcuts to speed up processing.

So when I'm around my wife, my human brain assumes that the person I see is my wife (shoot, it even assumes the warmth next to me in bed is my wife, and that the person I'm talking to is my wife), and interprets it that way for me.

So in bereavement, suddenly you're deprived of the actual stimulus. But that doesn't mean that the brain is going to let those circuits sit idle. No... the moment any unknown stimulus comes in, it's going to try to match it to the "wife" circuit. And if the "wife" circuit triggers better than anything else, then that's what I'm going to see.

In other words, we don't see things as they are; we see them as we interpret them.

So I suspect that this is just a case of the bereaved person mistaking a cat streaking around the house for their spouse. Or a bird in the air, etc.

Which doesn't mean that I don't believe in the human soul, and heaven and hell. But I don't think this is it. There's a better, simpler explaination at hand, and one that matches my occasional experience even nowadays, when I'm not bereaved.

"Laura, is that you out there?" ... oh no, sorry. It's just my son's friend.