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

Eh

[Futile Rhetoric]

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

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.

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.