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[Out_Of_The_Darkness]

PLEASE tell me if ANYONE out there is having hallucinations or have heard of others having them with Rapid Cycling Bipolar? I would love to get some input on this...Is this "normal" for bipolar or should I be seeing yet ANOTHER psychiatrist?????

[Trace]

Hi Out of the Darkness

There are many others that have had hallucinations and psychotic symptoms with bipolar. I have posted some topics that may help. If you are starting to get hallucinations, you do need to go back to a pdoc though.

http://www.depressio...ons#entry859933

http://www.depressio...ons#entry831132

There are a few more if you a do a search in this room.

Trace

[Out_Of_The_Darkness]

NOT STARTING to get them....CONTINUE to get them. I have been hearing and seeing things since 1984, whispers, shadows, bugs, things crawling on me causing lots of picking...so many things, been diagnosed with bipolar since 1982. Just feel like there may be more going on and not sure what to do because I have changed doctors numerous times and the diagnosis is always the same...just needed to hear a little more info from people who may have had similar problems. Thanks for the topics I appreciate you taking the time to send them to me, I am anxious to read them. Have a good day, and thank you again for your time.

[SmilingElephant]

I actually had a real visual hallucination today...mine are usually audible or the ones where i can feel a presence in the room when there's no one there. But today i swear i saw someone following me down the street...like...RUNNING after me...and then they jumped behind/disappeared behind a tree...when i looked to see what the guy looked like...there was no one there!! No where! And it was real enough where i was startled.

I don't know if i'm a rapid cycler though but i do feel as tho i am going through an episode of mania or something.

[WorkingTowardsaBetterLife]

Yes when I am very manic I hear angry music playing in my head spontaneously. So yes I have auditory hallucinations when in acute mania. I just integrated into my life now when I am tired driving to work I just listen to the angry energetic music so my auditory hallucinations have gone for now.

[SomewherElse]

I have/had severe auditory hallucinations, lots of people talking, but I can't understand what they say. The voices get so loud that everything else gets drowned out. Sometimes it's just a strange repetitive noise and I'm running around trying to figure out where it is. During very bad manic episodes I had a few visual hallucinations and occasionally just get the 'glimpses of something that disappears'. I was told by several counselors/doctors that while not ultra-common, isn't rare to have that and be bipolar.

[Insidious]

I am Bi-polar I but have only had hallucinations a couple of times. Once was when I had dental work done as a teenager. At the dentist's office I was given the standard IV drip and nitrous oxide gas to render me unconscious. After I left, they gave me pain meds. When I got home I went and laid down, but after a few minutes I began hearing a stream of random voices all talking to each other. It was very loud and drowned out everything else in the background. The voices began talking faster and faster to the point where I couldn't understand them. The room began spinning like as if I were in a vortex, and the faster the room spun, the faster the voices began talking. It lasted maybe 30 minutes and was pretty terrifying.

I have asked many people I know who have had dental (or other types) of surgery if they have ever experienced this and not one of them has. This was before I was diagnosed with Bi-polar so I am wondering if maybe us bi-polar people are more "sensitive" to nitrous oxide gas and narcotic prescription drugs than the general population? I mean I realize that these pain meds make everyone feel "drunk" or tired or groggy, but I have never met anyone who hallucinated from them.

Another time I had psychotic symptoms was about 5 years ago. I began having severe panic attacks. And when I say severe, I think they were probably a 10 on a scale of 10. Not only would my heart race out of my chest, but I had the feelings of unreality and depersonalization (i.e. it was like I was floating above my body watching myself). I was sure I had only a few minutes to live. When I looked at anything, it was like I was looking through clouds -- everything was blurry and wavy and had sort of a white glow -- it was sort of like looking through a funhouse mirror. These attacks didn't just last a couple of minutes, but would sometimes last 30 to an hour. I also became extremely paranoid about everything. I began worrying my roof was going to collapse, so I would run outside in a panic. I would see an airplane in the sky and run inside, fearful it was going to crash into me. I would turn the lights out, fearful they were going to start a fire. It was pure madness -- I knew it logically, but I couldn't control the feelings. So I didn't actually hallucinate per se, but I did have other symptoms of psychosis for sure.

I know we aren't supposed to mention drug use here, but the above panic attacks happened after I had partaken in inhaling a popular plant (starts with an M). But it didn't happen the same day. This "inhalation incident" sparked a MONTHS long episode of psychosis and panic. My pdoc thinks the "cigarrette" could have been laced with some other hallucinogenic drug, but even he said if that were the case, the effects shouldn't last more than a day or two. This lasted for months. Some days I would wake up and feel as if I had just inhaled the plant again -- that is, I would have a complete "relapse" just as if I had smoked while asleep. It took me a full *year* to have the symptoms go away completely.

This is why I am now completely anti-drug. I have not and will not ever use any illicit substance ever again. If you are bi-polar, I highly recommend *never* self-medicating. You never know what you will "bring out" in yourself. I know lots of people who like to smoke that particular plant for "relaxation." It has *never* relaxed me! I always go off the deep end into some sort of psychotic state (especially paranoia). My brain chemistry is simply more sensitive than the average person's, and I suspect (though I have no scientific proof) that my bi-polar is to blame.

[anger danger]

Yes when I am very manic I hear angry music playing in my head spontaneously. So yes I have auditory hallucinations when in acute mania. I just integrated into my life now when I am tired driving to work I just listen to the angry energetic music so my auditory hallucinations have gone for now.

Is hearing music in your head really considered an audible hallucination? My head is like it's own radio station, I almost always have some song repeating over and over.

[anger danger]

Ok this really intriqued me so I've been reading about this all morning... aint got much done at work. Like said above, I hear music in my head everyday, almost all day long. It's like a radio station and i can just change the channel to a different song. I've just always thought this was normal. As I read more I saw something about hearing a voice narating your actions. I hear this too, often.

Then I kept reading on here about what others have expeirenced. Which helped me put two and two together about two very specific visual events, both from when i was a kid. One I saw a creature I know didn't exist come out of a doorway in a small concrete wall. I still remember this very vividly, reason tells me it was made up but it seemed so real and I remember it now as if it were real. The other is probably much harder to explain but basically it was a feeling like my body was swelling up and I couldn't move. This particular event took place in my home, I remember screaming out about it to my parents. But of course they didn't see what I was feeling and I was *fine*. This feeling still happens to me on very rare occasions. Guess I have some more things to discuss with my Pdoc next visit.

Edited by anger danger, 18 June 2012 - 04:32 PM.

[SmilingElephant]

Yep...i get music too and sometimes its so loud i'm oblivious to the rest of the world. Sometimes i'll dance to it too lol

[lovelyowl]

Yes when I am very manic I hear angry music playing in my head spontaneously. So yes I have auditory hallucinations when in acute mania. I just integrated into my life now when I am tired driving to work I just listen to the angry energetic music so my auditory hallucinations have gone for now.

Is hearing music in your head really considered an audible hallucination? My head is like it's own radio station, I almost always have some song repeating over and over.

I have songs playing in my head all the time. When hypomanic it can become more driving, persistent, and disconcerting. Or, instead of one song, there are two or three playing at the same time in horrific discord. In my case, I think of it as being more of a racing thoughts thing.

[meistersinger]

I'm a musician. I'm supposed to hear music internally. The best musicians are always able to internalize.how they hear and want to play. It only becomes a problem when you start hearing voices telling you to **** yourself.

[Le Renard]

Hello,

Here are a few lines I have written in another thread called "Tell your psychotic symptoms". I have a bipolar disorder which type is undetermined but could be "schizo-affective" (it is only a supposition which needs more time to be assessed). Concerning what Out_Of_The_Darkess said I don't have a rapid cycling bipolar disorder but I don't think it changes anything in the appearance (or not) of the hallucinations. Here is what I wrote.

My psychotic symptoms often consist in paranoia and false beliefs (giving false intentions to people or to objects for instance) when I am in a depressive episod. The fits never occur during manic episods.

I can also have visual hallucinations. There is usually a gradation in the way they occur.

First they usually appear in the form of flies or undetermined flying things quickly passing in front of my eyes. Then I progressively manage to see what kind of things they are: flying insects, birds or other things I can't name because I could not say what they are. A few hours or days later they are no longer insects or birds, they become bigger and more and more difficult to identify. All these "things" become worrying: either they are getting deformed as I watch them or they look threatening. I very often "see" crawling and swarming things: worms, insects. They also become bigger and bigger as days pass. Eventually what looked like "animals" becomes monsters. The monsters are generally clung on the top of the wall, under the ceiling. They look threatening. They usually have a black and many-sided shape and red eyes. They never keep their eyes out of me. It happened that I had the impression that one of them was clung in my back.

All the stages of this gradation co-exist: the appearance of the second one does not eliminate the first one, etc.

At this stage I usually feel terrified all the day and my terror wears me out. And the more I feel exhausted, the least I feel prepared to face the "visions". The process is continually self-feeding.

The last stage is the appearance of human beings. They are first shadows only but rapidly get a very credible shape. I can describe them: the colour of their skin, of their clothes, their height, their facial expressions... They usually don't do anything, they are just standing still or leaning over something. They very often look at me. They are not threatening except the fact that they are not supposed to be with me at home or at work or at the university.

That's all.

At the moment I see worms and things swarming everywhere. I see people. I know that they are not real because they are not supposed to be here and because they have something "unormal": they suddenly disappear or grow or become deformed. Or more simply because they could not exist the way they are in the real world.

Moreover I am sometimes unable to "feel myself" or to feel that what surrounds me is real. I know that I am real, that normal people are real, that the world is real. I have this information in my brain. But it is only an information: I don't really "feel" it.

I am not angry, I don't think that I am dangerous to anyone. I am neither depressed nor manic: my mood stabilizers work very well.

I have talked about this problem with my p-doc.

This is my current experience. I can tell you that I don't like it at all.

I haven't been on the forum for several months. I hope you all are OK.

[BrendaARMUA]

Hi Out of the Darkness.
I don't know much about rapid cycling but I can tell you that I have been diagnosed BP2 and have and have been having auditory hallucinations, they mostly sound like chatter or like the tv is on in a distant room but it can be scary.

Hang in and talk to your pdoc. That's the best advice I can give but I can tell you that it happens.

[sjane23]

im bipolar and have always had psychotic symptoms with it. some meds have eased it a bit but not completely.

[Gangling]

There is two types...technically three... that I have experienced. Wether they are associated with my BP is debateable...

1. Palinopsia: Apparently a "hybrid" between migraine's and seizures. When a normal person looks at an object for a long period of time and then looks away, they will often see a "shadowy" after image of the object projected over their field of vision. With palinopsia, these after shadows can appear after mere seconds. On bad days, it can cloud your entire vision as the after shadows multiply as you look around.

2. "Voices": I wouldn't describe these as the psychotic type... It is more like my brain is busy "emptying the recycle bin". I hear a cachofany of people's voices just saying arbitrary words...

3. Semi- I can hear songs clearly in my head and this has actually enhanced an inate ability of mine to be able to know instinctively which notes to press on a piano. I do a lot of playing by ear. For the life of me, and I have tried, I cannot play music and read sheet music at the same time...nor can I comprehend sheet music fast enough. I can enterpret it with a bit of effort but not to the extent that a musician needs to.

It does seem to me, more and more, that conditions such as Bipolar has a lot more involvement with a persons brain function than just mere chemical inbalances... In my experience, a lot of people who suffers from Bipolar has some sort of "unique" talent...almost like the kind you find in kids with ... can't recall the word... But theyre brain compensates for a disability by being very strong in another area.

[Adipose]

When I was a kid and into my twenties I used to have a lot of experieneces but I always put it down to ESP ... reading this maybe it wasn't after all. I'd see people, be able to describe them, talk to them through my head, thinking they were going to take me into their spirit realm because I could communicate with them. One in particular would come to me every day for a few weeks, but talking to him gave me some comfort during a particularly rough time.

The last week when I've been withdrawing from meds I've deifinitely had hallucinations and paranoia. Seeing a lot of things from the corner of my eyes, blurry things or objects running past me and also smoke coming from the heater that wasn't even turned on. It is freaky cause how are you supposed to know what is real anymore?