Treatment for macular degeneration, glaucoma, and cataracts.Medication for schizophrenia or dementias like Alzheimer's disease.Your doctor will treat the condition that's causing the hallucinations. It can find out if a brain tumor or something else, like an area that's had a small stroke, could be to blame. You might get an MRI, or magnetic resonance imaging, which uses powerful magnets and radio waves to make pictures of the inside of your body. It could show if your hallucinations are due to seizures. For instance, an EEG, or electroencephalogram, checks for unusual patterns of electrical activity in your brain. They may need to do tests to help figure out the problem. They'll ask about your medical history and do a physical exam. Causes include:ĭiagnosis and Treatment of Hallucinationsįirst, your doctor needs to find out what's causing your hallucinations. You could feel a blast of hot air on your face that isn't real. You might think you're being tickled even when no one else is around, or you may feel like insects are crawling on or under your skin. Causes can include:įeeling Things (Tactile or Somatic Hallucinations) You may feel that something you eat or drink has an odd taste. Tasting Things (Gustatory Hallucinations) You may think the odor is coming from something around you, or that it's coming from your own body. Smelling Things (Olfactory Hallucinations) Delirium (from infections, drug use and withdrawal, or body and brain problems).Damage to brain tissue (the doctor will call this lesions).Irritation in the visual cortex, the part of your brain that helps you see.A rare type of seizure called 'occipital' may cause you to see brightly colored spots or shapes.

Sometimes they look like flashes of light.

See objects with the wrong shape or see things moving in ways they usually don’t.

See things others don’t, like insects crawling on your hand or on the face of someone you know.

You might hear the voices talking to each other or feel like they're telling you to do something. You may sense that the sounds are coming from inside or outside your mind. The type you get depends on which part of your brain the seizure affects. The seizures that go along with this disorder can make you more likely to have hallucinations. At first, you may not realize it's a hallucination, but eventually, you figure out that what you're seeing isn't real. This condition causes people with vision problems like macular degeneration, glaucoma, or cataracts to see things. Tumors in some parts of the brain can cause hallucinations of smell and taste. You might also see spots or shapes of light. If it's in an area that has to do with vision, you may see things that aren't real. Depending on where it is, it can cause different types of hallucinations. It can look like a multicolored crescent of light. About a third of people with this kind of headache also have an 'aura,' a type of visual hallucination. It may be more likely to happen when your disease is advanced. They cause changes in the brain that can bring on hallucinations. and other forms of dementia, especially Lewy body dementia. Up to half of people who have this condition sometimes see things that aren't there. But some may also smell and taste things that aren't there. More than 70% of people with this illness get visual hallucinations, and 60%-90% hear voices.

You can get treatments that help control them, but a lot depends on what's behind the trouble. If you or a loved one has hallucinations, go see a doctor. It could be a mental illness called schizophrenia, a nervous system problem like Parkinson's disease, epilepsy, or of a number of other things. It could mean you touch or even smell something that doesn't exist. If you're like most folks, you probably think hallucinations have to do with seeing things that aren't really there.

Visual hallucination