My son is seeing things! Please HELP!

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Some things I was afraid of when I was little included once having to call my mum to pick me up from a sleepover in the middle of the night because the way the light reflected off a string of cards looked like a ghost snake (and I have never been afraid of real snakes) and thinking my dressing gown hanging on my bedroom door was a hooded monk. My daughter used to be afraid that the baby monitor would eat her fingers while she slept if it was not turned to face the wall. We both grew out of these types of fears. I agree with the previous posters who have said he may not be hallucinating but rather be frightened of something real that may seem innocuous to you.

I have also had episodes of sleep paralysis at various times in my life. This can occur as you fall asleep or as you wake up (I have experienced both) and the chemicals in your body that paralyse you during sleep to prevent sleepwalking are in your system but you are conscious. It is usually associated with feelings of extreme fear and/or "sensing a presence" either in the room or physically opressing you. It's caused by your sleep cycles not working as they should and is a purely physical thing and totally harmless (although it can sometimes be associated with narcolepsy) but if he had experienced something like that I can imagine it would terrify him.

Some type of sleep disorder like night terrors (as a previous poster mentioned) or sleep paralysis could cause him a lot of distress but be essentially harmless.

It is always the right thing to seek medical advice if you are concerned about your child, but try not to worry too much if you can

Allow me to cut in. My judgment says that your son experiencing something called "hypnagogic hallucinations" (hallucinations you get while transitioning from waking to sleep or vice versa). In that state, it's normal to see regular items in the room as morphed or disfigured, to see things that are not there, and to hear sounds. I used to experience those all the time. For example, upon waking up or falling asleep, I'd hallucinate that there sharp hooks protruding out of the bedroom door, spinning madly. Or I'd hallucinate that a metal pipe was sticking out of ceiling right above my head (I turned on the TV in panic while typing this, lol). Or for something less frightening, that the bedroom door turned white (it was normally brown). Or that the my shoes are shuffling about.

They couldn't just be garden-variety nightmares, because the room looked very real and fully normal, except for the strange objects, and could feel myself lying in my own bed. When I got older, my parents also told me that I used to utter strange phrases, like "the brown door broke" or "the shoes are stepping". Sadly, back then, I couldn't communicate that they referred to the hallucinations I having, because when I was a child, my AS made it virtually impossible for me to describe something in a way that an adult could understand.

Let's consider your son's case. Perhaps he hallucinated about something frightening in the corner of the room, and it looked very real. The fear carried over into his waking life or his nightmares, so no wonder he became afraid of going upstairs. I'm wondering at this point what exactly he saw there. Was it a stereotypical NT childhood fear, like a monster, or something seemingly innocuous, like a metal pipe? Would he be willing to draw or write out what scared him, if he's unable to verbalize it?

I read somewhere that kids tend to become afraid of objects that obscure things: wardrobe cabinets, closets, shadowy alcoves, small windows, unusual doors (like access doors to the crawlspace or the attic), abstract paintings, and portraits. After all, fear of these things is based on the fear of the unknown. Is any of these objects located in your son's room? How about upstairs in general? While some of them are impossible to get rid of, perhaps they can be covered up or disguised, to prevent them from being too noticeable to your son.

While I'm secular, perhaps your son will benefit from a religious leader visiting your house to say a blessing or putting up a religious symbol in his room. (The prerequisite is that your son has to understand the concept behind your family's religion.) Or just saw the legs off his bed, to eliminate that insidious "under the bed" space.

Hi

My daughter is going through a very similar experience. But, she's 6yrs and probably more able to explain it than your 2yr old. She has not been sleeping well for about a year and has recently started to speak about her fears. She's terrified of the mirror at night (as was I as a child), so we've put up a curtain. She had a sleepover at my parents' house and told me about an alien ship being under Granny and Papa's bed and little hands coming up. She knows it's her imagination and she's speaking about how she wants a new brain. We had a discussion about his last night (after 10pm, when she should have been asleep). She does have an amazing imagination, which has benefited her, but it's also having this impact. I'm at a bit of a loss about this. She has a meditation CD, which should take her mind somewhere else, but its magic appears to have stopped working.

Also, with little children, it's also quite common for hallucinations to occur, especially if they have a fever. I still remember this happening to me. And there are also night terrors, which might be playing a part. This is not the same as a nightmare, which is a bad dream, then you wake up. With a night terror, the child appears awake, but is really in a dream state. My daughter has had a few and appeared to be pointing and screaming at things which weren't there. The first time it happened, it took us about 10mins to realise that she wasn't even awake.

I hope you find an answer soon.

my daughter had the same issue just a few months ago, she refused to enter certain rooms in our house as the corner air vents would totally upset her. It seemed like she was almost starring at something and would slowly back away or just run out as fast as she could. covering the vents did not solve the problem as she would still look in the corner and freak out. she was 3 at the time, because she has no speech we did not know what she was seeing or what exactly was scaring her. This would also happen when we visited friends place or the grandparents, her first gaze would be in the corners of the room. When we took her to the pediatrician, he could not explain why she was doing this. We dont really know if this problem has resolved as we have since moved overseas and she no longer shows any signs of fear but saying that...there are no air vents in the corner of the rooms here.

does your son do this only at your place? get him away from the house for a few days and see if he is reacting the same outside as well.

What you just said goes with the theory I read about earlier. Those vents cover up or obscure the ducts behind it, and your daughter somehow knows it. So the vents are scaring her. Try crawling on your hands and knees (or maybe elbows and knees) to see how the room looks like from your daughter's point of view, with many things towering over her, and imagine the following. In corners of the room, instead of two walls and floor just meeting together, there's a strange metal grate that's "not supposed to be there". I don't blame your daughter being scared; it's the inconsistency between how she "knows" the world to be, and what she's seeing, and, it makes her wonder what could be behind the vents, thus causing the fear.

On a more prosaic note, it could easily be the shape of the vents that scares your daughter. When I read your post, the visual I got wasn't much different from the scary furnace in Home Alone. Heck, that thing scared Kevin just as much, if not more, and he was 8. Also, your daughter will start talking sooner or later, and she'll be able to tell you all about the vents. Aspies remember their childhood fears very well, due to good long-term memory. I know I still remember mine, and I'm 28. (It was chandeliers; some scared me, others didn't, and it was almost arbitrary.)

My seven-year-old with classic autism has always been afraid of the dark. For years, he slept with the overhead light on--strange, but I don't think that it harmed him. He has just started using a night light and still won't sleep in complete darkness.

Come to think of it, I'm a little scared of the dark myself and always use a white noise device, such as a noisy electric fan or electric ionizer, and keep on the bathroom light unless my husband is with me.

We used to use a metal fan with my older son, also, so that he wouldn't hear someone getting up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom and imagine that it was a monster or something.

I also do not allow my son to watch violent video games or movies featuring monsters. My husband must do these without my son's presence. These images give my son nightmares.

Schizophrenia in someone as young as two isn't unheard of but is very very rare.

There are many other things that could cause hallucinations. I would take him to see a pediatric neurologist.

This is very good advice. There could be something neurological rather than psychiatric going on.

It's definitely a ghost and or spirit. I saw 3 of them in my life time. Have you tried purifying the area? Just burning a bit of the usual stuff should do the trick.

Schizophrenic hallucinations don't occur consistently in the same spot.

It's definitely a spirit.

They could, but they don't have to for the child to continue to be afraid of the area. The child could have also seen something very real in the area, like a spider.

Hey, weren't there a lot more posts on here? Where did my post go?

I don't know about Schizophrenia but I do know that they are diagnosing Bipolar disorder at younger ages now and when in a manic stage, hallucinations can occur. My son had similar experiences when he was around three years old - he kept thinking that shadows were climbing in through his window. This was nearly 20 years ago but since there was a history of Bipolar in our family, we took him to a pediatric psychiatrist who was progressive enough to consider the possibility. If memory serves me correctly, he was put on a tiny dose of an anti-anxiety med and the hallucinations stopped. He is now in his mid 20's and is medication free (going on meds doesn't mean it will always be that way for life). Although he still has bouts of depression and mania, he manages without meds (his choice) and suffers no hallucinations.

It is terrible to see our small ones living with such fear and I hope you find an answer quickly.

I havent updated the thread in awhile been very busy with the little one. He is getting an EEG next week to make sure seizures aren't happening.

I am reading a book called The Autism Prophecies by William Stillman. He talks about kids with autism and how they commonly have supernatural experiences. I think you should find it.

I had nightmares and was terrified of everything as a kid. I was afraid of windows at night. I had vivid nightmares that was actually terrifying and not just kind of cute as some peoples nightmares are. They involved people I knew acting alien. As if they had been replaced by a malicious stranger. Being stuck in mazes with things in them. False awakenings. People warping into monsters.Faces in walls. After some time I was only dreaming lucid dreams and once every week I awoke by actually prying open my eyes. It never happened when I slept next to my parents.