"Seeing" things NOT Schizophrenia?

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Can a person "see" things out of stress and NOT a psychological disorder like schizophrenia?
[and by "things" I mean things that do not exist such as people, objects etc. (hallucinations)]

Is it possible? I'm asking for a counselling project at college and Google search has failed me!

after my grandma died, i'd imagine i saw her. such sightings are not uncommon. my neighbor used to see his wife sitting in their living room after she passed.

But it this what your describing more closely referred to as seeing a spirit or having a spiritual moment, less like a stressful person just seeking something that is not there?

I'm trying to be scientific, but yet still not offend your beliefs...

I often see my cat in its usual places when it is not there. Especially when it dispersals somewhere and I worry where it is. It was especially true when my previous cat got kidnapped or went too far away and never returned home.

When I was sleep deprived (sleeping 3h/night for a few days in row) I entered my bathroom and seen it all covered with blood. I blinked my eyes and the blood was gone. I figured out I must have been deceived by a red towel on floor.

I seen the Hitler's face on my room curtains once after waking up. That was weird. But I blinked and it was gone.

I heard my mom calling me. I came and I realized I am home alone. Mom returned home from work a few hours later.

As a teenager I used to have imaginary friend. I couldn't see her but I could feel her presence and talk to her in my mind.

As a child I used to have a problem with hypnagogics. I was seeking skeleton faces all around me everytime I closed my eyes to fall asleep. They were gone as soon as I opened my eyes so I knew they are not real but I still didn't want to see them. They were ugly.

I'm not schizophrenic as far I know.

There has been research done into the effects of severe sleep deprivation, which revealed that even completely healthy people with verifiably no schizophrenia can or may experience hallucinations while severely sleep-deprived. Serious and chronic lack of sleep can actually produce many serious side effects that in effect are a lot like mental illness, including psychosis. There's a lot about this online and it's very interesting. So yeah, sleep deprivation can cause things to happen mentally in an otherwise verified mentally healthy person.

I see mental disorders as being unable to distinguish between reality and fantasy/dreams. So, seeing something you imagine to be there is a big issue.

However, a sane person could have various reasons for seeing something that's not there. It could be neurological (how the brain processes input....registering non-visual information as visual information) or it could be the product of a passing issue (stress, illness, fever, etc.).

And, as far as we know, it may be possible for one person to see something that others can not see.

I know I get this and that a few others I've spoken to do, too. I suppose my two black cats' default states are curled up in a cosy ball, which looks like a bag, a discarded black shirt, a pile of dark books... It tends to be out of my peripheries.

Perhaps sometimes, often in the countryside, I'll see a figure in the distance. After double-checking the figure will seem uncannily still before I get closer and eventually work out it's a post or something stupid like that. I once misinterpreted a chimney on a roof as someone stood on the edge of said roof with his arms folded, and only after passing it a second time did I realise it was a chimney. That sort of thing neglects all sense.

From the sounds of it you're fine.

Hallucinations are not always signs of mental illness, or any illness for that matter. It depends on how negatively it affects your life and your reality-testing. If it is having a negative effect or you do not see the hallucinations for what they are, as perceptions of things not actually present, then it can be considered to be due to an illness.

But, let's say, you're mourning, and you occasionally see hallucinations of the deceased important person, it helps you get through your mourning, and you know that your grandmother is not actually present despite seeing her (or you have a religious belief shared by your culture that she is real), then I would say that is part of normal bereavement and not any sort of illness.

In some cultures, seeing hallucinations of loved ones who have passed is quite common, if I remember my reading correctly.

Plus, visual hallucinations are rather uncommon in schizophrenia and are typically brief if they do occur. Most common in schizophrenia are hearing multiple voices that speak to each other about you in 3rd person, usually in a disparaging way; hearing a voice or voices that give a running commentary on your thoughts and actions; and hearing a voice or voices that give commands.

Lack of sleep can cause hallucinations easily. I've seen shadow people after being awake for a couple of days and not even taking anything or having too much caffeine.

As for seeing dead people, that could actually be the dead person trying to communicate with you. I'd suggest asking them what they want and see if they answer. (Yes, I believe very much in ghosts and spirits and no I'm not crazy because of it)

Really?

I have a voice commenting what I am doing and giving orders/advice, especially when I am stressed. But I never though of it as something unusual or unwanted. It actually helps me focus and calm down. And I control what the voice says and even make it shut up. Me and the 2nd me are both myselves, just 2 parts of my personality. One is my logical thinking part of mind, other is the emotional me. Anxious "me" thinks: "I can't do it, it is too hard!" and logical "me" answers: "Its not hard at all, you are overreacting. Just do your thing. You will do fine. You have done it in the past so you will do it again.".
Its just easier to convince myself logically by using a dialoque than try to work on emotion itself because I have problem identifying and controlling emotions. The logical part never says anything I don't want to hear. It says what I need to hear atm to deal with my emotion or focus on something (I work better when I have only one think to do at a time so it divides the complex orders I get from real people to simple steps and tells me them one by one. It constantly comments: "Done with this one? Good, now next step. Do <this> now."). It really helps.

Is it the voice you are talking about?

BirdInFlight really helped with the below post;

There has been research done into the effects of severe sleep deprivation, which revealed that even completely healthy people with verifiably no schizophrenia can or may experience hallucinations while severely sleep-deprived. Serious and chronic lack of sleep can actually produce many serious side effects that in effect are a lot like mental illness, including psychosis. There's a lot about this online and it's very interesting. So yeah, sleep deprivation can cause things to happen mentally in an otherwise verified mentally healthy person.

I'm going to do my assignment on sleep deprivation which is leading to the person "seeing" things.

Thanks!

Oh and that one comment about a running commentary on your life like a narrator reminds me of STRANGER THAN FICTION. I like that movie.

Of course, I can't diagnose you or anything, but I am curious: Does the voice or voices seem localized to the head or do they actually seem to enter your ears from a certain direction outside?

Head. They are my thoughts. They got the same voice as the one I hear when I read without reading out loud. It got nothing to do with ears. It's just imagination, visualization(fonetization? xD).

BTW. I did some research and it turns out the inner voice is actually a common thing but most people got it in a form of inner critic http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inner_critic . It is possible to transform one into an helping ally though. And I apparently managed to do so.

Yeah. That sounds normal.

What I think happens in schizophrenia is that a person becomes so dissociated from their inner thoughts, their consciousness so divided against itself, so intensely and abnormally aware of itself as consciousness in the act of being conscious, that they externalize their inner critic, making it seem either like other people are talking about them or are inserting critical thoughts into their head.

Japanese psychopathologists call this division, this abnormal hyper-awareness of consciousness of itself in the very act of being conscious, simultaneous reflection, which is considered unique to the schizophrenia spectrum and a cause of auditory hallucinations in schizophrenia. Auditory hallucinations outside the spectrum, as in bipolar mania, are thought by some to have different causes.

When I miss a couple of nights sleep in a row, then at night when I try to sleep, I will hallucinate about demonic creatures and it is quite terrifying. I can cope fairly well if I stay awake all night and focus on something else like a video on my laptop screen, but then that equals at least 3 days with no sleep and the cycle continues and is very hard to break. A good friend of mine also suffers from the exact same thing, and once saw a massive green demonic wolf like creature in his hallway that ran at him then disappeared. He nearly s**t himself. So there is a bit of first hand experience for your college project.