Hypnagogic hallucinations (Exploding head syndrome)

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I know that if you have been disgnosed with Aspergers syndrome Schizophrenia is on the other end of the "disorders spectrum"(?)
In other words, with Aspergers you cannot have schizophrenia and with schizophrenia you cannot have aspergers. I know many people have both and I doubt that what they say on that you cannot have both is wrong but that's what I have learned and therefore I just have that starting point.

Can people with aspergers experience Hypnagogic hallucinations without it having anything to do with Schizophrenia?
Have you ever experienced this?

Yes, but it was a side effect of Zithromax Z-Pak (Azithromycin). I experience hypnagogic hallucinations for the first several nights of a single-dose 21-day course.

I don't know about its relationship to Schizophrenia, though. Sorry.

i was misdiagnosed in 1992 with schizophrenia. at the time i was in my teens. it was utter nonsense.

i knew it was rubbish, but the adults, and folks with 'authority' and the keys said otherwise.

good lord... being a teenager and labeled with shchizophrenia and consuming a host of useless pills?!?!?!

anyhow, as recent as March of 2010 i have had hypnagogic dreams. but it hasn't been for about 4 years now. at the time, when these dream states occurred, I was actively enriching my spiritual life, and truthfully going over my life with a fine tooth comb so to speak.

I spoke about these dreams with a licensed therapist who suggested the possibility of the dreamstates could be attributed to finally learning about myself from the inside out. incidentally, this therapist never made mention of AS.

so the short answer is yes, I have had dream states like this. I attempted to paint them.

In late 2003 I started to see illuminated geometrical shapes, sometimes flashing, as I was drifting off into sleep.

This was often preceded by a sensation of falling into a pit or vortex.

During the same period, I often saw momentary images, often bizarre faces, when in a half-asleep state in the morning.

I found these phenomena pretty disturbing, and worried about the possibility of a brain tumour or similar.

Several months later I researched the matter, and found the former to be "hypnagogic hallucinations" and the latter "hypnopompic hallucinations".

From what I recall, these were said to be surprisingly common, and not indicative of any brain malfunction or abnormality.

I had these experiences for a period of about two months, and have not been troubled by them since.

last year I worked on an experimental short about sleep paralysis, which explains the current science of these kinds of experiences.
you can watch it here:
devil in the room

even though your personal experience might differ, halluciantions when you going into or coming out of a sleep state are not directly linked to schiphrenia. NTs have them, and Aspies as well.

When I was around 13 I was diagnosed with schizophrenia form disorder , but I think my constant intrusive, obsessive thoughts were more like OCD than anything else. People with OCD usually know they shouldn't be thinking so irrationally about such things but they can't help it. It got less severe as I got older and when I was put in a group home where most of the residents had schizophrenia the staff didn't believe I really had it and neither did I, but that didn't stop the shrinks from putting me on all kinds of horrible drugs that gave me side effects where I could barely function at all and was a million times worse than my "symptoms", and the staff believed my "outbursts" which became a lot more frequent and severe as time passed were purely behavioral, the result of my being spoiled and sheltered by my parents. I very closely lost everything and had my life ruined and my family turned against me before I was finally diagnosed with Asperger's, and for quite some time even after that I was still a real mess. Just writing this is making me cry, so I should probably stop.

NT's can have hynagogic hallucinations too.

I don't think I'm schizophrenic. When I have terrible anxiety I get sleep paralysis. I get hallucinations from seizures too. You don't have to have schizophrenia to have hallucinations. Even PTSD gave me hallucinations.

Yes, some drugs and medications can cause the effect.

I don't believe these sorts of "hallucinations" necessarily denote "schizophrenia."

I see "flashing lights" all the time when I close my eyes. I see geometric shapes. This is within my conscious awareness, though; I rarely dream like this.

Everybody experiences hypnagogic and hypnopompic hallucinations. It's thought that the dream/REM state in the brain is very closely related to the neurochemistry present in psychotic patients when they're awake.