Visions Versus Hallucinations

1997, Dennis Gersten, M.D. Excerpted with permission from ARE

YOU GETTING ENLIGHTENED OR LOSING YOUR MIND? A
Spiritual Program for Mental Fitness (Harmony, a Division of Crown
Books, May 1997) This excerpt may not be reprinted without written
permission from Harmony Books.

A spiritual vision is usually a very pleasant, uplifting

experience. People may "see" God, angels, saints, or
indescribable light. Such a vision usually brings a new
direction to life and leaves the individual with a "lighter"
countenance, a greater joy in life and more love to share with
others. Visions may occur spontaneously, in a normal state of
consciousness, or they may occur as part of an altered state, a
mystical state of union, or during a kundalini experience.
Visions of deceased loved ones, mother, father, husband, or
wife, happen all the time and it is the "normal" experience in
some cultures. Whether or not it is "objectively" true that
people are visited by the departed on a regular basis, the
experience is common, especially in non-Western societies,
where the visitations are considered normal. In Western
society, grief counselors regularly reassure bereaved people
that seeing and talking with departed loved ones is part of the
grieving process.
People who are approaching death often experience visions of
deceased relatives who have appeared to them to help them in
their transition. Karlis Osis and Erlunder Haraldsson studied
this phenomenon in a variety of cultures and found that
"death-bed visions" are nearly identical from one culture to
another.
Schizophrenics tend to hear voices much more frequently than
they have visions, which are almost never pleasant when they
do have them. Their visions are part of a psychotic thought
process. They feel controlled by the vision. This may sound
odd, but they have a psychotic relationship with their
hallucination. Most psychiatrists would say, "A hallucination
is psychotic itself," and, of course, I disagree. The "normal"
person doesn't have a psychotic reaction to a vision. He may
be frightened by a ghost - or even by the sight of the Virgin
Mary - but he is not likely to feel as if his mind is being
controlled by the vision. In all my years in clinical practice, I

have heard a schizophrenic describe a vision as spiritual on

only one occasion. She hears voices as other schizophrenics
do, but also has glorious visions of saints and holy men visions that bring her great peace. Yet, she is quite the
exception to the rule.
People with borderline personality disorder can have any
experience and "rotate" through all states of consciousness.
They can have wonderful spiritual experiences and they can
be floridly "crazy," which, of course, makes a psychiatrist's
job very difficult. I have found that borderlines can have "split
graphics." They may see an angel and the devil at the same
time. It's a function of the split - the inability to integrate
"good" and "bad" - inside their personality. The image is as
split as their heart and soul is split. Borderlines, who may
have purely spiritual visions or purely psychotic visions,
experience visual hallucinations much more frequently than
do schizophrenics.
A psychotic hallucination is a projection from one's
unconscious mind into the outside world. For example, a
borderline may be filled with conscious and unconscious
murderous impulses. Those impulses can be projected outside
himself or herself. One borderline patient of mine
hallucinated Godzilla. Godzilla joined her in the shower, ran
around her house, and even ran across the highway while she
was driving. Not a very safe situation for anyone concerned.
Godzilla was a projection of her own murderous and angry
impulses.
On rare occasions, borderlines will also see "creepy crawly"
things... bugs, ants, snakes, small birds. But it's very rare. The
more fragmented the vision, the more likely it's part of a
psychotic process for someone who feels very fragmented
inside. Someone who sees a single benevolent angel is better
integrated mentally than someone who sees and feels
hundreds of bugs crawling all over him.
Someone having a hallucination of bugs crawling all over his
skin may be in a state of delirium - a disorder of brain
chemistry. People in DT's (delirium tremens) withdrawing
from alcohol often have this kind of hallucination, which
should be checked out right away by a doctor. Delirium is
fatal ten percent of the time. In delirium, not only does one
have visual hallucinations but the entire visual field is

distorted - the foreground and the background. In contrast, a

schizophrenic hallucination is not accompanied by a distorted
background.
In order to know for certain if we are experiencing a vision or
a hallucination, we first must be sure we're not having an
illusion or a fantasy. Illusions are not hallucinations. An
illusion is a distortion (almost always visual) of something
that is already there. For example, at dusk, we may see a rope
lying on the road and think that it's a snake. We're not
hallucinating. It's an illusion. A mirage of a lake in the desert
is an illusion. Our brain and mind are misinterpreting sensory
information, because we're not being provided all the
information we need to make an accurate assessment.
In a sense, magic is a form of illusion. By sleight of hand, the
magician pulls a rabbit out of his hat. There's nothing
metaphysical going on here. It's just that the magician's hands
are so much faster than our eyes, and he fools us by directing
our attention away from the "real action," the place where the
deception is going on. We're not hallucinating. Again, we're
just misinterpreting the sensory input.
Visions are common in the stories of the lives of many saints
and great mystics and for others who are spiritually advanced.
Artist and poet, William Blake, wrote of his visions, "A vision
is not a cloudy vapor or a nothing. It is organized and
minutely articulated beyond all that the mortal and perishing
nature can produce. I assert that all my visions appear to me
infinitely more perfect and more organized than anything seen
by the mortal eye."
One of the only things that a saint has in common with a
schizophrenic is the fear of being ridiculed and called "crazy"
for their voices and visions. St. Hildegard of Bingen
experienced so many visions, she felt overwhelmed at the task
of trying to remain silent about them. A vision of divine light
instructed her to speak about her visions, however, saying to
her, "You shall proclaim it as you have heard and seen it in the
miracles of God." St. Theresa of Avila, also was troubled by
her voices and visions. She saw angels, cherubim, bright
lights, Jesus, and many other visions, but had few people in
whom to confide at first, afraid she would be called "crazy."
Later on, after she became regarded as a saint, she came to
dislike the special attention showered on her, and especially

disliked people looking upon her and talking about her, as a

saint. Theresa's visions were between her and God, yet,
because she was unable to conceal her "raptures," it was
impossible for her to conceal her spiritual experiences from
the world. Although people came to know about her visions,
Theresa had no interest in sharing them with the world. She
felt no pride, no greatness because of them. To her, her visions
were not the point of her spirituality. Her contact with the
spiritual world made her better prepared to work in the "real"
material world.i In contrast, the schizophrenic becomes
isolated from society, and often very attached to his
hallucinations and ruled by them. The saints, however, have
all learned how to live with one foot in each world.
DavidGerstenMD.com

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