Hallucinations vs. inner world / projections of parts (TW)

In the last few days I tried to get in touch with a very scared of us (we usually just hear them scream). It wasn't possible to actually talk to them (they seem not to be able to), but what happened some days ago, was that I could "touch" this part and that established a sort of shared perception for the duration of the touch.
It was horrible and quite similar to what I myself experience as hypnagogic horror hallucinations form time to time. But it seems to be a constant cycle of horror in which this part is captured and feels very real to them. I still can repeat this touch and it is the same stuff they feel and see again.

Because of this similarity to my own hallucinations I started to wonder if they actually are stuck in an endless cycle of hallucination (is it possible that one part of your brain is constantly hallucinating?) of if this is more of an inner-world thing going on. Since we were encouraged as kids, that the stuff which appeared in these hallucinations (like demons etc.) are real. It could be actually a source of trauma if a kid experienced such hallucinations.

Do you think that hallucinations could cause trauma? Or that rather some trauma could cause hallucination?

It also made me think of a lot of other weird perceptions I have on a daily base and realized that actually many of them also would maybe qualify as hallucinations (persons or body parts I "see" around me, but which are not there or don't look actually like how I see them sometimes), because I am not able to control them, even if I am aware that they are not "real".
But they also could be projection of other parts (which I did think for a while now). Or are this projections also sort of hallucination?

Okay, that now was a lot of confusing babbling (because, again, I feel confused )

What I actually wonder is if others here, who experience multiplicity, also experience stuff that could described as hallucinations and if you would describe most of this as inner-world things going on and bleeding over to your outer-world perceptions.

Common things I experience myself (I don't do drugs btw. One of the reason is, that I already feel like being on drugs quite often).
I usually know that what I experience is not physically real, but I can not control it compared to other vivid imagination stuff, which I can shut down if I don't like it.

*** TW: includes some body horror descriptions:

- Hearing screams or voices (mostly inside)
- Hearing and even feeling my cat, while she actually sleeps silently somewhere else (outside)
- Hearing knocking on door or ringing of bell/phone (outside)
- Seeing other arms which are attached to my body, but act on their own. The usually try to assault me
- Feeling like my own arms are moving out of the physical body
- Feeling someone standing very close behind me (can be threatening or protecting)
- Seeing/feeling other cloth on me than I actually wear, or seeing a completely different body
- Seeing my body being ripped open or treated in other horrific ways for a moment, but without feeling pain.
- Feeling sudden pain but without actual physical source or other visual connections
- Seeing other faces in the mirror than my own (usually very short).

Plus hypnagogic hallucinations, which are the most intense and real ones and usually include being sexually assaulted by demons. This seems to be a rather common topic in this kind of hallucinations.
On the other hand there is a part who seems to experience this all the time and not only while going to sleep and also not being able to identify it as "not real".

*** End TW

Didn't mention our synesthesia, which also has some hallucinogen qualities, but is so abstract that it probably is not related to inner world stuff or other parts.

Not sure if someone did read through this quite poorly structured post. But I'd still be interested in other's experiences with hallucinations-related stuff and DID even if you don't want to go in to the rest I did write.

All I know about this, is that you are not alone, I know someone who experiences hallucinations too, especially when tired. In their system it was one part that had schizophrenia, and mostly all those things were related to him. But that is pretty much all I know about it. I don't know which causes what and how, or how to help parts stuck in hallucinations.

I have weird states between sleep and awake, sleep paralysis etc and hearing the doorbell when I'm about to sleep or wake, is one of the things I often have. Sometimes I know it's not real doorbell, because the sound comes from so near to my ear and is way too loud to be actual doorbell, but sometimes I can not tell the difference. The sound of doorbell is always triggering to me, if I am not expecting someone to come. It's a rush of adrenaline and feeling of panic and not being safe, so that is disturbing.

I think I've had real hallucinations only once, and I was a kid then. I was sitting in a car in our own yard. The car was a place we played a lot in, it wasn't for driving but for spare parts to the working car. I was sitting there alone, when I heard someone calling my name behind me, with my sister's voice. There was no one, obviously, because I was on the back seat and the voice was too clear and loud for it to be possible to come from outside the car. I looked back and saw the black empty window of one of our outbuildings, and I've sort of always thought it was coming from that window from something, not someone.

As a kid presences of someone or something were there a lot, and those entities were not friendly. I never actually heard or saw anything related to them tho, not that I remember, except that one time. I have seen plenty of horror movies from very early on, and our parents taught us they were true, so the fear of supernatural was constantly there, especially because of how the house we lived in and the outbuildings were. They would have been perfect place to make a horror movie. Also we knew disturbing stuff, like the fact someone had committed suicide in our bedroom etc. Our dad also used to tel us poltergeists haunt young girls, and that is like a real threat to consider.

There have been few times when I've looked in the mirror and saw my face, kind of, but like the evil version of it. It's hard to describe the actual difference, but it felt it wasn't me but someone else in the mirror mocking me and took my face for itself. After that I was very scared for the rest of the evening, although I did lot of stuff to change the atmosphere with music etc.

Before, in adulthood, I have also been scared of having hallucinations, and which I thought they would be were very precise, but that has been when I've been stressed (before hospital). I don't believe in things I did as a child, but I still can get scared experiencing them as hallucinations, just like you do.

Also I felt a friendly presence of a dog several times after my sisters dog, who was in my care because of an eye injury, needed to be euthanized. It wasn't all the time, but sometimes I felt she would be sitting in front of me, and sometimes she would be sleeping in my bed. I even talked to her, even tho I didn't actually see anything, but you know, we don't know what happens after we die.

I think the experiences I have are so common tho, they are not what you have, because there aren't really actual hallucinations. All I have is being scared of having them. I relate to having stupid parents teaching you stupid stuff tho.

Hopefully someone else knows more about this.

Thanks for sharing your experiences

I think the experiences I have are so common tho, they are not what you have, because there aren't really actual hallucinations.

I am also not sure if what I experience are "actual" hallucinations. They are perceptions of stuff, which is not there, but I usually know that this it is not real. I still see/feel/hear it involuntary, though.

Will also bring that up in Therapy, but since my T is very reluctant of me bringing up new topics, I don't know if I will get any answers. But since it is also about a very disturbed other part, maybe we might talk about it.

All I have is being scared of having them. I relate to having stupid parents teaching you stupid stuff tho.

I myself are not that scared but rather annoyed of experience this. Maybe I am not enough scared... I am quite sure, that if I would actually meet something "supernatural" I would be very sure, that it is just my brain, having an other episode of being crazy
Even if strange things happen, I usually think, that it is just one of my weird dreams. If it is not then I start to be scared.

I've had hallucinations. When given anti-psychotic medications the side effects can be hallucinations. I didn't know this at first and thought I was hallucinating. What happened for me was: terrifying hallucination, another part of me "that's just a hallucination, it's not real", then switch in a part that accepts it's a hallucination and doesn't care and ignores it. After my first experience of this the second time they gave me anti-psychotics no part of me was frightened - I was annoyed that the psychiatrist had effectively made me worse off than when I got there.

So for me I think hallucinations aren't traumatic. Also I have hallucinated once without drugs after a major trauma that I completely blocked out for years. Immediately after the trauma I saw nice hallucinations, fairies, again I knew I was hallucinating but I enjoyed it because seeing fairies was pleasant and I think my brain over loading from the trauma to compensate the trauma and blocking it all out. After resting, sleeping and eating, I was ok again - back in reality.

However I think if you believe in the hallucination ie you don't realise it's a hallucination then it could be extremely traumatic and therefore stored in a part like any other trauma.