Consciousness is a strange psychological phenomenon . On the one hand, it always appears hand in hand with the perception of what surrounds us: when we are conscious, we are always aware that beyond our body there is something: shapes, colors, sounds, textures, or simply gravity.

However, these perceptions do not necessarily have to be true and, in fact, they almost never are, to a greater or lesser extent. Fortunately, only in some cases does this degree of distortion of reality become so intense that it is a sign of mental pathology.

Next we’ll see what the differences are between hallucination, hallucinosis and pseudo- hallucination , three types of breaks with reality that can be confused by their superficial similarity.

Differences between hallucination, hallucinosis and pseudo- hallucination

To understand how these three types of symptoms should be distinguished, we will first review exactly what each one of them consists of.

What are hallucinations?

A hallucination is a perception that has not been provoked by a real element and that is attributed to the external environment to oneself. For example, someone who hears hallucinated voices is unable to distinguish between these and the rest of the noises coming from the environment, he is simply unable to locate the person who is emitting them.

At the same time, hallucinations are also characterized by anosognosia, the failure to recognize that what is being experienced is a symptom of mental disorder or illness.

On the other hand, although most hallucinations are auditory, they can occur in any sensory modality: visual, tactile, etc.

Pseudo- hallucinations

In the case of pseudo- hallucinations, these perceptions are also basically imaginary and do not come from a real element. However, in this case the person experiencing them is able to distinguish between perceptions that come from the external environment and pseudo- hallucinations, which he attributes to a source located in “his mind”.

If the patient who is experiencing hallucinations claims to hear voices that are of the same nature as the doctor who is interviewing him or her, the sufferer presents pseudo-hallucinations and answers in the affirmative and without hesitation to the question: “do you hear voices coming from your head?

On the other hand, in pseudo hallucination, despite the person’s recognition that voices, images or tactile experiences are not produced by external and therefore objective phenomena (detectable by anyone in the vicinity), he or she considers that what is happening does not indicate the presence of any mental disorder . This means that many times help is not sought.

What is hallucinosis?

Hallucinosis resembles hallucination and pseudo-hallucination in that in all three cases the experience is not directly produced by something that actually exists and has the appearance that seems to indicate such an “occurrence”. However, the hallucination differs from the other two in several ways.

First of all, hallucinosis is different from hallucination in that the person knows that the experience does not come from the outside , it is not produced by an objective phenomenon: it is a product that only manifests itself in his consciousness and cannot be perceived by others.

Second, hallucinosis differs from pseudo- hallucination in that there is no anosognosia. There is a real awareness that what is happening is not normal and that it is a symptom serious enough to call for help.

What kind of diseases do they produce?

Both hallucinations and pseudo-hallucinations are usually linked more to psychiatric disorders, while hallucinosis occurs in neurological disorders.

This is because in the first two, the degree of affectation of the nervous system is so general that it affects the whole consciousness and abstract thinking in a global way. The fact that a person does not see from the first moment a warning signal to see, for example, a 10 meter dragon floating in the air, is in itself a symptom of pathology. The same is true when it does not raise any suspicions about mental health if for days a voice is heard and the person who is emitting it can never be located.

In hallucinosis, on the other hand, the degree of affectation of the disease is not as general as in hallucination and pseudo- hallucination, and it focuses on specific areas of the brain, leaving the others relatively aside. This makes hallucinosis relatively more frequent, especially in pathologies resulting from the use of psychoactive substances, for example.

Is it correct to use these concepts in mental health?

There are criticisms about the use of the term “pseudo- hallucination” , since it has connotations that may lead to stigmatize patients suffering from this condition.

The name suggests that the person invents the events he describes and claims to have experienced, something that as we have seen does not correspond to reality: although there is no stimulus as the person perceives it, this phenomenon is not a voluntary invention, something that is used only to access certain special attention from the health system, for example.

That’s why there are reasons to simply use the term “hallucination” for these cases. Believe it or not, in psychiatry and clinical psychology appearances can matter a lot, especially when they affect the quality of life of patients.