Paper On Hallucinations

Consciousness was first defined by John Locke as “the perception of what passes in a man’s own mind”. This statement has since influenced research into the nature of consciousness using different approaches in attempt to further understand consciousness (i.e., dreams, hallucinations..). Hallucinations is a phenomenon that has fascinated the scientific community for decades. Defining and explaining hallucinations has been problematic; often causing confusion differentiating it between other perceptual phenomenons such as illusions; which is a misperception. This means that an individual perceives something (that already exists) as something else; therefore an external stimulus is present. In comparison, a hallucination is a false perception;

This would mean that hallucinations are merely misinterpreted behaviour. Bentall (1990) suggested that the ability to distinguish between internal and external sources of information is a metacognitive skill referred to as “source monitoring”. Hallucinations are experienced when individuals lack this metacognitive skill. Many researchers have provided evidence for this theory; such as Laroi (2004) who supports Bentall’s proposal that individuals who hallucinate have an underlying issue in their ability to distinguish between real and imagined

These engrams are embedded into the fundamental substance of our dreams, hallucinations and fantasies. The presence of external sensory input is what inhibits these from constantly surfacing into our consciousness. When an individual is faced with a combination of adequate arousal and impaired sensory input, hallucinations occur. In other words, our brain contains a censorship system that actively excludes most sensory information from our consciousness. However, in order for this censorship system to work effectively, there needs to be a continuous flow of sensory input. If this flow is interrupted, these engrams emerge into our conscious thus causing a