Can anxiety cause hallucinations?
Strong ongoing stress can lead to panic attacks, severe depression, bipolar depression, OCD, and psychoses including hallucinations. Assuming the person does not have a medical disorder like blood sugar problems, or major glandular disorders, all these symptoms are as a result of stress causing tired glands (meaning out of whack hormone secretions) which can strongly affect the brain's neurochemistry. There are many medications that stop hallucinations. A psychiatrist is the expert in this area. A therpaist is only for therapy to help reduce stress. It's also important to have a healthy diet, cardio exercise and quality sleep. Sleep deprivation can cause hallucinations for instance.
Can hallucinations be caused by anxiety?
No.They are separate issues .But anxiety has its own coloration , making things look worse than they are .It also makes travel distances seem longer and situations look more drastic than is the actual case .Hallucinations by themselves are not too worrying , but if they cause you distress or more importantly you are not aware at the time that they are hallucinations , then you need to get appropriate care ASAP .
Can ocd cause hallucinations?
I'm fourteen years old and have been diagnosed by a therapist, behavioral doctor, and neurologist with OCD and I'm on prozac for it. But I've been having some hallucinations (which I started getting before I went on prozac). They don't happen that much. Maybe like twice in a month but it scares me to death. Like one day I was walking my dog and behind a tree I saw a guy wearing all black with black long hair and black makeup. He was curled up in a ball and crying. The more I think about it this guy could not be real. But at the time it was positive that he was actually there. I started to run with my dog and I never looked back. Another time I was asking my brother a question from another room and I heard him yell back from the family room. I went into the family room and there was my brother sitting on the couch. I asked him another question and he replied. And then, I blinked my eyes and he was gone. From upstairs I heard my him talking for real. Could this be part of my OCD? It's really confusing me and really scaring me.
Can fear/anxiety create hallucinations?
Minor ones, absolutely. Thinking you heard something. Catching movement out of the corner of your eye. Feeling something touch you. A heightened awareness can cause us to misread stimuli, since the survival advantage is seeing a tiger when there isn't one, not ignoring the tiger when there is one. These are less true hallucination than a brain creating patterns where there are none.That said, significant hallucinations, such as seeing someone who isn't there or having conversations with disembodied voices, suggest other causes. If you have significant hallucinations, your anxiety may be a symptom, not the cause.
Can Zoloft cause hallucinations?
I'm fifteen, just started taking Zoloft 25 mg for anxiety about a week ago. Since I started with the pills, I've been having insomnia for the last 4 months, but now I feel restless. I have to tap or sleep somewhere else in my house. Like the kitchen floor, or couch. I've also been hearing things at night. I've heard a xylophone playing (really loud for about 2 minutes), a baby crying from inside my room, scratching at my doors, and screaming coming from the hallway. Can Zoloft cause this?
Can anxiety produce auditory hallucinations?
First of all (in response to that first answer) schizophrenia is not the only "illness" in which there may be hallucinations. There are many others. Second of all, it is possible that the hallucinations were not caused by the anxiety, but triggered by it. For instance, with schizophrenia, it is not "caused" by something, but sometimes is triggered by something, maybe something stressful. (If you are going to have schizophrenia, you are going to have it, but you can't "get it" and eventually have it "go away".) The main "illnesses" of which hallucinations may be a symptom are: schizophrenia, schizphreniform disorder, schizo-affective disorder, bipolar disorder, psychotic depression, and psychosis. I left several out, but you get the idea.