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8:54am June 17, 2015
Anonymous asked: I found you in the hypnagogic hallucinations tag. Do you know what kind of disorders are typically associated with hypnagogic hallucinations? Is PTSD likely? Should I seek help if it's only occasional? Hope you day is going wonderfully

Sleep disorders are generally associated with hypnagogic hallucinations.  Anything that disrupts sleep can cause them to be more frequent, but especially narcolepsy.  (Which I was once suspected of having, but I don’t seem to have it.  Especially now that we know the severe muscle weakness was caused by some combination of myasthenia gravis and adrenal insufficiency.)  They’re a big part of the diagnosis of narcolepsy.

I don’t know about psychiatric conditions associated with them.  I do know that, in fact, hypnagogic hallucinations are considered part of normal human experience, so the DSM spends a lot of time and energy differentiating them from psychosis-based hallucinations and things like that.  Like, if you heard voices, but only while waking up and falling asleep (hypnagogic and hypnapompic hallucinations), then you wouldn’t meet the “hearing voices” criterion for schizophrenia.  So while there are conditions that can make them worse, they’re considered a normal variant of human experience for whatever reason.

Notes:
  1. icanholdmybreathforever said: I was diagnosed with stress-induced pseudo-hallucinations which my psychiatrist also called hypnagogic. I also have PTSD. It’s definitely a thing but I don’t know if it’s a Thing.
  2. withasmoothroundstone posted this