Was this a childhood hallucination? How common are they?

I was about 10. I remember walking into the kitchen and suddenly experiencing the intense feeling that my brother was just behind me ready to pounce. I looked back and there he was, but not in material form, more like a ghost or an astral projection. This vision melted away after a few seconds. Real hallucination or just selfsuggestion? Does an experience like this have anything to do with the later development of sz? Thanks.

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I don’t know how common, but as a child i remember seeing 2 people made of TV static out on a friend’s lawn.

I do not have visual hallucinations. At least, i do not now.

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I had a very similar “hallucination” when I was 11. Saw two men in a TV, which was off and unplugged. One was sitting in a rocking chair, and though I could not see the man in the rocking chair (apart from on the TV), the rocking chair was rocking.

I think I misread your post, it’s not as similar as I thought.

All of my other complex hallucinations are lifelike. And if it weren’t for odd things, like a cat talking to me (externally), and the sheer size of him, I would not have known it was a hallucination.

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Yeah, these were people made out of tv static/snow. Was very unsettling.

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But are these hallucinations related in any way to the future development of a psychotic disorder?

I started having hallucinations as a child.

I don’t super want to get into specifics, but they were disturbing.

Violent in nature.

They’ve calmed down a lot as an adult.

Of course, later I was diagnosed with schizophrenia,

But these hallucinations were chronic, not a one time thing.

I don’t know about your experience,

Could have been your imagination or a hallucination.

Sounds scary for a kid, regardless.

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This is probably the wrong crowd to ask whether childhood hallucinations are normal. I definitely had them.

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The cat hallucination I had came after blacking out sometime during the day, when I came to, I had driven an hour away, bought beer (I don’t drink), and a cat came up and talked to me. It was around midnight. This was labeled as a psychotic episode and I was hospitalized and put on aps. My psychiatrist thought I was sz, but put me down as schizoid. I stopped seeing her after a couple of months.

I stopped the ap, haven’t been on one since, and have no plans to see a psychiatrist again. I don’t care for a diagnosis.

For all I know, everything I experience is real. Until there are tests for sz, I will not subject myself to bs “treatment”. And even then, I likely won’t be tested. I don’t see the point in making my life worse, when I can handle psychosis well enough.

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I know that I “saw” it, but because it looked like a ghostly projection of some kind I assumed the possibility that I might have psychic powers. But it was probably just child’s play.

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