Monstrous

Monstrous Café => Mayday! Mayday! => Topic started by: Loki on May 30, 2009, 12:16:26 PM

Title: Hostage hallucinations. Visual imagery induced by isolation and life-threatening
Post by: Loki on May 30, 2009, 12:16:26 PM
The literature on hallucinatory experiences of hostage victims is reviewed. The phenomenology is examined in 30 case studies involving 31 persons, including ex-prisoners of war and victims of rape, kidnapping, terrorism, robbery, and "UFO abductions."

The victims were subjected to conditions of isolation, visual deprivation, restraint on physical movement, physical abuse, and the threat of death. For eight victims, these conditions were sufficient to produce a progression of visual hallucinations from simple geometric images to complex memory images coupled with dissociation.

The other 23 victims, subjected to similar conditions but without isolation and life-threatening stress, resulting from the threat of death, did not experience hallucinations.

The hostage hallucinations are compared to those resulting from sensory deprivation, near fatal accidents, and other states of isolation and stress. A common mechanism of action based on entoptic phenomena and CNS excitation and arousal is suggested.



PMID: 6716091 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
Title: Re: Hostage hallucinations. Visual imagery induced by isolation and life-threatening
Post by: Muerte on May 31, 2009, 11:36:46 AM
  This is actually not that suprising a find, as when ordinary men and women a deposited into a situation where they can no longer associate with reality, they then substitute it with something more manageable.  The human mind is a fragile thing, ladies and gentlemen, easily broken.
Title: Re: Hostage hallucinations. Visual imagery induced by isolation and life-threatening
Post by: Muerte on May 31, 2009, 08:57:38 PM
  This is actually not that suprising a find, as when ordinary men and women a deposited into a situation where they can no longer associate with reality, they then substitute it with something more manageable.  The human mind is a fragile thing, ladies and gentlemen, easily broken.

For some reason, this subject reminds me very much of the Silent Hill games that I'm literally in love with. You know, the people in those games start feeling guilt or feel alienated from the world and a bunch of other negative emotions and they start to sink into their subconscious and make their own world, thus resulting in the hallucinations and their own monster infested world. They almost imitate those afflicted with autism. They're like in your post, they can't and really don't want to deal with reality.

  Thats exactly what my signature pretty much says, the last line of your post is what I am refering to.