Hallucinations During Migraine?

In addition of getting scotomas during my auras for the first time, I'm getting something else new. During the worst part of my migraines, it seems my brain is misinterpreting what my eyes are seeing.

For instance, I saw a squirrel on the road but for some reason my brain decided the squirrel was much further away than it really was and I saw it as big as a dog.

Yesterday I had a very freaky one. I was looking at a small child in a stroller. He was wearing a knit hat pulled down low and was turned away from me so I just saw the back of his hat. My brain interpreted that as his face and I saw him as if he was made out of knitting, kind of like he was a muppet.

These hallucinations only happen when I'm in intense pain and getting the other migraine stuff - ringing in my ears, vertigo, numbness, etc., and only last for a second but they look totally real to me. The oddest part is I don't even find them freaky or strange when I see them, they seem normal to me. It is only in retrospect I realize something is strange and what I really saw.

I hope this is not just me. I'm afraid to mention them to my doctor- I might end up in a pysch ward!

Hi,

Hallucinations can be a part of migraine-especially part of migraine with aura.

I experience halluncinations quite frequently with migraine. Only in my case, objects don't change size. In my case, I tend to look at objects- paintings, even things around the room and various things start moving. If I am looking at a painting, the people in it will start moving around. (This is sort of like the scene in the Voyage of the Dawn Treader, when the children go through a painting to enter narnia.)

I will admit that the first time it happened- it scared the living daylights out of me. I was in college and called my parents -both physicians to ask about this. And my father, who had migraines as a child said that hallucinations were not uncommon in migraine and that he had experienced some as a teenager. When I described it to one of the psychiatrist at the headache cliinic. She said that hallucinations were part of migraine and the fact that I could tell what was real and wasn't real meant they were migraine-related and not caused by another problem.

From what you described it sounds like you may be experiencing "Alice in Wonderland Syndrome." Here is a link that describes it pretty well: http://www.aliceinwonderlandsyndrome.net/

Pain free days,
sailingmuffin

I tend to always get very confused when I am in the worst stages of my migraines. I was on a painkiller that made me very paranoid and believe that if I fell asleep I would never wake up, needless to say I'm off that drug.

My mind usually can not make much sense of the world around me when I am in the midst of a migraine and like sailingmuffin objects move and I get vertigo very badly. My depth perseption is WAY off. I have never experienced things being there that are not there before though.

I don't think you could call my problem an "Alice in Wonderland" syndrom as I don't have problems with my body or other things looking distorted. It's mostly my depth perception is off and my brain is having trouble interpreting what it is seeing. I don't see stuff that isn't there but every now and then grossly misinterprete what I see - like misestimating the size of the squirrel or misinterpreting the baby's knit hat for its face.

What's odd is it only happens in flashes during the depths of the migraine, not during the aura phase when I really am seeing stuff that isn't there. So during aura I will see fortifying scotomas and/or skyrockets shooting off in my peripheral vision, smell funny odors that aren't there and hear ringing in my ears. But this mostly settles down within 30 minutes or so. But when I'm sickest with the headache and nausea and vertigo, maybe 2 hours into a migraine, is when my brain starts acting up.

I sometimes have trouble with depth perception and also lose my ability to see things as 3D.........everything can look very flat. Also, a couple of times have had issues with not seeing my forearms - like my hands are directly connected to my upper arms. Find it best when these things are happening to just lay on the couch and watch tv til they pass - very freaky and I do better when I am distracted.

A lot of what I consider aura symptoms can occur during the pain part of the migraine - I don't differentiate my migraines anymore into the different phases cause my brain seems to be able to experience them all at one time!