Hallucinations can be very realistic. My experiences with hypnagogia taught me that hallucinations are coming from the same brain that paints the real world for you, and it can paint hallucinations as realistically as anything else. But their quality will depend on what’s causing them. Probably the most common reason for hallucinations is pareidolia operating on low detail information gathered from your visual periphery. These vanish when you look at them.
But there are other ways to generate hallucinations. I’ve also experienced hallucinations from sleep deprivation. These were less realistic and might have still been generated by pareidolia. These appeared as I looked at them, but they faded away as I watched them. If you want an example, looking out the window from the passenger seat I saw a jogger wearing bright neon clothes. They were moving very slowly as if they were floating just above the ground. This illusion faded and I saw I was actually looking at a reflector post.
It has been theorized that enough people experienced hallucinations induced by intense grief following the death of loved ones, that it inspired the ghost phenomenon. It isn’t terribly uncommon for nursing home patients to see hallucinations, including ghosts, and there are prescription medications which are linked to this issue. It’s hard to tell what things look like for them, but they often report seeing things they believe to be real. So movie depictions may be justified in depicting hallucinations as crisp and realistic, although not all hallucinations fit that category.
Hallucinations can be very realistic. My experiences with hypnagogia taught me that hallucinations are coming from the same brain that paints the real world for you, and it can paint hallucinations as realistically as anything else. But their quality will depend on what’s causing them. Probably the most common reason for hallucinations is pareidolia operating on low detail information gathered from your visual periphery. These vanish when you look at them.
But there are other ways to generate hallucinations. I’ve also experienced hallucinations from sleep deprivation. These were less realistic and might have still been generated by pareidolia. These appeared as I looked at them, but they faded away as I watched them. If you want an example, looking out the window from the passenger seat I saw a jogger wearing bright neon clothes. They were moving very slowly as if they were floating just above the ground. This illusion faded and I saw I was actually looking at a reflector post.
It has been theorized that enough people experienced hallucinations induced by intense grief following the death of loved ones, that it inspired the ghost phenomenon. It isn’t terribly uncommon for nursing home patients to see hallucinations, including ghosts, and there are prescription medications which are linked to this issue. It’s hard to tell what things look like for them, but they often report seeing things they believe to be real. So movie depictions may be justified in depicting hallucinations as crisp and realistic, although not all hallucinations fit that category.