Hallucinations are often misunderstood. They’re not just about “seeing things,” and they aren’t always frightening or dramatic. Many people with mental illnesses, neurological conditions, or chronic stress experience hallucinations in subtle, complex, or deeply personal ways.

A hallucination is when you perceive something that isn’t actually present—whether through sight, sound, touch, taste, smell, or your internal sense of your own body. These perceptions feel real to the person experiencing them, and they’re not “just imagination” or “attention-seeking.” They deserve care, respect, and understanding.

Here are six types of hallucinations and what they can feel like.

1. Auditory Hallucinations

Auditory hallucinations involve hearing something that isn’t actually there. This is one of the most common types, especially in schizophrenia, but it can also occur with depression, PTSD, dissociative disorders, and even during intense grief or sleep deprivation.

Common experiences:

• Hearing voices (often conversational, critical, or commanding)

• Hearing music, humming, or indistinct chatter

• Hearing footsteps, doors closing, or other environmental sounds

These hallucinations can be distressing, comforting, or neutral depending on the person and the voice content. For some, the voices feel like internal parts of the self or echoes of past trauma.

2. Visual Hallucinations

Visual hallucinations involve seeing things that others don’t see. They may appear during psychosis, neurological conditions like Parkinson’s or Lewy body dementia, migraines, or even due to severe sleep loss.

Common experiences:

• Seeing people, animals, or figures others can’t see

• Shapes, colors, flashes, or flickering lights

• Shadows or movements at the edge of vision

Some visual hallucinations are vivid and detailed, while others are just suggestions of form. People might hesitate to talk about them out of fear of judgment, but they are more common than most realize.

Visual hallucinations are often linked to disruptions in the brain’s visual processing pathways and can be part of several medical conditions—not just psychiatric ones.

3. Tactile Hallucinations

Tactile hallucinations are sensations of touch that aren’t caused by an external stimulus. This can be one of the most physically distressing types.

Common experiences:

• Feeling bugs crawling on or under the skin (formication)

• Sensations of pressure, being touched, or movement

• Burning, itching, or tingling without cause

These are often seen in conditions like schizophrenia, stimulant use (e.g., methamphetamine), or withdrawal, but can also occur during trauma flashbacks or extreme anxiety.

Tactile hallucinations are addressed in clinical guides for differential diagnosis and are not automatically signs of “losing touch with reality.”

4. Olfactory Hallucinations

These involve smelling something that isn’t there. Though they’re less common, olfactory hallucinations can be incredibly vivid and emotionally charged.

Common experiences:

• Smelling smoke, chemicals, or burning (especially during seizures or migraines)

• Pleasant smells like perfume or flowers without a source

• Rotten, decaying, or toxic odors

Olfactory hallucinations can show up in schizophrenia, temporal lobe epilepsy, brain injuries, and even as a symptom of COVID-related brain effects.

5. Gustatory Hallucinations

Gustatory (taste) hallucinations involve tasting something that isn’t actually present. While rare, these can be distressing and often go unreported.

Common experiences:

• Tasting blood, metal, or bitterness

• Having a persistent taste that doesn’t go away

• Tastes triggered by emotional or physical stress

Sometimes, gustatory hallucinations are linked with olfactory ones or occur in seizure disorders and brain injuries.

6. Proprioceptive Hallucinations

This lesser-known type involves disturbances in the perception of your own body’s position and movement. While not always classified as “hallucinations” in the strictest sense, they are just as real and impactful.

Common experiences:

• Feeling like limbs are missing, moving, or in the wrong position

• Sensation of floating, shrinking, or expanding body parts

• Losing sense of physical boundaries

These often occur in dissociative disorders, body-focused trauma, or conditions like Alice in Wonderland Syndrome.

You’re Not Alone

Hallucinations can be responses to trauma, sleep deprivation, grief, stress, sensory deprivation, or chronic illness. They might be persistent or occasional, upsetting or even neutral.

Most importantly: They are real to the person experiencing them and deserve care, not shame.

If you or someone you love experiences hallucinations, know that you’re not alone, and support is available. Talk to a trusted healthcare provider or therapist—not to erase your experiences, but to help you feel safer inside them.