Ashley
I debated putting this in because it will sound unbelievable and even those who know about it are probably few.
This happened during my last operation. I'm sure everyone has had hallucinations at some time. When infection passes surface only and becomes septic it clogs the arteries with toxins. This causes hallucinations but of a different kind. With most hallucinations you still live in the real world and know you are hallucinating. This other kind takes you to another realm and every thing real around you disappears. You cease to live in the real world even a little bit. But since in your mind it is real there is no panic. It was like stepping off one planet onto another. And in my mind it was totally real and I still have missing days where if I try to access them I get this other reality. I am slowly replacing and covering them.
Now this is not my worst day. My worst days were when I could not roll over even let alone walk. In my hallucinogenic mind I was confined to a small area and all my perceptions were in little boxes that I could not access so my world did not exist outside this area. I could move around in this area but outside it nothing existed. For a claustrophobic this is sheer terror. I tried to access my perceptions but they were in the form of birds heads with huge beaks. There was only one colour too, everything was shades of brown. This lasted for days till they thought to give me an anti hallucinogenic. Those days are still missing (like PTSD) but I survived them. This is the first time since the operation that I have thought about them. They are safe to look at now. No trigger.
Looking at what I just wrote I realize that it was worse than I can ever explain because it lasted all day and night with no relief till the medication took it away. One of the few times when CBT did not work, how could it when I did not have control of my own mind.
I hope none of you ever experience this and I'm sure few of you will, the infection has to take you close to death first. But if you do, remember that the mind is programmed to survive and when free will fails survival takes over.
Davit.
PS. Sunny was my anchor, she could tell me when I drifted into this other reality. I could not tell on my own.