My experience with 'hallucinations' started a few months ago. The reason I'm making this post is because I feel like I'm slowly losing my mind, but I'm confused about it all because I know what I'm experiencing, i.e hallucinations and dream/reality confusion, isn't real, but it still is very distressing and I do have to keep calming myself down and saying 'no, that's not real, everything is fine.' 

The hallucinations or confusing things happening to me haven't even been that severe at all, they are very mild. So mild that I have questioned whether I am just making it all up, but then, why would I do that and why does it scare me? First I could smell things that weren't there, then I would briefly see something like shadowing birds fly across my vision or spiders crawl across my vision. Then I started seeing shadowy figures (like 3 times over the last few months?) outside my windows or doors and I get paranoid someone is watching me or trying to get me so I have to check the doors and windows are shut and locked. Once for about a minute I thought I could kind of see beetles crawling on my chest so I just sat with my arms across my chest until the feeling subsided. 

As all of this is happening I am aware that it isn't real. The things I'm seeing aren't vivid or super realistic, they are shadowy and very brief, almost a bit like peripheral vision, but more significant - I can't actively stare at the figures or spiders or whatever it is I saw. But it's increasing my distress and sense of paranoia that I feel quite like pumped up a lot and spooked lol. 

I also occasionally suffer from sleep paralysis and I've been having more nightmares recently. When I wake up I spend about 10 minutes frozen in place too scared to move, then about 10 minutes walking around trying to shake the feeling that it was real and tell myself that its okay I'm awake now and what's been happening to me has not been that bad and it's all good. 

About once or twice a week remember something that I genuinely can't tell if it was a dream or not and I have to ask my SO, did this happen? I also just can't really remember anything. Also, about once a week I tend to experience derealisation where I feel like I'm dreaming and that nothing is real and so that just contributes even more to this nagging uncomfortable feeling that nothing is as it seems and makes hallucinations, however mild, even more disturbing.

Basically all of it together is kinda distressing and unpleasant, but I still have this nagging part of me that is like 'you're making this worse and obsessing over it and nothing has really happened, why are you making a big deal out of this?' I haven't heard any voices, and none of the hallucinations have lasted very long and I know that they aren't real when I see them. 

Am I making a big deal out of it? Has this happened to you guys? What's your experiences with any of this? Help!