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I’ve had doctors who were surprised that I can distinguish most of my hallucinations from reality, so I’m led to believe it’s not common, but I am not a professional.

I know when I’m in a psychotic episode and I can use logic to detect most hallucinations. I call it “fact checking”.

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If I’m in the car and I hear the driver (I don’t drive. I have a license, but it scares my family. It’s disheartening at times.) singing along with the radio, I look at the driver’s mouth to see if it’s moving. Sometimes it is, and I’m hearing them singing. Sometimes it isn’t, and then I realize I’m just hallucinating them singing.

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Once, I saw a young, blonde-haired boy in a blue and orange swimsuit floating motionlessly near me at the bottom of the pool. I panicked, yelled “Help!” and dove down to grab him and bring him to the surface. When I reached out to grab him, he disappeared. I returned to the surface with a pounding heart and told the lifeguard that I was mistaken, nothing was wrong and thanked him for coming to help. My whole body was shaking for the next hour. Finding out you’ve had a hallucination is comforting in that the problem it presented is not really there, but your adrenal system will continue to flood you with panic chemicals long after you’ve found out.[Continue Reading](https://goldfishpainter.com/fact-checking-whats-real/)