Hallucinations can involve touch, smell, taste or bodily sensations as well as hearing and vision. Tactile hallucinations may feel like crawling, touching or pressure on the skin. Olfactory hallucinations involve smells without an external source, while gustatory hallucinations involve tastes. Some people describe unusual internal bodily experiences that are difficult to locate within one ordinary sensory category.
Hallucinations are sensory experiences that occur without a corresponding external stimulus. They can affect any sense and vary in intensity, frequency and emotional meaning. They occur in several psychiatric, neurological, medical and sleep-related circumstances, so their presence alone does not establish a diagnosis of schizophrenia.
These experiences require careful description because physical disorders can produce similar sensations. Nerve problems, skin conditions, dental disease, seizures, substances and medication effects may need consideration. A sensation and the explanation attached to it are also separate: feeling crawling on the skin is different from a fixed belief about what causes it. Clinicians examine timing, physical findings and the relationship to other symptoms. A respectful assessment neither dismisses the discomfort nor assumes its origin in advance. Identifying the relevant cause can prevent unnecessary treatment and help the person find an explanation that fits the evidence.
Sensory descriptions can be separated from beliefs about their source. A smell, taste or bodily feeling may have one explanation, while a conviction that another person caused it may require a different assessment. Recording each component avoids losing physical symptoms within a psychiatric interpretation and helps clinicians decide which examinations or investigations are relevant.
Further reading: National Institute of Mental Health (1); National Institute of Mental Health (2).
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