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Hallucinations

I have an older family member suffering from dementia. She has in the past experienced hallucinations and did so again this last week.

It is very disconcerting conversing with someone who refers to nonfactual events. On the other hand before my sleep apnea was diagnosed back in 2003 I had gone for a long time without enough REM sleep. I experienced what I can best describe as waking dreams, wherein I would know that I was talking to someone and at the same time I was somewhere else doing something else. So I have some first-hand experience with this.

Of course we are experiencing this in our public discourse in this era; folk refer with certainty to political events that have not actually happened. Again, it is disconcerting to converse with someone whose foundation is on shaky ground.

It is simplistic but I still use the six W's as my anchor:  who, where, when are the basics of facts. What, how, and why often require a bit more interpretation but are still pretty good ties to reality.

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