Question: What is a hallucination?

Dr. Siegel: It has to due with a change of attention in a person. Hallucinations mean literally a wandering mind or a wandering in attention. To that extent whenever we are even daydreaming technically we are hallucinating. When the brain is really roaring with LSD or in a state of extreme stress from a life-threatening danger, or in a state of isolation there seems to be a lot of wandering in mind that does not seem to be under volitional control. Attention constantly shifts around. When such a person is given a psychological or problem solving test they do miserably on it, because they can't focus attention or concentrate. The death bed is a very good place or very conducive to these kinds of experiences. The person is lying down and is quiet. This is the state into which we try to get our subjects. We used hospital beds in a quiet room. The idea being to get the person to shift from the external events to the internal world.