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Command Hallucinations

© Ian Chovil

I used to think that I didn't ever really experience command hallucinations, but my friend has made me reconsider. I don't know what the DSM-IV criteria are for command hallucinations. I just know that they are often associated with sometimes violent crime. From what I understand a command hallucination is one you have to comply with, no matter what it is. The example that comes to my mind is the "son of Sam" who murdered nurses obeying commands from his dog. I'm not even sure if he had schizophrenia, because serial murder is too complicated for someone in a psychotic episode. The Unabomber was capable of fairly complex behaviour though, and he escaped apprehension for many years. Apparently he has a form of schizophrenia.

I used to live with my friend, and she was talking bout how she "had to" do things when she was ill. She "had to" sit in this chair and then five minutes later she "had to" sit in the other chair, etc. She once climbed up into a boxcar because she was supposed to, and sat there expecting the train to start moving. I experienced a lot of similar "had to" behaviour. In fact it was just that behaviour that got me fired from my job. I was noticed acting bizarrely, switching lights on and off for no reason. I "had to" do those things for my wife. And there were a lot of other things I "had to" do. My voices were very demanding, but vocies are not a requirement for "had to". You can just know what you "have to" do.

I got a lot of messages from rock and roll songs, excellent music, and that was why the aliens used it to send me messages, because they were very musical. In one song by a group called "Little Feat" entitled "Time Loves a Hero" Lowell George sang "Some kind of man, he can't do anything wrong, if I see him, I'll show him the way there". I used to tell my voices constantly that I was that man. I couldn't do anything wrong. The aliens controlled me like a puppet on a string. I didn't have to think about what I was doing, I would just do the right thing naturally.

That didn't actually work very well. It was usually my excuse for buying another dozen beer, and drinking until I passed out. And when I woke the voices and their demands were still there.

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