Hallucinations

[flawed_logic]

Never happened to me until this year, but was on a passage from Ireland to France (approx 250nm passage) it was a rough crossing and windy 25-40 knts all the way, by the time i got to France i was tried, it was dark and still very windy, and I started seeing things: Including thinking mooring buoys were dead floating ducks.
No long term damage though
Makes me wonder how well i'd cope with very long solo/short handed passages

 

[Gerry]

I can symathise! After around 6 days at sea, 2 of us on board so most of your time is alone with the other sleeping. The first time I was totally convinced that the seven dwarves were riding a sea dragon just off the port bow!!!***, yet I was also aware that this was a hallucination no matter how real it appeared to be. Not frightening but very very strange!

 

[flawed_logic]

yet I was also aware that this was a hallucination no matter how real it appeared to be. Not frightening but very very strange!

Exactly, it wasn't scary i knew it was not real ..... I also mistook yachts as slient "bobbing" dragons (after your drawf thing i felt i could put that in )

 

[johnalison]

From what I've heard, this is quite a common occurrance. A friend or ours was asked why she kept changing course and explained that she was trying to avoid all those rowing-boats. I think sea-sickness tablets were mainly to blame in her case, probably one of the antihistamine group.

I don't usually hallucinate while actually sailing until I turn into my sleeping-bag and then I see wild animalistic shapes around me, while are oddly unthreatening.

 

[capnsensible]

I have often dreamt that Ive only been in my sleeping bag for less than 3 hours and suddenly Ive got to get up again to go on watch.

Then I discover its real......

 

[Rigger Mortice]

I've certainly "seen" unlit yachts heading towards me in the early hours on dark channel crossings. It helps to wake me up when I'm beginning to nod off but it is a little unnerving at the time.

 

[Conachair]

I've always felt a bit hard done by. Fair amount of offshore solo and not one proper one.

Closest was when the short wave receiver turned itself on to world service,.... ah, the voices, I can just hear the voices......... now why would they seem to be talking about cricket....

 

[Seajet]

Hallucinations are a well recorded factor in tiredness and / or seasickness.

Fatigue is the No.1 enemy.

 

[MissFitz]

On one race I kept seeing a RIB bobbing along behind the boat - but that was also the first time I used the seasickness patches, have steered clear of them since for that reason.

Met a Figaro sailor who told me that on one occasion his compass turned into a grinning camembert - very French

 

[single]

I have had them especially in the night while sailing when your brain sees what you imagine when very tired.I even anchored in the wrong bay one single handed very tired nightI also get it if i hear a noise in the garden during the night and something like a bird table can turn into a person hiding in the shrubs.Very wierd how the mind works.
Slightly off topic but for those who have ever taken mushrooms or LSD have you ever had flashbacks?Iv'e never touched them but know people talk about their experiences.

 

[Deleted member 36384]

In whats his names book about solo sailing he devotes a chapter to this. It has been studied quite extensively. Folks see all sorts of things. One famous story is of a sailor who battled a gale for many days by hand steering, the phone rang down below and he went and answered it. He woke up a couple of days later and the yacht was fine. Another solo bloke handed over the tiller to a colleague and went to sleep comforted that the yacht was in good hands, he too awoke to find all in order (not neat and tidy with the dinner on, but the boat sailing in calmer winds as left).

Apparently the urge to cry and be every emotional over trivial things (such as peeling varnish, oh poor flake of varnish, alas your beauty fades) is another symptom of extreme tiredness. Rational people in these situations are aware that they are hallucinating, it's not real and totally illogical, but still it is happening, obvious and real. The irrational believe it.

I'll dig out the book and post here later.

 

[savageseadog]

I thought I was hallucinating on an extremely cold, long night passage with dark shapes moving around the boat, this went on for an hour or two. I eventually realised to my relief that they were in fact dolphins. I didn't know that dolphins inhabited our shores over winter or "played" at night or in winter. It was Lyme Bay by the way.

 

[Pye_End]

The first time was after a nasty North Sea crossing (48 hours with no sleep) - and then arriving at 1 in the morning we both drove home (separately) and both saw huge monsters in the motorway. Very scary and mad drive, but taught a valuable lesson.

The next time was 2 or 3 days out (single handed), and in the morning gloom after a short sleep the outline of a ship appeared dead in front coming towards me, and not far away. With heart pumping I quickly took the windvane lines off and steered hard right, only to find it was still in front. With the previous experience then in mind I checked the instruments (trust them rather than your mind) to see if I had actually turned, and then realised that it was all in the mind due to fatigue. About 2 weeks later (same trip) I could hear what sounded like my small portable radio on a foreign station, so that I could almost make out the words. This lasted 2 days, and at the time I thought that I had lost a tranny somewhere in the mess, and that it had turned itself on, and finally run out of battery. Turned out to be lack of sleep, and have since read exactly the same phenomenon from single handers.

 

[Deleted member 36384]

In whats his names book about solo sailing he devotes a chapter to this. ...... I'll dig out the book and post here later.

"Thoughts, Tips, Techniques & Tactics For Singlehanded Sailing", Andrew Evans, Chapter 2 The Mental Challenge

Available free to download from The Singlehanded Sailing Society at: -

www.sfbaysss.org/tipsbook

 

[footsoldier]

This thread is so re-assuring. I thought it was just me!

Only happens at night and when sleep-deprived. Particularly in moonlight, I see the waves ahead as a series of descending terraces; I am clearly running downhill and any traffic visible in the distance is coming up-hill towards me. On a rational level I know it is a load of cobblers, but however much I try I cannot dispel the illusion.

Glad I'm not the only one.

 

[Roberto]

I have had several as well.
The most frequent is acoustic, and it does not disappear : after a couple of days, the noise of the water on the hull, or the spurts of water from the exhaust when the engine is on, they both become music, sounding like an opera being played from a far away place. I guess it's the rythmic repetition of the noise, which is reinterpreted by the brain as music.
I consider myself happy it turns out opera and not Heavy Metal

Visually the weirdest one was one night while at anchor, I definitely saw a black creature climb up the anchor chain and hiding behind the davit.
Once, twice... I rationally knew there was nothing still I had to go and check a couple of times, as more bloody things kept on climbing the chain.