Is it possible to control pareidolia?

[WiseWarrior]

Long Version:

I began experiencing pareidolia after have a stick figure-esque hypnagogic hallucination of my dad's face back in mid August. I would see similarly detailed faces appear for a split seconds on objects. Where it gets interesting is that I can experience this with my eyes shut. Since I rarely ever nap, this mostly just occurs when I go to sleep at night. I will mostly see random stick figure-esque faces appear, occasionally of people I know. Most of the time they'll disappear after a split second. This often causes me to very slightly awaken due to the randomness of when they'll appear. (i.e., if my eyelids are shut tighter I'll instinctively open them just a bit because the face surprises me) Occasionally a face will connect with me emotionally in a way (Either good or bad, i.e. funny or scary) and I will automatically concentrate on it. It is hard to break the concentration (Even if it is scary) and the image will often transform while I concentrate, mostly to different faces.

The issue is that when I'm concentrating now the face often seem more alive. Instead of just turning into another face, it will actually behave realistically. One face blinked at me, and as I stared at the eye before it disappeared it looked very detailed. (Well, as much as a black and white eye can) Another time there was a scary face that I only saw half of, and as I was concentrating it turned around to stare at me. I was unable to break concentration on it without opening my eyes, but didn't feel the need to as wasn't that scary.

Now, while this is minorly disconcerting, it's not outright scary. Sometimes I'll be taken for surprise, but after two weeks of having these occur every night, often 5 or more in a 10 second span, I decided to just have fun with them, and make humorous comments about each one. The issue is that I've grown tired of that, and due to a more active and involving lifestyle often are too tired to "play" with the faces and instead just get annoyed when they pop up.

Realistically I won't be going back to the point when I spent most of the 10-15 minutes it takes for me to fall asleep making jokes about the faces (and occasionally full people or other objects) that appear. But since I still have to live with this, I don't want it to be a negative experience. While I have never been able to control this before, (If I think of a specific person or even a general idea of a face I want/don't want to see, it won't pop up) I know that the way I act does have limited control as proven by the fact that concentrating on faces can cause advanced actions such as winking or a face turning around. Thus I was wondering if there's any way to control what I see so that I don't have to get annoyed/mildly frightened by randomly appearing moving faces when I want to go to sleep.

Short Version:

I see many random, stick figure-esque faces when I have my eyes closed at night. Mostly they disappear instantly, but now they often move around in realistic fashion such as winking or rotating their head 180 degrees if I concentrate on them. Is there any way to control them more than this, so I don't get annoyed by moving faces when I want to go to sleep?

[JinxDeMynx]

Well that's creepy, I can talk to ghost, so maybe I'm not one to talk.

Anyway, do they appear when you blink?

[Grandpa Greenman]

I think you should talk to your doctor and maybe see a neurologist. What your talking about doesn't seem like normal brain activity. I have MS and it affects the brain, so I am kind of aware of the tricks you brain can pull on you and when it is time to get professional help.

[SpiritWriter]

Does this happen each and every time you close your eyes and occur all night long?

[Careful_perspective]

I agree with the posters above who say you should go to the Doctor. It never hurts to check, god forbid something is neurologically going on, its best to have it diagnosed early.

[WiseWarrior]

JinxDeMynx/Spirit Writer: They do not appear when I blink. My eyes need to be shut for a few minutes before they first appear, and it might be 10 minutes before they did if my mind is occupied by something else. Once they start appearing it'll no longer take minutes, it can often occur a few seconds after closing my eyes. This does not occur with my eyes open, as the symptoms I have then match the pareidolia descriptions I've found through research.

I mentioned this occurred after seeing a hypnagogic hallucination of my dad's face. This was a day after he had a seizure, which was a traumatic incident for me. After his seizure I was terrified of having nightmares. I had non-frightening dreams involving his seizure the night of his seizure (As I rarely ever have bad dreams) but immediately upon waking saw the aforementioned simple visual hallucination of his face. For the next couple weeks I was terrified he would have another seizure, while also being incredibly on edge and afraid I would see a scarier, complex visual hallucination, such as waking up to see him in bed next to me having a seizure.

Seeing the faces started the day after. I was scared to go to bed for a while until I was able to change my mindset of viewing them as scary, and instead as humorous. I overcame the fear associated with my dad's seizure and the initial hyphnagogic hallucination shortly after and was fine. Over time I lost interest in the faces, and instead ignored them. If I concentrated on another subject in my mind they wouldn't appear, but that if my mind started thinking about them subconsciously they sometimes would (Though it wouldn't be instantaneous after the thought)

I posted this on another forum and a response from a user said the experience from seeing the hallucination of my dad's face triggered an over-reaction in my brain to where I see faces of things that aren't there. I initially assumed that while the experience lingered on my mind I would see the faces, whereupon they would disappear one I had moved on. It's been months since I've dwelt or thought much at all of the seizure, with no dreams of it, although occasionally I get fearful if I hear a weird noise from the area he's in. (As that's what caused me to check on him and discover he was having a seizure) However, I still get them, as now they move, which is what is concerning.

In terms of ruling out causes, it is most likely not caused by medication. I was on nortriptyline for urination issue, and my doctor raised the dosage a few weeks after my dad's seizure. I experienced simple visual hallucinations I would see each time I woke up in the morning, regardless of whether I opened my eyes when I woke up (Such a face on my fan, or words in a fake language on my eyelids that wouldn't disappear without blinking. I went off the medication, and the hallucinations stopped immediately. The faces at night did not, and occurred prior to the increase, leading to believe the nortriptyline was not the cause. The only medication I'm on now is Prilosec, which was started several months after the faces first appeared.

Second cause in my opinion is the trauma from my dad's seizure and resulting hypnagogic hallucination. It is possible the incidents, while not inducing much anxiety when thinking about them, might still be enough of an issue so I still seeing the faces. This theory is supported by the fact that I had a life-changing epiphany a few days ago that changed how I viewed life, causing me to be much more peaceful and relaxed. Despite occasionally thinking of the faces with my eyes closed, I have probably seen around 5 in 3 days, including none last night, compared to 20-30 in a normal night before.

Lastly, I am seeing a neurologist early next month for memory loss, and was also planning to bring up the face issue, but want to know as much regarding the phenomenon as possible in order to give an accurate description to my doctor.

[Grandpa Greenman]

I am hoping Wisewarrior sees this thread.

http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=276326entry5404399

[Twin]

I don't see anything in particular when I close my eyes, but sometimes i see vague patterns of colors, shapes, and sometimes even objects.

I think what is happening is that when you close your eyes your visual cortex is still active.

Since there is nothing to actually see, your brain which seems to be a "Make sense of this" system tries to.

Thus, pareidolia. I also think this has something to do with dreaming.

I've found a way to make use of this phenomena.

I simply watch it mindlessly - you know like we watch television.

Very soon I'm asleep.

It works for me.

[S2F]

I don't think seeing things when your eyes are closed qualifies as pareidolia. Examples of pareidolia are seeing a bunny in the clouds or hearing words in random noises and usually don't persist or recur after the experience is over.

[rashore]

I think it's possible to control pareidolia- one just chooses to see things as they are instead of allowing the subconscious to make the things into something else. Kind of the opposite of those optical illusion tricks where you are trying to see images out of others.

However, pareidolia does not sound like the case here. I agree with others when they say get yourself checked out by a doctor. You could be having health issues, and that should be addressed before anything else. Better safe health than sorry.