I’ve been buying a lot of reflective materials over the past few years. Some of the good voices I hear in my own schizophrenia experience have suggested it. From old CDs to aluminum foil to full mirrors, I’ve put a lot into shiny and reflective items in hopes to repel (or, keep away) visual hallucinations. The results I experience when I tape new CDs on my walls, shiny side out, are very helpful. The affect that I get from taping the 2-4 foot sheets of aluminum foil on my walls, shinier side out, is even better because they consume more wall space.
But the best reflective material for keeping visual hallucinations away, as far as I know, are full length mirrors. I bought three last month. I faced all of them on floors and walls, reflective sides facing out. So after the past few years of dealing with a sharp increase in hallucinations, what is it about reflective material that keeps visual hallucinations away? While this kind of practice is not necessarily suggested by doctors for schizophrenia-induced hallucinations, not yet at least, I think there are a number of ways reflective material keeps the visual imagination from running too terribly fast. If other schizophrenia minds attach visual hallucinations to the forms of people and characters, facing a mirror (for example) at a specific corner in a specific room (or three) in your house could, in theory, make the talking characters turn away to a different part of the house.
But most importantly, pushing the characters with voices backward is the first step in keeping more angles of one’s visual imagination clear. Many of the visual hallucinations unfolding as people and characters are not full in color to a lot of schizophrenia patients. In rare instances, they are in full, dark color and those can be very disturbing because of the similarity to real people with real skin, real hair and real folds in their skin. Most of the time, character hallucinations appear very transparent, thin and light. Think of video game characters that are mere rough drafts on the game developer’s computer, not yet presentable to a final gaming product or community. I’ve noticed that more transparent visual hallucinations, often seeming paper thin, can be turned away by shiny, reflective material.
For other schizophrenia patients out there who do have certain rooms and corners of where they live that they want to protect from visual hallucinations, I recommend buying reflective material and lining it on the walls. There isn’t much to lose, except for some hallucinations, I suppose. Regardless, it’s just a suggestion. We’re all in this effort for mental health awareness together. So much is still not known about schizophrenia.
