- hallucinatory state
- A term that tends to be used quite loosely to indicate the presence of hallucinatory phenomena, irrespective of the context in which they occur. The French term état hallucinatoire was used - and possibly introduced - in 1845 by the French psychiatrist Jacques-Joseph Moreau de Tours (1804-1884) to express the conceptual and phenomenological analogies which he discerned between * hashish hallucinations and the * dream state. The term état hallucinatoire has also been used to denote a person's * hallucinatory disposition, i.e. an individual's ability or propensity to hallucinate. As the French physician Pierre Dheur wrote in 1899, "Hallucinations are the resultant of a normal mechanism, functioning under peculiar circumstances, that we designate as the hallucinatory state." Dheur distinguishes four main factors that would seem to determine a person's hallucinatory state, comprising intoxications, transient pathological states such as congestion or fever, chronic pathological states such as neurological or psychiatric illnesses, and idiopathic (i.e. in "persons who are called healthy of mind"). In addition to the group of * hallucinations proper, Dheur distinguishes four types of phenomena attributable to the hallucinatory state, comprising pathological dreams, *hypnagogic hallucinations, *psychic hallucinations, and * illusions. He conceptualizes these phenomena as lying on a continuum with hallucinations proper.ReferencesDheur, P. (1899). Les hallucinations volontaires (l'état hallucinatoire). Suivi d'un chapitre sur les hallucinations. Notes manuscrites et inédites du Dr. J. Moreau (de Tours). Paris: Société d'Éditions Scientifiques.Moreau, J.-J. (1845). Du hachisch et de l'aliénation mentale. Études psychologiques. Paris: Fortin Masson.
Dictionary of Hallucinations. J.D. Blom. 2010.