When I realised I was seeing things that other people didn’t, how come I labelled some as hallucinations (the ones associated with my breakdown) and others (all the rest of them) as clairvoyant? You must be wondering! In writing this record, I have started to wonder myself.
When they were happening, there was no question in my mind, no wondering about the nature of the experience – though, with both kinds, I was astounded to be having such an experience at all. (Except when I was a little kid, and didn’t realise my experiences were anything out of the ordinary.) My judgment and response were instantaneous, engaging my whole person; no need to think about them at all.
I look back now and try to identify differences in the nature of these two kinds of seeing what others didn’t.
For one thing, the hallucinations were bizarre. They were basically of things that don’t and couldn’t happen. The psychic visual images were of things belonging to the world of reality, even when they weren’t concrete in this world at the time. World War II warships did exist, and had existed in the place where I saw them, even though not at the time when I saw them there. But a fellow tram-passenger’s face breaking into bits and reassembling itself as a Picasso-style image? No, we don’t encounter that in our everyday reality, ever (except in works of art).
And really, that’s it. The only other criterion I can offer is my own reaction itself – the fact that I did perceive them differently in my own mind, feel them differently in my bodily reaction, and relate to them differently in my response and understanding.
It’s somewhat like the difference between a dream state and waking consciousness. In a dream, sooner or later you know it’s a dream, if only when you finally wake up. It feels different, even if you can’t define how.