Read the following Case-Study and answer the questions that follow.
Vijay graduated from college and got a job at a local grocery store. After working for six months he began to hear voices of people hatching a plan to poison him. He stopped eating and drinking anything in the shop as he felt it tasted bitter and looked green in colour. He reported smelling strange odour in the shop. He would take long winding detours on his way home as he felt people were following him. He told his family that the supervisor was against him and would one day burn down the shop in an attempt to kill him. One day he slapped a customer and swore that someone else made him slap him using his hand. No evidence was found to support his allegations.
Identify the hallucination that Vijay is NOT suffering from:
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 3
The correct answer is Option (3) → Tactile
Hallucinations are perceptions that occur in the absence of external stimuli, and they can involve any of the senses. Each sense Vijay uses in the case points to one kind.
Option (1) Auditory — Present in Vijay (Incorrect). He hears voices of people hatching a plan to poison him. Auditory hallucinations, hearing sounds or voices, are the most common in schizophrenia.
Option (2) Visual — Present in Vijay (Incorrect). The food in the shop looked green in colour to him. Visual hallucinations are vague perceptions of colour or distinct visions of people or objects.
Option (3) Tactile — Not present in Vijay (Correct). Tactile hallucinations are false sensations of touch, forms of tingling or burning on the skin. Nothing in the case describes such a feeling. His swearing that someone else made him slap a customer with his hand is not a sensation of touch either; it is a delusion of control, a false belief that his actions are controlled by others.
Option (4) Gustatory — Present in Vijay (Incorrect). He felt that the food and drink tasted bitter. Gustatory hallucinations are those in which food or drink taste strange. (His smelling a strange odour in the shop is an olfactory hallucination, which the options do not name.)
NCERT (2025-26): “Symptoms of Schizophrenia … People with schizophrenia may have hallucinations, i.e. perceptions that occur in the absence of external stimuli. Auditory hallucinations are most common in schizophrenia. Patients hear sounds or voices that speak words, phrases and sentences directly to the patient (second-person hallucination) or talk to one another referring to the patient as s/he (third-person hallucination). Hallucinations can also involve the other senses. These include tactile hallucinations (i.e. forms of tingling, burning), somatic hallucinations (i.e. something happening inside the body such as a snake crawling inside one’s stomach), visual hallucinations (i.e. vague perceptions of colour or distinct visions of people or objects), gustatory hallucinations (i.e. food or drink taste strange), and olfactory hallucinations (i.e. smell of poison or smoke).…” |