The term vestibular-motor hallucination is indebted to the Latin words vestibulum (forecourt, entrance hall) and motio (movement). It is used to denote a cluster of spatial, temporal, and orientational *hallucinoid experiences that may occur during episodes of * sleep paralysis. The term was proposed in or shortly before 2003 by the Canadian psychologist and sleep researcher James Allan Cheyne to denote one of the major clusters of hallucinoid experiences found to emerge from factor-analytic studies of the * nightmare. The cluster of vestibular-motor hallucinations includes feelings of flying, falling, and floating, as well as elevator feelings, spinning sensations, *autoscopy, and * out-of-body experience. Conceptually and phenomenologically, the vestibular-motor hallucination may well be relatedtothe* space-motion hallucination.
References
Cheyne, J.A. (2003). Sleep paralysis and the structure of waking-nightmare hallucinations. Dreaming, 13, 163-179.
Dictionary of Hallucinations. J.D. Blom. 2010.