A patient explains that she has, for as long as she can remember, experienced a distinct colour whenever she hears music, finding the experience pleasant and unremarkable rather than distressing. Before revealing the answer: is this a reflex hallucination?
No, this is more consistent with synaesthesia than with a reflex hallucination. A reflex hallucination is involuntary, unbidden, and typically distressing, arising in the context of illness; here, the lifelong, pleasant, and unremarkable quality of the experience, present since as far back as she can remember, points instead toward ordinary, non-clinical synaesthesia.
References
- Casey, P. & Kelly, B. (2019). Fish's Clinical Psychopathology, 4th ed. Ch. 3, 'Disorders of Perception'.