Visual representations in 35 schizophrenic patients are discussed. The subjects were 21 men and 14 women, 18-79 years of age (mean 35.0±13.6), who met the ICD-10 diagnostic criteria for schizophrenia. Their 70 episodes of visual representations had various duralions and 16subjects (45 .7%) experienced the onset of visual representations before the diagnosis ofschizophrenia was made. The episodes were divided into 3 tages;autochthonous experience. obsession, and fantasy. Four subjects (11.4%)experienced only the first stage.7 (20.0%) experienced the second,1 (2.9%) experienced the third, and 23(65.7%) had plural stages during the course of schizophrenia. The shift patterns among stages showed a tendency from the first to the second, and to the third such as changes in verbal hallucinations, in accordance with the process of ego disorder. Visual representations in schizophrenia are regarded as pseudo-hallucination and might be one of the symptoms contributing to the earlier diagnosis of schizophrenia.

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