I always thought this was interesting, and figured it would be an interesting conversation with enough educated people. This is for conversation only, not for any serious medical advice or anything like that.
A while ago I was in the hospital for a few weeks for pancreatitis, and they had to keep me on Dilaudid intravenous at a high dose every I think 2 hours or so.
On the morning of the 4th or 5th day or so, I started hearing my hospital roommate speaking in Hebrew and Aramaic with his wife (I'm not Jewish or even close, but I was born and literally grew up next to a Yeshiva in Brooklyn. I don't know, nor have I ever studied either language, but I understood it as being the language. Afterwords, I even looked up some of the words being said from either language later on and they turned out to actually be that language). The TV also started speaking in Hebrew, with some commercials in Aramaic. During it, I figured I was just confused or something, because IT WAS confusing for things to all be speaking in Hebrew and Aramaic, and not only did I understand the language, but I also knew what language it was. Having people tell you that they are speaking in English, while all you hear being spoken from them and yourself is another language is beyond jarring.
Then later on in the same day I started hearing every employee in the building start speaking Turkish. Later on at night the TV started speaking only in Greek. My family is both, but I have barely met the Greek speaking ones and I don't know Greek at all. My Turkish is subpar. But I asked some family members afterwords and I looked up some words and phrases I remembered from the experience, and they were all correct Greek or Turkish. More specifically, they were old style, very proper and polite forms of the language, and some even from ancient Greek or the old Turkic language. I never studied those languages old or new, and I only know basic spoken Turkish from my mother. Again, just like the Hebrew or Aramaic, I understood that the language wasn't English, but rather another language.
The next morning, I heard everyone speaking English clear as day. Even my other roommate and his wife. Who are Hispanic and apparently barely spoke any English. I even spoke with them, but then later was told by the first roommate I mentioned that I was speaking Spanish with them. I took some mandatory Spanish classes at school when I was younger, a lot of years passed and I never even gave a crap or paid any attention or even attempted to try to do the classwork in any of the Spanish classes because I learned that while they were mandatory in the schools, passing them was not a requirement for moving on and graduating. So I literally didn't care at all. So how did I speak Spanish fluently with them? Enough to have a full conversation over the entire morning. I always had earbuds on in Spanish class in school, and when the teacher called on me in class, I used to literally just walk out of the classroom. So passively learning doesn't make sense for Spanish. At least I used to hear to the kids at the Yeshiva speaking to each other often. Not for Spanish at all though. The entire time speaking Spanish, I didn't know or understand I was at all. I thought it was English being spoken.
I don't really understand what happened. But I'm convinced that the Dilaudid had a big role in this. I understand auditory hallucinations are a thing, but this seems beyond the normal scope of things.
Any input at all would be appreciated. I don't have a specific question, but I wanted to share this and maybe hear back on any opinions or thoughts on this at all. I have approached this from different angles before, but I always end up stumped eventually. I don't know if I had a mental breakdown of some sort, though probably did. But even if that is the case, it doesn't explain the languages. I guess a question would be, has anyone heard of a patient having any sort of experience even remotely similar to what I experienced myself?