Hearing voices in your head?

[bomohwkl]

From
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/5346930.stm

Voices in the head 'are normal'

Some who hear voices fear be branded as "crazy"
Hearing voices in your head is so common that it is normal, psychologists believe.
Dutch findings suggest one in 25 people regularly hears voices.

Contrary to traditional belief, hearing voices is not necessarily a symptom of mental illness, UK researchers at Manchester University say.

Indeed, many who hear voices do not seek help and say the voices have a positive impact on their lives, comforting or inspiring them.

Human diversity

Researcher Aylish Campbell said: "We know that many members of the general population hear voices but have never felt the need to access mental health services.

"Some experts even claim that more people hear voices and don't seek psychiatric help than those who do."

Some who hear voices describe it as being like the experience of hearing someone call your name only to find that there is no one there.

It doesn't seem to be hearing voices in itself that causes the problem

Researcher Aylish Campbell


"I learned to live with voices"

People also hear voices as if they are thoughts entering the mind from somewhere outside themselves. They will have no idea what the voice might say. It may even engage in conversation.

The Manchester team want to investigate why some people view their voices positively while others become distressed and seek medical help.

Ms Campbell said: "It doesn't seem to be hearing voices in itself that causes the problem.

"What seems to be more important is how people go on to interpret the voices."

She said external factors, such as a person's life experiences and beliefs, might influence this.


"If a person is struggling to overcome a trauma or views themselves as worthless or vulnerable, or other people as aggressive, they may be more likely to interpret their voices as harmful, hostile or powerful.

"Conversely, a person who has had more positive life experiences and formed more healthy beliefs about themselves and other people might develop a more positive view of their voices."

Past studies have found that people who hear voices have often had a traumatic childhood.

Ms Campbell said stigmatisation could also play a role.

"If a person starts hearing voices and also holds the beliefs of some of society that this means they are mentally ill, it is going to cause them more distress. It also stops them talking about it to others."

Professor Marius Romme, president of Intervoice, a "hearing voices" charity, said: "Because of the fears and misunderstandings in society and within psychiatry about hearing voices, they are generally regarded as a symptom of an illness, something that is negative to be got rid of, and consequently the content and meaning of the voice experience is rarely discussed.

"Our work and research has shown more than 70% of people who hear voices can point to a traumatic life event that triggered their voices; that talking about voices and what they mean is a very effective way to reduce anxiety and isolation; and that even when the voices are overwhelming and seemingly destructive they often have an important message for the hearer."

Paul Corry of the mental health charity Rethink said: "Rethink welcomes this investigation, which we hope will help support our campaign to bring mental health issues into the mainstream."

People interested in participating in the University of Manchester research should call 0161 306 0405 or email voiceresearch@hotmail.co.uk.

Participants should be aged 16 or over, have been hearing voices for at least six months and live in the northwest of England

[brettmtl]

Thanks Bomohwkl,

That makes me feel a lot better

Dutch findings suggest one in 25 people regularly hears voices.

I thought the figure would have been a lot higher, though it could depend on what voices we are talking about.

Doesn't everyone have a little voice ticking over, saying this or guiding that. For those who say 'what voice', that is exactly the voice I refer to.

[Alisima]

Let me understand the logic here, just because we all display signs of illness it is suddenly normal? Not ill anymore? Although the general public has relative weak voices, they have definitely not degraded so far as some shizoprenics, the fact remains that we partake in a rather curious ritual: we talk to ourselves. Any every nimwit knows that in talking to yourself you have already deceided, before actually speaking, what you are going to say. And yet we still say it!! We know our thoughts, yet still we, every time, partake in an auditory hallucination. If one start to pay attention to it, one will see that we first are offered a thought, from where I don't know, and we then start to dream a whole lovely subjective world around it, sometimes deep, sometimes shallow. But anyway you turn it, it remain that we don't control what these voices say, and while some maybe not of our own origin, others are. In other words, we don't control our own auditory hallucinations. And this they call normal. Well, perhapse for John Doe, that is, the hypothetical average man, but surely there must be some who have surpassed that level.

If you look it from another point, these so-called psychologists don't acknowledge the fact that there are higher possibilities for man. Like Freud, they think that the average man is the best we as humans can get. Ofcourse, hearing voices in your head is not a sickness, but it is surely something that has to be grown out of. Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, and others, were in the conviction that Man has to evolve into higher modes of being. Nietzsche, in his book Thus Spake Zarathustra, called this the Übermensch (which was so wrongfully intepretated by Hitler). In any case, Nietzsche was of the opinion that Man is a bridge and has to be crossed.

But they are right in one thing though, it is common, hearing voices. But it is not normal. In fact, viewed from the fact that Man is evolving, there is no normal. We are in a transitional stage and what we are now has nothing to do with normal or not. Like asking: what is normal, the oak or the acorn??

But, and this is the good part, they do analyse it, they do research it. Only the understanding is missing. But it will come, I hope.

[Alisima]

Regarding hearing voices in ones head in connection with telepathy, the voice I hear is remarkebly as my own. When I receive a telepathic 'message' it is mostly when a person is speaking, or is on the verge of doing so; just a second before he is going to say something I definitely 'hear' it, just as I hear my own thoughts. 7 out of the 10 times I assume it is my own thought, and only 3 out of 10 times do I conclude, in that split second, that it is not my own thought and that it is probably from someone around. The times when I conclude that it is not my own thought, I do this on the basis that the thought feels somewhat distant and remote, both in intensity and emotionally.

Moreover, when I hear the telepathic 'message' in my head it is often just one word, but I also 'sense' a more complex intention, meaning perhapse, behind the word. It actually happens more frequent than one would think. I bet we all have it at least once a month, but it often goes unnoticed and if noticed, it is general regarded as coincidence.

But even this voice we hear when receiving a telepathic message is, in my eyes, also an auditory hallucination. This time it is not based on our own thoughts, but on those of someone else, that is the only difference.

[Kitty]

The voices I hear sound like other people's voices. I rarely hear them but when I do they either warn me or just say random things. I was getting ready for shopping and was about to leave through my front door when I heard a man's voice saying, "Don't go. The store you want is closed." Nobody was home except me at the time. I don't know how to describe it, but it came from inside my head. I chose to shrug it off as my imagination and drove to the store anyway. I didn't expect it to be closed on a weekday at around 3PM, but it was (which was unusual). I think the "voice" belonged to the owner of the store who's a guy. I also had another recent experience. I was tossing and turning in my bed trying to fall asleep when I heard 2 or 3 people arguing. I couldn't really follow the conversation because they were talking too fast. Their conversation only lasted about 3 seconds, but I think they said about 15 sentences in that span of time. I know I wasn't half asleep or dreaming. I'm sure it wasn't the neighbours since it was too fast and I heard this coming from my head, again.

I told my close friend about these experiences and others. I was kinda surprised when she said something similar happened to her. She was planning on hanging out with a friend and fixing herself up in a mirror. She wasn't in the mood to go out so she was about to call her friend and cancel the meeting, but she heard a voice inside her head. It said, "It is very important that you go. You MUST meet someone tonight." She decided not to cancel anything and went out that night. She met a good man and they decided to get married a year or two later. He played a significant part in her future because he changed her life. If she hadn't gone out that night, her life would have been completely different and not in a good way.

[bomohwkl]

nice.... never hear of voices in my head which is constructive or good in a way in my life. Ocassionally hear random voices or voices which is demoting. Hate the latter.

[Robanan]

Sounds like some of us have naturally developed limited telephetic capabilities, have you tried to be more conscious about it?

[Rezo]

Only thrice in my life have i ever heard a voice. Each time I could only get one or two words, as if a radio tuning in to a station too far out. No spectacular words either. Once though I feel it was someone I knew, and I did get a kind of chill [good not bad kind] after hearing it.

Otherwise the impulse I pick up tends to be silent. How often I couldn't say. I wouldn't say its a regular occurrence.