Question for people who "hear voices."

Post Reply New Topic

You guys know how psychotic people are said to "hear voices"? You guys also know how when you hear a catchy song you sometimes involuntarily replay the lyrics in your head? When psychotic people "hear voices," do they hear voices the way they would hear the lyrics of a song playing in their heads, or the way they hear voices coming from the outside world? If it's the later, can they actually teach themselves to distinguish voices originating in their heads from real voices?

You might find this interesting. It's a show called "to the best of our knowledge" on NPR. One of the segments is about this guy who heard voices all his life and he never told anyone. So apparently he was able to tell the difference.

http://www.pluggd.tv/audio/channels/to_ ... odes/4ycry

Psychotic people can hear voices inside or outside their heads. It can go either way. When I hear voices (not that often) I hear it outside my head and can't tell the difference between the hallucination and an actual voice. I mainly get visual and tactile hallucinations. One of the meds that the pdoc put me on actually increased the hallucinations and I started hearing voices. What is funny is that was an anti psychotic med (Moban) and I looked up the side effects and it said, "rare side effect: makes psychotic symptoms worse." I ALWAYS get the so called rare side effects as well as the common. With Geodon (I was on that for awhile until I developed dangerous side effects) I had a resting heart rate of 130-150 and it caused uncontrollable arm movements. Even though this isn't an anti psychotic, Lithium made my hair fall out, Lamictal made me break out in hives, the current med I am on is called Invega and it has embarrassing side effects. It makes your prolactin levels go through the roof and that makes your boobs leak fluid and if its severe enough makes your period stop. It also increases breast size, men would love that in a woman! Bigger boobs! Embarrassing side effects, huh? By the way, I have those side effects and when I see my pdoc the next time, I will ask to be taken off this med. I'd rather hallucinate than be in public and have a wet spot on my shirt where my you know whats are.

sorry for not being expert in this subject but stereotype is folowing: spyco gets sudently this :"jump to buss" and aspie lyrics: "hey i remember this song i loved it " ........after 6hours:"make it stop i cant get it out":P

'Hearing voices' generally refers to auditory hallucinations. This means the voices appear to be part of the outside world, and can be indistinguishable from it. This is the same as how visual hallucinations are not mental pictures or daydreams but things that aren't real appearing in the real world.

I've heard that there can be something called 'thought insertion' which is where the voices are inside your head, but the person doesn't recognise them as their own thoughts. I think this is like a song stuck in your head. I am not sure on any of this though.

From my understanding, when someone is diagnosed with psychosis, they cannot tell their hallucinations from real things. I think they can learn to manage though once they know they are psychotic and hallucinating, because they can watch others reactions to new hallucinations or know that their usual hallucinations aren't real. I'm not sure if they can work it out by logic (eg. it's highly unlikely that a T-rex is in my living room, therefore it is an hallucination) but people with hallucinations due to other conditions often know they are hallucinating.

What is it called if you just remember the audio from a painful or traumatic memory when your trying to sleep or work or something?

I have never heard voices but I chose to answer this because I have read stuff written by people who say they hear them. From what I understand, they cannot tell the difference between a real voice from a real person and a voice that originates in their head. They hear a voice and they really believe it is originating from some source that isn't their own brain. Sometimes they might think it's neighbors or a relative. Sometimes they fabricate elaborate explanations that are a delusional system.

I would say that's flashbacks. I knew someone with PSTD who got that. I've also read things to do with anxiety and depression which talk about disturbing thoughts that stop you from concentrating.


With the voices inside/outside the head, here is an interesting thing I read in a book I have about the mind and brain: If you set things up so that when a person speaks, they hear their own voice distorted through a headset, a schizophrenic person won't recognise it's their voice, and even though it's what they've just said, they'll think it's someone else talking.

FireBird - I forgot to say this in my last post: sorry you are having so many problems with your meds. I think many medications leave a lot to be desired (I know many psychiatric ones do at least). I like the idea that someday I will get a job developing better drugs for these kinds of problems.

Besides the audible stuff, I get thought insertion which in my case isn't the same as the voices. These are definitely not my own thoughts. I receive thoughts from the government and the aliens, mainly the gov though. They command me to do things, tell me things that sound impossible but since they are so convincing, I believe it anyways because I also have severe visual hallucinations (much more than my auditory hallucinations) even weird and impossible ones like yesterday I saw a stop sign in the middle of the road in midair, just floating there. Also what I think is either a laser or blood dripping down from the ceiling. I see fully formed people keep on running across the street and I ask the driver if they saw anything and the answer is usually "no." During the time of the hallucination (with the exception of the very weird ones) I have to ask if they saw it or heard it. I think the people that I see are government agents that only I can see because they implanted a chip in my brain and a bomb in my neck along with machines both big and small (the "nanobots" are the small ones, the big ones are new feels like snakes or worms on your brain or other body part). In case you are wondering, yes I have been diagnosed with Evil Schizoaffective disorder. I said that because I know someone is going to reply, "are you schizophrenic?" But the diagosis is wrong because with like I said before the exception of the impossible hallucinations, I don't have delusions and the auditory hallucinations just happen occasionally. The doctor graduated from Evil Medical School because that special school has an entire class on how to diagnose me with schizophrenia! I love Evil doctors because they are so evil! Dr. Evil is my pdoc. I see him on Tuesday. Hopefully he'll take me off the anti psychotics because I don't need them because I am neurotic and not psychotic! I am hallucinating because of the pills, not from schizoaffective disorder or schizophrenia. That is the cancer of the mind.

They are not the thoughts of your conscious self, but they originate in your brain.



So you force yourself to believe it because you figure it's easier to believe it than to cope with the anxiety caused by your knowing that you are losing control of your mind?



Your hallucinations can't be that severe if you are aware they are hallucinations.

Most of the time I am unaware that they are hallucinations and have to ask someone else if they have seen what I just did. But there are some that you can definitely tell that they are hallucinations because it is impossible. Like other times I've had a helicopter in my room, a tiger in my room, random items floating in midair, those you know right away that they are hallucinations because it can't happen in real life. But things like people running across the road or animals, that can happen in real life so I don't know if its a hallucination or not until I ask. Once I saw an alien animal that looked weird and it was bouncing up and down across the road, luckily I don't drive because I would try to avoid all these things. I would have no time to ask if they saw it or not. You have to make quick decisions when you drive. I would have been in many accidents avoiding things that are not really there. I've even "hallucinated" cars and stuff.

Firebird, I don't know if you are aware of this or not, but if the leaking is your only side effect, and the medication works otherwise, there are these little pads that you can get at maternity shops, since "leakage" is a problem for a lot of nursing mothers. You hear a baby crying, and next thing you know, your shirt's wet. The pads come in disposable and washable varieties.

I heard voices VERY rarely when I was little. I honestly thought they were real. I couldn't tell the difference. I also hear things like taps going and I can't tell the difference.
EMZ=]

I don't think it has to do with her subconscious mind thinking it's time to nurse a baby...

Read what she said:

It makes your prolactin levels go through the roof and that makes your boobs leak fluid and if its severe enough makes your period stop. It also increases breast size, men would love that in a woman! Bigger boobs! Embarrassing side effects, huh? By the way, I have those side effects and when I see my pdoc the next time, I will ask to be taken off this med. I'd rather hallucinate than be in public and have a wet spot on my shirt where my you know whats are.

I'm not pregnant.

I'm not saying that her subconscious mind thinks it's time to nurse a baby. Her subconscious mind has nothing to do with it. Leaky boobs is a side effect of the medication. I understood that. I'm confused how my post could possibly give the message that I thought her subconcious mind thinks it's time to nurse a baby? What part of my post gave that impression?

I'm just saying that there are pads that can keep the wetness from going through the shirt, so as not to cause embarrassing wet spots.

The pads are readily available at maternity shops, because it's an item that nursing mothers typically have a need for. But they would also be useful for someone whose boobs leak because of their medication.


Firebird, I know you aren't pregnant or nursing a baby. Sorry if I somehow gave that impression.