Hearing distant voices when tired

Post Reply New Topic

I think that this is just sleep deprivation but when I become overtired and/or emotioinally exhausted I hear voices. Theyre just memories of things my parents may have said . They fel like random neuronal misfirings that is - as if an auditory memory ius being randomly triggrered in my overworked head.

Ugh I need to sleep my typing has gone to the pits

Are you lying down when this happens?

Our auditory systems are quite amazing. You can be sitting in a crowded food court, with hundreds of shoppers talking, chairs squeaking, fridges and airconditioners going - the decibel level quite loud. Then your friend says something to you with food in his mouth, and it comes out all muffled. But your brain can figure out what he has been saying, despite all the noise going on, despite his distorted signal.

All of this constant processing is very tiring. It may just be that you are tired and your brain is making mistakes. This is not the same thing as an auditory hallucination where your brain invents the hallucination from its own memories. There is a fine line here, because the brain has to use its own memories to fill in the gaps of what your friend is saying. But an hallucination is not related to reality and there are different brain pathways involved.

My personal opinion is that it is poosible to hear more hallucinatory voices when tired. You might be interested in this side: http://www.intervoiceonline.org/

Sarah81 wrote:

Our auditory systems are quite amazing. You can be sitting in a crowded food court, with hundreds of shoppers talking, chairs squeaking, fridges and airconditioners going - the decibel level quite loud. Then your friend says something to you with food in his mouth, and it comes out all muffled. But your brain can figure out what he has been saying, despite all the noise going on, despite his distorted signal.

Not in my case. I struggle to comprehend anything anyone is saying in such noisy places. I dealt with that a few months ago.

fascinating site! Cheers Raziel. The voices are tiny snatches of conversatoin "Pass the salt love" for example. Theyre not even "real enough" to make me think that theyre coming from the environment. I know that theyre in my head. Im not woried about this being schizophrenia as ive experienced weird seizure like events since I was a child. I'd be at school having had liottle sleep and my face twitch uncontrollably. Sometimes an incredibly clear mental image would accompany said twitch... now its mainly an incredibly clear auditory flash with no "tiwtch".

I think that this may be bizarre even in the wonderful world of WP heh

Apologies for my pooor typing too. Ive made the switch to pc after years on a laptop and im getting used to using a keyboard which isnt directly beneath the screen (my midi keyboard sits between the keybord and flatscreen)

when I am on the fatigued side I sometimes hear "the music of the spheres" within the static drone of background noise.

both me and my late mother were awoken at the same time by my late father after his death, who shouted "HEY!"

I've gotten this and it depends on how tired I am. There are stages leading up to it as I go from fully awake to completely asleep. When I'm awake like I am now I direct my thoughts and they make sense and I know they're my own thoughts. I don't hear them and they aren't totally random. As I get tired my thoughts start to direct themselves and they take a life of their own. I still don't hear them and they still seem like my thoughts they're just random and out of my control. They happen on their own. Then if I get super drowsy I go past that stage and not only do they have a life of their own but I start to hear them playing in my head. Suddenly I'm so drowsy and out of it that I can hear my own thoughts playing like a record. They could turn into a conversation between two people but it's hard for me to pay direct attention to the conversation without waking myself up and returning to normal. I have to be too drowsy to pay attention to it in order for it to happen.

I've gotten this and it depends on how tired I am. There are stages leading up to it as I go from fully awake to completely asleep. When I'm awake like I am now I direct my thoughts and they make sense and I know they're my own thoughts. I don't hear them and they aren't totally random. As I get tired my thoughts start to direct themselves and they take a life of their own. I still don't hear them and they still seem like my thoughts they're just random and out of my control. They happen on their own. Then if I get super drowsy I go past that stage and not only do they have a life of their own but I start to hear them playing in my head. Suddenly I'm so drowsy and out of it that I can hear my own thoughts playing like a record. They could turn into a conversation between two people but it's hard for me to pay direct attention to the conversation without waking myself up and returning to normal. I have to be too drowsy to pay attention to it in order for it to happen.

I brought this up with my girlfriend earlier who is fairly NT and she said she's experienced the same thing once I started describing it. She was then able to add details I remembered and related to. Sounds more normal than you might first think.

Hmmm that does happen when I am really tired....but it can also happen if I've been alone in the quiet for a long period of time. What is really annoying though is when I hear someone like my brother for instance call my name and then go to see what they want only to realize I didn't really hear them calling.

im not sure if this is what you mean but i get something called hypnagogic hallucinations when falling asleep. usually with sleep paralysis. which is basically when you plummet into rem sleep vs going through the stages