Dopers that have heard "voices" in your head - What is it like?

In My Humble Opinion
21

I do hear voices occaisionally, and they are internal. But I only hear them before I’m going to have a seizure. Many people who have seizures get an aura before having one. It’s very distinctive from anything I’ve ever felt. For most people, it usually involves a strange, metallic taste in the mouth, tunnel vision, a headache, nausea or any number of other symptoms. But no, mine involves not only tunnel vision and a weird taste in my mouth, but also voices. And not just any voices. For some ungodly reason, I hear a muppet song just before every seizure. It sounds bizarre, but I’m completely serious. And I can’t remember the damn song at any other time.

To be honest, while I really don’t enjoy that stupid song or the seizure, I think it’s absolutely hilarious. Imagine, someone cursed with a muppet song. It’s like playing Barney songs to torture victims.

22

I have been voice-free for years, but whenever I try to ‘acces’ the feeling I had then, it’s still there, available and ready to be re-activated. It’s like a sadistic trick that you can do with you’re mind, even after years of it’s absence.

I wouldn’t say it’s my voice per se, but it’s recognizable as coming from myself instead of other people. Like a broken record of my thoughts, that’s being scratched and twisted. They were my thoughts but it felt detached from the person that I view as ‘me’ (does that make sense?).

In my case I wouldn’t describe it as only voices, but more of a short circuit that causes your thoughts to missfire and start rambling on and on about random (often negative) subjects. It mostly happened in situations where you don’t get a lot of stimulation from your environment, but at it’s worst it was not uncommon to happen during everday activities. I felt detached from my senses, not able to concentrate on the real world, and not able to shut it down.

The noise consisted of voices, percieved sound and images flashing when I closed my eyes (colored abstracts mostly).

Like Beegirl I haven’t been told do do explicit things by the voices. The problems I’ve had because of them stemmed more from my actions to try to stop the lack of control over my mind.

I’ve always known it was not real, in the ‘It’s a seperate identity’ way. I think of it as a very ‘bad’ or ‘wrong’ way of using your brain. A different mode of thinking that isn’t beneficial in the slightest, and very hard to shake loose from.

No upside. None. Terrifying, yes. From an early age I was thinking I was losing my mind and due for a psychosis. Not the best way to spent you’re time.

The percieved sound is not loud, like screaming, but overides real-world noise regardless. Real sounds were percieved, but took on a dream-like quality untill I snapped back into full reality.

Never awakened because of them, I’ve had times when it would begin immediately upon awakening so it’s hard to be certain. Like others said the period before sleep was an active one for me. The deprivation of senses and letting go of control of my mind made it easy to fall into the pattern.
I hope any of this made any sense. It’s hard to write about something that I don’t really have adequate words for (and try not to think about it too much :D).
[sub] If it doesn’t, I still assure you that the voices had no part in this post, except for the spelling errors.[/sub]

23

I have intense compulsions or emotional impulses that I’ve always called ‘voices’ because they’re so deeply subconscious they feel as if they are coming from someone entirely seperate to myself. They seem to be outside of my control and I have to consciously fight against them. The compulsion or emotion is usually destructive or so negative that it’s difficult to settle it with myself that it’s really coming from me, and that a part of me would really want to be so explicitly damaging to myself. I call them voices because they are very precise, very clear, as if someone was whispering it all in my ear, entire sentences which seem to pop into my head and it does feel as if I’m hearing them. However, I work in a field and with a client group which includes those with severe mental health issues, including unmedicated Schizophrenia, so am well aware that I don’t experience ‘voices’ per se, as I would be able to differentiate easily between these voices and those of real people.

24

Sure, why not? Here are my answers, FWIW:

They are the same volume as my internal monologue/thinking voice.

Both of my voices are male. I am a female (if you can’t tell by my name :))

Spanish is my second language, but I don’t know enough to be called bilingual. Both of my voices have only spoken English so far, though I know that my subconcious knows Spanish (I sometimes dream in it). One voice had the same sort of accent as I do (western New York) and the other had a New York City/New Jersey type accent.

None of my voices have ever interfered with sleep in any way.

Hope this is informative.

25

Well it’s like…

sottovoce Don’t tell them

…erm…sort of…

louder* I said don’t tell them*

aside “Yes, Master”

returns to message board. Sorry guys, no can do.

(I’m apologise if the above gave any offence. I was not mocking anyone, especially as my GF’s mother is suffering a mental illness.

I just couldn’t resist it…

26

Um, acutually notquitekarpov, it’s a lot like that, with me at least. Occasionally I’ll find myself playing mindgames with myself in order to be able to write/type/talk about particular subjects, mostly the nasty emotion-sharing sort. By mindgames I mean my thought processes go something like this: ‘Aha! You’re trying to write about feelings. You know we don’t allow that’ ‘Feelings? Hell no! I’m being flippant and witty, see, see’ ‘Oh, so you are. Carry on’ ‘Hee. I am SO tricky!’. Etc.

I don’t hear voices as such, it’s more like having a really bratty child in my head. A mean one at that. So I’ll be, y’know, being all normal-like, and then some wretched part of my brain will say something horrible and violent and detailed, and I just stop whatever I’m doing because, eww! I wouldn’t do that! I don’t think like that!

But then that bratty little kid in my head is all ‘man, I can’t belive you’d think that. How could you ever concieve of doing that to Sarah? She’d hate you if she knew what you were thinking…’

So I’m backpeddaling, trying to convince this brat who isn’t real that I didn’t really mean it, I wouldn’t ever do that, etc, and I realise I’ve lost the thread of the conversation.

Very annoying, occasionally disturbing.

27

I’ve never really talked about this before, but I’ve had auditory hallucinations of all different sorts. I never really realized some of them were such until I was married and living with someone else.

The voices I’ve heard are mostly along the lines of chatter - like being caught in the middle of a cocktail party. I’ll suddenly hear snippets of conversations, laughter, or just faint mumbling. I don’t know for sure when I’m in public what I’m really hearing and what is a hallucination.

The few times I’ve been directly addressed by any voices were usually when I was close to falling asleep, extremely fatigued, or ill. Generally when I was not in a condition that allowed me to be very alert or aware. I’ve never been commanded to do anything, though. Usually it’s more the form of a narrative of some kind, and begins to lose coherency after awhile.

Before I moved out of my last house a few months ago I would hear what sounded like Elvis music being played in reverse. It was very soft and low, and if I turned my head away from the ‘source’ it would fade out. I know it was a hallucination because my husband couldn’t hear it, but if I was alone I would have assumed it was real. It was just loud enough to be heard, as though a radio were on in another room. I searched the entire house, and was almost convinced that it was coming from the attic. This continued every evening, around the same time for about a month. After a few weeks the playlist changed from Elvis to gregorian chants with the voices adding some accompaniment.

I’ve never sought any sort of treatment because my life has not been affected in a negative way. I’m still not entirely sure whether some of the things I’ve experienced can be explained or if they were truly hallucinations. I know some of them had to have come from my own mind, there’s no other explanation, but I can’t say that I felt as though I had any connection to them. Sometimes when I’m writing I’ll hear someone whisper a line to me, make a suggestion of a sort. It’s usually quite a good one, too. Or sometimes I’ll hear something being narrated to me, fully formed, and the writing process is more or less dictation.

Like Gravity said, it’s more like hearing ghosts. You know you’re hearing someone talking, and the first thing in your head isn’t that you’re making the voices up. There’s no doubt that the voices are real, at least to you at the time.

28

Not me. The most I’ve had was an auditory hallucination after very little sleep for a week, which basically involve me adding a beat to ambient sounds, like airplanes and car motors. Strange. Other than that, my only potentially strange tendency is to carry on conversations in my head, imaging what the other person might say. However, I don’t really “hear” their voice, so it’s mostly just a way of fending off boredom.

29

Er, make that “involved[/d]" and "imagining**.”

Must. Sleep. :stuck_out_tongue:

30

Wow, I even fscked up the bolding tags. Rising at 6AM = baaaad.

31

Not. Usually a firm voice, but a soft one. Between a whisper and a casual conversation with two people in close proximity to each other.

I didn’t hear a distinct gender often … occasionally it was definitely a woman, but often it was a voice I couldn’t pin gender on … of course, at the time(s) I was more focused on other things:)

I didn’t detect any significant (or any at all, really) difference in age. I don’t know that I’d be able to detect it in a hearing test.

I don’t think I ever heard voices in French … but it’s possible I did. I don’t remember many of them that specifically.

No, which makes the second moot. And the voices, if I hear them at night, do what any other sound would do. if someone whispered in your ear, what would happen?:slight_smile:

And notquitekarpov … that happened with me more than once. Of course, once the auditory hallucination left, that sense of not being allowed to tell went away, but there was a certain shame/“is this person going to think I need to be committed” inherent in telling anyone.

32

well… I’ve … had problems. Not anymore, though. When it peaked it was horrifying. The voices, coming from behind me, were constantly arguing with each other, and me. If I did something in class, like raised my hand or something like that, they’d get real upset and shout at me. Mostly trying to get me to lower it. If I got the question they’d fall silent, most of the time, and only afterwards coming back, sneering at me. That wasn’t really the worst part, either. The worst part was the whispering. It began like silent whispers, getting louder and louder all the time. The whispering only occured when I was alone, and oftentimes ended in unconsciousness…

It was several voices, most of them males, but all of them were adults.

And no, I don’t want to know if I can get them back.

33

I want to thank everyone who responded to this thread with your experiences. I realize that for some of you it took significant courage. It was very illuminating (for me at least) in that it showed that the incidence of “hearing voices” can range from a low level radio-like presence, that’s part of an otherwise perfectly functional and normal lifestyle, to more serious levels, possibly requiring treatment. I had never realized the low end of this scale existed, in that I had always thought of it as “voices=serious problem”, and that is apparently not the case in a lot of situations.

Thanks again!

34

I would like to add my thanks for your insights. It is terribly difficult for me to understand my brother’s Schizophrenia. He is my twin and we shared our experiences throughout childhood. To have the disease change him so drastically is difficult to deal with.

For the seriously afflicted Schizophrenic the voices are debilitating. For him they are loud and commanding. Learning to deal with them without medication is not an option. I wonder why they tell him to do such strange things, and why it is impossible to tell the difference between fantasy and reality.

Thank you for some insight into that.

35

This is a fascinating and educational thread. Thank you, astro, for posing the questions and to all who have answered them so far.

It seems a large percentage of the voices that people hear seem to be negative in tone or substance (i.e. sneering or commanding/suggesting negative behaviors). Has any research been done as to why this is?

36

Being Deaf, I hear them too & for a long time. They are kinda neat, really clear, no accent. It’s okay to listen to them, I wouldn’t want to make them the main channel if you catch my drift.

37

I’ve only been plagued by mine on a few occasions. The voices are angry, very critical of me, and the experience is frightening and humiliating. I assume the voices come from a part of the inside of my head where I normally keep the most self-critical stuff, i.e., that they are not some kind of meaningless neuro-static and that it is a biologically and mentally healthy (even if unpleasant) part of inner reflection.

I can’t say that I recognized the voice(s) as anyone in particular. More a blend of different people. Definitely bits of my father in there, and my mother. But more like a composite archetype than a familiar “oh, it’s you” kind of presence. Seeing traces of real people I know is something that occurred in retrospect, it didn’t seem like them when it was happening.

You can’t distance yourself emotionally from the voices and argue with them or tell them to fuck off because the emotional intensity of the voices is YOUR emotional intensity and they cut right into you.

And, for that reason, the voices ARE REAL.

Yes, there’s an upside to it, in the same sense that crying or raging is healthier than keeping misery and anger bottled up. Letting it happen, processing it out, is good for you. And anything’s better than numbness.
I have received a diagnosis of “paranoid schizophrenic” (among others less lurid and spectacular) but I do not take psych meds, I do not see a psychiatrist, and I am in fact part of the psychiatric consumers’/survivors’/ex-inmates’ liberation movement that opposes forced treatment.

In many ways I am in agreement with poor TVAA but strategically I think it is a waste of energy trying to get people to consider the possibility that there is no such thing as “mental illness”. There’s no way a bunch of radical schizzies with no labs or strong biomed credentials are going to pull off the PR upset that that would require. It’s not important anyway – the important thing is to establish that whether our “difference” is bioneurological or cultural or whatever, it is only a “disease” to the extent that we wish to be cured of it. You don’t need labs to be able to address the world and say “We’re like this and we’re not going to hide it and guess what, we like who we are and we’re tired of having our difference defined as a disease”.

But I do think that at the most some people have an innate disposition that makes them more likely to end up in certain problematic mental states than other people. I think the mental states themselves are better thought of as adjectives than nouns – rather than “He is a schizophrenic” or “he has schizophrenia”, think in terms of “He is kind of schizophrenic today”. And I do think that anyone, under at least some circumstances, can be in those frames of mind and exhibit those behaviors. As I said, though, I could be wrong and if so, if we’re really different, …so what? We’re still citizens and if we choose to embrace our difference and demand equal protection and, along with it, some civilized respect, who is entitled to define our difference as a sickness?

38

Not deaf by birth, I would assume?

39

electric!sheep, I’m a post-lingual-late-deafened-adult, so ‘deaf’ seems a lot simpler.