I can’t really tell difference when I hear people talking in another room and I’m constantly thinking if they are saying something else instead what I hear.
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You can’t tell the difference between a voice in the next room and a voice in your head? That sounds pretty scary. I can always tell the difference.
I can tell in person with people but I get problems with indirect voices
The voice in my head has at some times taken on the voice of family members. I heard my stepdad in my head say “why are you running” while I was waking up one morning. I knew it was in my head but it was freaky.
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Mine are external family etc voices. I don’t hear the hallucinations with ears plugged
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I have often wondered about how science tells the difference between hallucination and reality…especially about schizophrenia. I recently grappled with some ideas and was gonna make a post as a new topic to discuss with others but this topic is okay too I guess.
How many psychologists or psychiatrists have actually experienced schizophrenia? They tell us that we are having delusions. That voice we hear inside our heads is not real but delusional. How do they know if they have not experienced it also? Scientific knowledge about schizophrenia is based on talking with patients about their mental experiences…and defining their experience. But the scientist cannot know the actual mental experience of the patient. The scientist will only know the scientist’s mental experience. Since they have already defined the patient as crazy and they have already defined the patient as delusional, why are they basing what they claim is the definition of schizophrenia on someone they claim is delusional? Delusional means having a belief that is false. It’s like saying “I know what he is saying about his schizophrenia is false but what he is telling me about schizophrenia is the truth” which is an oxymoron!
Maybe he can ask “why would he tell me anything but the truth if he wants my help?” This is a valid point. But the scientist’s understanding of a mental truth versus a physical truth can be very different from a schizophrenic’s. Physical truths can be shared by ALL human beings by using communication. Mental truths can be known ONLY by the people experiencing them mentally. We can both know the physical activity of another person if we physically see, hear or feel to share them. We cannot know the mental activity of anyone since we cannot know the mind of anyone except ourselves. We CAN try to share our mental experience to help another understand ours. But this can ONLY be done by physical communication which may not be always adequate for explaining our experience. Especially if the people we are trying to explain it to have already defined us as delusional!
I know I am schizoaffective. I realized this when I heard my father’s voice in the real physical world telling other people in a hospital how disappointed he was in me. I totally believed it was real when I experienced it at the time but when I told my bro about it a couple days later, he asked me “Do you really believe our father would talk socially like that about you to others?” and I totally realized that it could not be true. But that is the only audio hallucination I have experienced.
The other kind of voices are our inside voices — our mental reality of a voice talking to us. We are told that they are not real but delusional. I used the think the voice talking to me was the devil because it was saying horrible things about me to me and horrible things it was going to make me do. I did not experience as ‘my thought’ because it didnt feel like it. It had different ‘tone’ than my own internal voice and when I tried to make it say something while it was talking, it would say something else. So I didnt control it. And in extreme psychosis it could flood my thinking by talking(internally) over me and preventing me from thinking anything.
After dealing with ways to handle the experience, I no longer think my voice is the devil speaking to me. I now think it is my negative subconscious. But that does not mean it is not real. Whatever the source(devil, mind, universe etc.) it can take control of my mental reality and make me lose control of mine still. So it is still a very real experience in my mental reality but when I tell my doctor this he tells me I am being delusional. While I am conscious now, this voice cannot control my body and if I have control of my body then I will not harm myself or anyone else in the physical reality. Since my thoughts cannot harm anyone in the physical reality. But I have to really fight to hold on to this concept in my mental reality when I am battling the voice inside my head during psychosis. So it is not JUST a delusion I can ignore.
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Therapy might be an option to remove those negative thoughts.
I’ll have to see how added serotonin affects my subconscious responses from people without going into psychosis.
Ya my voices sound like they are in the room.
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When I’m psychotic I believe everything. I haven’t been psychotic in a while because of my meds.
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I may be a psychologists that has experienced a little bit of schizophrenia. I say “may” because I am not a very good psychologist nor schizophrenic.
As far as I know, auditor hallucinations and thoughts are both very quiet speech (so called “subvocal speech”). This means that they have a very and objectively measurable element.
That thoughts are very quiet speech is, for example, the basis of practical work by NASA to allow astronauts to control computers with their thoughts (Jorgensen, Binsted, 2005).
Regarding auditory hallucinations, there is still some controversy, but at the very least subvocal speech is related to auditory hallucinations. Back in 1948-1950 a psychologists called Louis N. Gould taped microphones to the throats of schizophrenics, and found that there were more subvocalisations during auditory hallucinations, and even used a stethoscope to the vocal cords of schizophrenics, to allow a transcriber to record almost identical words to those which the schizophrenic “hallucinated.”
I think a problem arises when attempting to classify such subvocal thought as either external or internal.
On the face of it, subvocalisations are internal in the sense that we generate them with our bodies, and in a sense external in that they are bodily rather than arising from within the mind.
Where is the problem?
My only experience of psychosis (other than my ongoing paranoia) was the realisation that my thoughts were simply my voice. It came as a shock because till that point, and to a large extent now, I identified with the first person of my thoughts, as a sort of psychological entity that I presumed to be in my mind. My mind blowing, life changing, and psychotic, experience seemed to tell me two things:
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The same conclusion as espoused by NASA and Gould – that thoughts are just very quiet voice. And this was shocking enough, since I thought that “I” (just a word!) was me, and still do.
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Not only were my thoughts external in the sense of being created by my body as just my voice rather than ‘arising from within,’ but also that there was a double fantasy going on. Not only was I presuming myself to be my voice (fantasy #1) but also there was a hidden fantasy (fantasy #2) of someone hearing those thoughts, and perhaps speaking them.
The experience had essentially the same structure as ventriloquism. Ventriloquists create two fantasies:
- They animate a puppet, pretending the puppet is a person (corresponding to my thoughts)
- They pretend there is person who believes in and talks to the the puppet (in ventriloquism this is obvious if you think about it for a second, but in my mind it is the hidden second fantasy).
Thus, when a schizophrenic says “I heard my relative speak to me,” this would seem to be a fantasy in the sense that that the relative is not simply creating those sounds in the normal way, but at the same time, it may contain a greater degree of truth that generally experienced by normies (including myself now) who are not aware that their thoughts are generated by another (fantasised) person.
And bearing in mind all the above, it is not clear to me what a person is, or the exact difference between a fantasised person and a non fantasised person – if all people are to extent fantasies.
Perhaps one might argue that that schizophrenics are to an extent exaggerating the externality of subvocal speech, whereas normies are to an equal extent, underplaying it.
Addendum
Quite a lot of psychologists, and philosophers, now claim that the self is a fantasy (e.g. Dennet, 1992), and that there are “others in mind” (e.g. Rochat, 2009) but rarely is the hallucinatory, fantastic element of normie experience emphasised. It is just treated as normal.
Bibliography
Dennett, D. C. (1992). The Self as a Center of Narrative Gravity. In F. S. Kessel, P. M. Cole, & D. L. Jonson (Eds.), Self and Consciousness: Multiple Perspectives.
Gould, L.N. (1948). Verbal hallucinationsand the activity of vocal musculature. American Journal of Psychiatry, 105:367-372,
Gould, L.N. (1949). Auditory hallucinationsand subvocal speech. Journal ofNervous and Mental Disease,109:418-427,
Gould, L.N. (1950). Verbal hallucinationsand automatic speech. AmericanJournal of Psychiatry, 107:110-119.
Jorgensen, C., & Binsted, K. (2005, January). Web browser control using EMG based sub vocal speech recognition. In Proceedings of the 38th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (pp. 294c-294c).
Rochat, P. (2009). Others in mind: Social origins of self-consciousness. Cambridge University Press.
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So, auditory hallucinations are just your own voice that you’re hearing?
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I sometimes hear a whole conversation my roommates are having about me in the next room only to walk out and no one is there
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Mine seem to have people’s real personalities, but responses to my subconscious. I only hear them when they are present or not sleeping
I am still unsure how to interpret external audio hallucinations. The fact that I actually experienced one and believed it to be while it happened is siginificant for me though. It opens up questions of “Can I always trust my physical senses?”, “Is it only audio that may fail or can other senses also?” , “How can I know the truth of a suspicious physical experience?”.
These 3 main uncertainties are always about the future though and, as an imagination, the future is ALWAYS uncertain. I may have expectations about the future but have the option of choosing my responses when that expectation is actually realized or unrealized when we believed it would be. It’s sort of a Zen of Now point of view versus relying solely or prior plans and has helped me critically in dealing with my psychosis. Hope is something we can hold onto when the Now is not what we want it to be. As long as there is a future, hope can ALWAYS exist for the self. We choose when to stop hoping. In my psychosis, I have found that holding on to my sense of self during that time and believing that my experience will get better has helped me persevere until that belief is realized. Doing so has always led to extreme joy at the end of extreme negative psychosis. And there are relative changes in mental state during the psychosis that I can use to support my current hope despite the negative reality.
I am also of the (belief of) belief that belief strongly determines our reality. Essentially, what we choose to accept as true or ‘real’ from our plethora of our life experiences. I will outline my ‘thinking’ during my psychosis and changes in thinking also. The references to the power of my negative self is based on how much control it has over my ability to control mental thoughts. Another key aspect is believing that change is always possible.
Current state: Negative self is becoming more mentally powerful.
Think: I dont like this.
Response: It was less powerful before so I was able to experience more likeable reality. Hope that I can experience this again.
The above state can loop if the current state becomes even more negative.
Current state: Negative state is staying the same.
Think Okay.
Response: At least it didnt get worse. I can maintain hope for better reality.
Current state: Negative state improves.
Think: Awesome!
Response: My hope was realized! My ability to trust that this hope can be realized again is stronger.
Note that 2 of the above 3 states are ones I can readily accept. Those are pretty decent odds.
Holding onto the hope of a better future can be grueling but in each case of extreme psychosis the rewards of the heaven at the end were worth the hell I had to go through to hold on to hope during the conscious experience.
This approach is much less feasible in the physical reality. When I believe I can answer an unknown in the physical reality, I am required to rely on my body and outer reality to change matching expectations of my belief. I have much less control of changes in my physical reality vs my mental reality. But even scientific discoveries started by exploring a mental theory. And my experience of discovery is based completely on my hope that a new physical path will open up as a change to explore what a prior exploration of a prior theory failed to achieve.
The joy at the end of psychosis could JUST be a flood of Oxycontin at the end of a flood of cortisol. But I choose not to believe that because my ability to hope was the reality I had control over that helped me to get to the end of the negative state.
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Circle of Fiths and Vasu_Devan1
I am very confused.
I think that there is an extent to which reality is what we believe it to be.
As mentioned above, Dennet (1992) claims that the self is a narrative or theory about ourselves, and therefore that it is a sort of fiction. Ernst Mach (1892) went further and claimed that the physical world is similarly, a theory about our sensations.
If I and my world are believable theories, then the medium, modality, or stuff-of-theory i.e. voice has a very special place in the whole caboodle.
Hmmm…
I have seen seen some of Dennett’s youtube videos on Consciousness and Free Will last year. I believe his thinking is incomplete. I believe Dennett is a strong atheist and neo-Darwinist based on what I know about him. He cannot accept the concept of a real mental reality. Since Dennett has accepted the belief that the physical world is the only reality, any counterpoints to that belief he defines as illusory. Because of his life experience, he claims that free will is an illusion too. From him, all choices made by us are the result of chemical and electrical activity in the physical brain and not a result of a option made by a mental self. He claims responsibility this one video but at the same time claims there is no you that can be responsible. That does not make sense to me.
I can agree with the concept of a physical body with a physical brain as responsible for part of our life experience. But if I also agree, with that being the sole element responsible, then there is no other factor controlling my physical and mental activity. Essentially, I didnt make that mistake…my brain did. It seems like he is saying “I didnt choose to do that…my brain did.”
However, I believe the truth of both mental and physical realities. Not one side or the other but an interaction of BOTH. I am an awareness that can watch both my mental and physical changes in my life…and then choose how to respond to them. Sometimes, the choices can be really hard…the option left to me in either reality may be: Can I choose to accept this reality that I am facing in the now…or…do I want to keep resisting it?
This is especially important to me as a schizophrenic. I can only choose during a conscious reality of Now awareness. In the past 3 years since I started experimenting with my mental methods during the start of psychosis, I have never lost control of my body. Before I implemented these methods, there were many incidents where I was raving or screaming and lost control of my body, I was not conscious. In fact, I only knew about my psychotic states after my family told me I was having them. I would have extreme unconscious psychosis multiple times a year. But in the past 3 years, I had it only once. It did not start in a conscious state of psychosis either but happened during sleep.
Science likes to solely use the physical world as proof of cause and effect. Essentially:
Before the state was that(A). Now it is this(B). What caused this change in reality from A to B? New this© did. This works wonderfully for physical laws of non-conscious objects in our reality. It falls flat on face when trying to explain subjective reality because only the experiencer of the subjective reality knows what it was. We cannot share our true mental state especially with those who have not experienced and, in fact, are not willing to experience it. Science has, in fact, blocked research into non-physical aspects of our reality claiming if it is not based on the physical then it is not real science. Science calls this kind of research pseudoscience.
But to use my earlier example, if C was the connector between states A and B ( A -> C->B, then what was the connector between A and C? Science will have to choose to either explore this subjective connection further or simply choose to ignore it and say there is nothing more to explore.
In the end, for me at least, it comes down to this:
In this life, we experience numerous states
Some we desire more of, some we want less of and some dont matter
We choose what to do based on desires at the moment of choice
We know what we can do at the moment based on past knowledge and current beliefs
But even knowledge is based on belief
We define true knowledge as what we believe to be real, truth etc.
Just enjoy the changes in your life experience that you want more and accept that there will be ones that you(currently) cant have more of. Open the mind to new concepts and ideas. Share your experiences with the Others in this life experience. The brain is not willing to accept new ideas unless they are already rewarding. So instead of trying to distract the brain when it is facing negative states, make an effort to actually experience the negative state and see how YOU change during it. Further experience means further familiarity and helps in accepting ALL states. This can be extremely useful when experiencing depressive states. Your brain is part of you that does not want to explore the negative but a mental part of you can…and by doing so you learn more about yourself that you did not know before. Comfort zones feel good but can get boring after a while. We can enjoy states of love and being more when we also know of states of suffering and nonbeing better. Both love and fear need each other. Each only has meaning with the the existence and knowledge of the other.
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A hallucination: I think the woman next door digs me and she’s always checking me out. The reality: She couldn’t care less about me.
I thing I’ll go relax now in the kitchen and hallucinate a bowl of chocolate pudding.
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You know, there are actual scientific studies that supposedly prove that imagining exercise will strengthen your muscles.(Google ‘imagining workout’) Imagination can be our worst enemy or our best friend. Use it well.
Cool I’m going to imagine my bank account is flush with cash
By any chance, was this study done in Oz? Or Narnia?
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