The day before yesterday, it was deep in the night, I was in my bed having trouble sleeping, when suddently it hit me, I was hearing people’s voices inside my head, people’s voices I know, from my everyday life, and I realized, this is something that has happened to me pretty much since I can remember, but I always dismissed it as normal! In this particullar ocasion I recalled what a member of the forum had told me about psuedohallucinations and thought to myself that this must be it. What do you think? Don’t neurotypicals hear voices of others in their heads sometimes? What would be different in the “mind experience” for a neurotypical?
One NT just confirmed me he doesn’t hears this kind of stuff in his head, even when he remembers a conversation he’s had with someone.
1 Like
There is something called a non-psychotic pseudohallucination, that neurotypicals can have. But all of the neurotypicals I asked about this said that they don’t have it, the only type of hallucination a neurotypical described to me was a hypnagogic hallucination, and it was my therapist.
Good for you for developing insight though, that’s great! 
1 Like
I think they too go through past/possible future conversations with people they know. But I think for them it is very clear that they are imagining/recollecting what the other said/might say, whereas we may not be so sure about that.
1 Like
From what you say it seems like something grounded in the memory of that person, not random things like hearing a friend in your head suddenly say “shoe!”. Another NT said she hears people’s voices when she remembers them, which seems to go in accordance with what you’re saying. Gonna ask her if she hears random stuff.
For me such things have occurred invariably when in bed either at night or during the day. Before I was switched to Consta and was taking meds irregularly I would spend most nights taking hours to get off because I was getting random phrases popping into my head. Whether they were loud thoughts or inner voices was hard to tell . What I do know was it was hard to control.
I do wonder whether it happens when I am lying down and not when I am up because being active online blots such things out. Whereas in bed there’s more of a blank canvas to be intruded upon.
1 Like
@coolfool Seems like what you are describing are what is called “loud thoughts”.
I have been getting them since coming off of APs.
They are louder than normal thoughts - like hearing voices in your head, not true auditory hallucinations.
I am pretty sure that “normal” folks get them from time to time and they frequently occur while resting or trying to fall asleep or waking up from sleep.
Loud Voices can happen while you are fully awake during the day as well.
It is common with lots of different disorders especially.
Sometimes people with a psychotic disorder, bipolar,
Anxiety disorder hear loud thoughts.
@Wave I found something on loud thoughts:
"Rather than the thought being a whisper it is a yell. It is a thought being screamed at you so loudly that it bounces around on the inside of your cranium. These are thoughts that are impossible to ignore and just come right back if you try to put them away. They aren’t necessarily crazy or disturbing thoughts, just ones that are yelled at you louder than you can bear. And loud thoughts tend to be repetitive.
(This is similar to the concept of intrusive thoughts, a technical term, but intrusive thoughts are involuntary and unpleasant.)
(Neither “loud” nor “crowded” thoughts are technical terms, just useful ones.)"
in: http://www.healthyplace.com/blogs/breakingbipolar/2011/11/bipolar-disorder-thought-types/
And pseudohallucinations, according the wiki page:
"A pseudohallucination is an involuntary sensory experience vivid enough to be regarded as a hallucination, but recognised by the patient not to be the result of external stimuli. Unlike normal hallucination, which occurs when one sees, hears, smells, tastes or feels something that is not there, with a compelling feeling or thought that it is real, pseudohallucinations are recognised by the person as unreal.
In other words, it is a hallucination that is recognized as a hallucination, as opposed to a “normal” hallucination which would be perceived as real. An example used in psychiatry is the hearing of voices which are “inside the head” according to the patient; in contrast, a hallucination would be indistinguishable to the patient from a real external stimulus, e.g. “people were talking about me”.
The term is not widely used in the psychiatric and medical fields, as it is considered ambiguous;[1] the term nonpsychotic hallucination is preferred.[2] Pseudohallucinations, then, are more likely to happen with a hallucinogenic drug."
These different notions are abstractions from our unusual experiences. It is questionable whether all our experiences neatly fit the categories as they have been distilled by psychiatrists in the past. People are still working in the field of psychopathology concerned with the delineation of symptoms.
1 Like
@Minnii - Loud thoughts are different than a true Auditory Hallucination.
What I am talking about are thoughts not voices that are louder or more vivid than normal thoughts - these thoughts are not auditory hallucinations because loud thoughts are internalized in our heads sort of speak.
Loud thoughts are not uncommon experiences.
It is not exclusive to schizophrenia or psychosis.
Many people with anxiety disorders or mood disorders and other disorders experience them.
It can also be found with OCD
2 Likes
Interesting… mine aren’t loud, my pdoc just calls them voices
I rarely get them and mine aren’t all that loud either, just more noticeable.
What is common for me are Rapid thoughts and intrusive thoughts and images.
I have been experiencing a lot of those.
Also common with many different type of disorders including bipolar.
1 Like
I get loud thoughts, @Wave (also racing and intrusive, though all three have diminished over the last year as I’ve stabilized.) Sometimes, they’re loud enough to make me wince, or to feel like I should have a headache. Generally, though, they’re just more prominent and insistent.
I also get pseudohallucinations, mainly visual. My auditory ones seem to straddle a line where I’m not sure if they were real or not. Voices are rare and easily recognized and dismissed, especially if I’m not around people. Music, knocks on doors, phones ringing - those usually require more effort.
1 Like
I also experience visual pseudo hallucinations and a lot of illusions
1 Like
I accept on the infrequent occasion it happens to me that whilst it might feel real to me ,it isn’t necessarily something that’s shared with a third party.
While trying to describe this to a friend she eventually asked me “is it like when you get a music stuck in your head but instead of music it’s people talking?” which seems like an accurate description. It’s like noise over your perception that is very hard to dismiss.